Electrician Apprenticeship vs. Business Degree vs. CS at State School: Starting Salary, 10-Year Earnings, and Which Career Path Wins After Debt
Electrician Apprenticeship vs. Business Degree vs. CS at State School: Starting Salary, 10-Year Earnings, and Which Career Path Wins After Debt
Your kid is 18. Three paths sit in front of them.
Path A: Electrician apprenticeship through the IBEW — earn $38K while training, zero college debt, journeyman card in four years.
Path B: Business degree at a private college listing at $62K/year — but with record-high tuition discounts now averaging 56%, the real net price is closer to $27K/year. Total 4-year cost: roughly $109K. Four years of zero income.
Path C: Computer science at a flagship state school at $28K/year all-in. Four years, $112K total cost, $45K in loans. Then a job market that's paying CS graduates a median $95K starting salary.
Same kid. Three radically different 10-year financial outcomes. And most families are making this choice based on campus tour vibes and rankings lists — not this math.
Two things happened this week that should refocus the conversation. The Trump administration extracted $50 million from Brown University to fund job training programs in Rhode Island — funneling that money to construction workers, healthcare aides, and people reentering the workforce from the criminal justice system. Simultaneously, The College Investor reported that private college tuition discounts have hit a record-high 56%, meaning nearly 90% of private college freshmen are paying well under sticker price. These two trends — expanding alternatives to traditional degrees and plummeting real net prices at private colleges — are reshaping the ROI calculation for every family making a college decision right now. Let's run the actual numbers.
The 10-Year Earnings Race: Electrician vs. Business vs. CS
Here's the core problem with most "college vs. no college" debates: they compare the wrong things. They cite lifetime earnings averages that blur together a neurosurgeon and a medieval history graduate. What actually matters is your kid's specific path, start date, debt load, and earnings trajectory over 10 years.
Tuvelan's analysis of our bls_oes_wages dataset (3,060 rows, sourced from BLS OES National) and major_outcomes dataset (280 rows, sourced from the New York Fed's College Labor Market data) puts median starting wages at:
| Career Path | Median Starting Salary | Year 10 Salary (Est.) | First Year Earning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician (Journeyman) | $61,590 | $73,000 | Year 1 (apprentice, ~$38K) |
| Business Degree (Private) | $58,000 | $73,000 | Year 5 |
| CS Degree (State School) | $95,000 | $130,000 | Year 5 |
| Registered Nurse | $81,220 | $95,000 | Year 3–4 (ADN path) |
That first-earning-year column is doing enormous work. The electrician starts generating income in month one of their training. The business and CS graduates spend four years paying tuition before they see dollar one from their degree.
The Full 10-Year Math — By Path
Let's model cumulative net earnings after debt repayment through year 10 for each path. These are worked estimates — your numbers will differ based on your state, school-specific net price, and actual financial aid package.
Path A: IBEW Electrician Apprenticeship
Training cost: $0–$8K (IBEW apprenticeships are earn-while-you-learn; some families add a community college electrical credential for roughly $8K) Student debt: $0–$8K
Apprentice wage progression (BLS OES + IBEW scale data):
| Year | Annual Earnings |
|---|---|
| 1 | $38,000 |
| 2 | $44,000 |
| 3 | $50,000 |
| 4 | $56,000 |
| 5 (Journeyman) | $61,000 |
| 6–10 (growth + OT) | $64K → $73K |
10-year gross: ~$593,000 Less training debt repayment: ~$8,000 Net 10-year: ~$585,000 — starting from age 18.
And BLS projects electrician employment to grow 11% through 2033, well above the national average, driven by EV infrastructure, solar buildout, and grid hardening. The skills gap is real: the NCES and BLS data both show a persistent shortage of licensed electricians in high-cost metros. This isn't a dying career path.
Path B: Business Degree at a Private College (After 56% Discount)
With the average tuition discount now at 56% — a record high per federal IPEDS data analyzed by The College Investor — a private college listing at $62K/year has a realistic net price closer to $27,300/year for many families. But "average" masks enormous variation. The families who pay nothing are different from the families who pay $40K after a modest merit award. (For a deeper breakdown of how to decode what your family will actually pay, see our post on how private college net price works and what families earning $60K–$120K actually pay.)
Assumed net price: $27,300/year × 4 = $109,200 Assumed family pays: $49K; student takes $60K in loans Student debt: $60,000 at 6.53% federal interest rate (2025–26 PLUS rate per Federal Student Aid data) Monthly payment (10-year standard): ~$678/month = $8,136/year
| Year | Gross Earnings | Loan Payment | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 5 (start) | $58,000 | $8,136 | $49,864 |
| 6 | $61,000 | $8,136 | $52,864 |
| 7 | $64,000 | $8,136 | $55,864 |
| 8 | $67,000 | $8,136 | $58,864 |
| 9 | $70,000 | $8,136 | $61,864 |
| 10 | $73,000 | $8,136 | $64,864 |
10-year net after debt repayment: ~$344,000
That $8,136/year debt payment represents 14% of a $58K starting salary — a manageable but real drag. For context, financial advisors generally flag loan payments above 10% of gross income as a strain threshold. Business graduates at many private colleges land right at that edge.
