Cricket has runs. Soccer has goals. Business has revenues. And education? Marks?

If a match is lost, do the runs or goals really matter? Or if a business files for bankruptcy, does it matter how many funds it raised in an IPO? 

How do you measure the success of your education? If you get good marks, is that a guarantee that you have extracted all you required from your education? What are the metrics for rating the success of our education?

The truth is, we do not have any score that can measure tangible results from the education we invest in. Yet.

The US Department of Education recently released data connecting post graduate earnings and debt data broken down by college program. Its aim is to quantify accurately how much recent graduates earned in relation to their college and degrees. Some of the programs from the best universities like Harvard and Columbia score lower than other lesser-known universities. This is a contentious effort and a simplified way of looking at the eventual benefits that one gets from getting a good education, but it could be a starting point. 

Let us consider this: 

• We put our whole future on stake when choosing a college for our education. Our jobs, our success, a lot depends on our education and the platform it offers us.

• We are ready to take a loan. Historically, student loans take an average of 20 years to be paid off. 

And so, with the changing world, education has tipped over from adding value to an individual to becoming the first big  debt that a young person encounters in his life.

Thus, it is of greater urgency to explore everything before beginning a course. Combined with an uncertain job environment, choosing the right study program is becoming a critical decision.

The rise of MOOCs like MIT OpenCourseWare and Harvard Online Courses, and platforms like Coursera and Udemy are testimony to a growing student crisis. While they help by reducing the cost of learning and they give students the flexibility to learn at their own pace, they also help to expand the reach of the universities. The fees here are nominal compared to the cost of attending the program in person and the student gets a feel of the program. If you are not interested, the loss is relatively less.

The best way to make a choice then is to be fully aware of the playing field before you begin. You can choose your education by exploring all the areas of your interest in one location. If you have a vague idea about what you want, but do not know where to start, we recommend starting at ACadru as it gives you a bird’s eye view of a number of topics and lets you deep dive into them without any commitments. It is a curated platform, which means that the topics are all handled by experts and provide credible sources of information. The platform uses the power of narratives and curation to accumulate hundreds of innovative ideas that would help you zero into the course you should invest your precious time and money on.

If there’s one thing you can be sure of, let it be this that you have explored every nook and cranny before making a choice!

Further Reading

How to reduce the cost of studying in the US

Self Concept and University Application

Jobs of 2025