This is the kind of analysis Tuvelan runs for you — factoring in your specific net price, loan amount, and major-specific earnings trajectory so you're not guessing at the math.
Path C: CS Degree at State Flagship ($28K/Year)
Total cost: $112,000 over 4 years Assumed debt: $45,000 at 6.53% = $507/month = $6,084/year (10-year repayment)
| Year | Gross Earnings | Loan Payment | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| 5 (start) | $95,000 | $6,084 | $88,916 |
| 6 | $100,000 | $6,084 | $93,916 |
| 7 | $108,000 | $6,084 | $101,916 |
| 8 | $115,000 | $6,084 | $108,916 |
| 9 | $122,000 | $6,084 | $115,916 |
| 10 | $130,000 | $6,084 | $123,916 |
10-year net after debt repayment: ~$633,000
CS at a state school doesn't just win — it wins by a margin that compounds dramatically in years 11–20 as the salary ceiling rises and the debt disappears.
Based on Tuvelan's analysis of college_scorecard data (1,130 rows), CS graduates from public flagship universities report median earnings of $88,000–$105,000 at 10 years post-enrollment — consistently outperforming nearly every other major at comparable cost. The ROI math for CS at state school vs. private is one of the clearest cases in the data.
The 10-Year Scoreboard
| Path | 10-Year Net Earnings (After Debt) | Debt at Start | First Paycheck |
|---|---|---|---|
| CS at State School | $633,000 | $45,000 | Year 5 |
| Electrician Apprenticeship | $585,000 | $0–$8,000 | Year 1 |
| Business at Private College | $344,000 | $60,000 | Year 5 |
The business degree at a private college finishes a distant third — and that's after the 56% tuition discount. At full sticker price ($248K over 4 years), the numbers are catastrophically worse. Our analysis of state school vs. private ROI by major shows that business is one of the majors where the school brand premium almost never pays back within 10 years.
When the Business Degree DOES Win
This isn't an argument that business degrees are worthless. It's an argument about price and context.
The business degree at a private college pays off when:
- The school's network delivers a materially different career outcome (think top-25 business programs with strong Wall Street or consulting pipelines)
- The net price, after real financial aid, gets below $20K/year
- The student's family income qualifies them for significant need-based aid that doesn't show up in the 56% average discount
Our nces_tuition_trends dataset (244 rows, NCES Digest Table 330.10) shows that average net price for private 4-year colleges for families earning under $75K is under $15K/year — dramatically below the $27K average because need-based Pell Grants and institutional aid layer. For those families, a private college can actually beat state school on net price. That's a different calculation entirely, and the one we walk through in our post on when a $65K elite college costs less than state school.
The Skills Gap Reality Nobody Puts in the Brochure
The $50 million the Trump administration redirected from Brown University's endowment toward Rhode Island job training is a policy signal, not just a headline. Workforce training in construction, healthcare support, and skilled trades is being treated as a national infrastructure priority — because the data shows a genuine shortage. Our bls_oes_wages dataset shows electricians, HVAC technicians, and construction managers all projecting above-average 10-year employment growth, with median wages that now overlap significantly with mid-tier bachelor's degree outcomes.
What the job training programs WON'T give you: the $130K year-10 CS salary. High-skill technical roles, finance, and healthcare (RN and above) still require credentialed pathways, and the earnings data supports the investment. But for students without a clear major-to-career pathway — studying communications, general business, or undecided liberal arts at a private college charging $50K+ net — the electrician path is the financially rational choice.
You can model this for your specific situation at Tuvelan — input your target schools, your kid's likely major, your family income, and the estimated financial aid package, and we'll show you the 10- and 20-year earnings curve with debt burden factored in.
One More Variable: Parent PLUS Loan Caps
This week's news also flagged that proposed Parent PLUS loan caps are creating new funding gaps for families that previously relied on uncapped federal borrowing to cover the difference between financial aid and real net price. If Parent PLUS becomes restricted, the business-at-private-college path gets even harder to fund — and the math above gets worse, because the funding gap gets filled with private loans at 8–12% interest instead of federal rates.
For families in the $100K–$175K income range — too wealthy for strong need-based aid, not wealthy enough to pay cash — this is the dangerous zone where the funding gap is largest and the debt burden most punishing. The 56% average tuition discount doesn't reach them the way it reaches lower-income families.
The Bottom Line
At year 10, an electrician who started an IBEW apprenticeship at 18 has earned more net income than a business graduate from a private college who borrowed $60K to pay discounted tuition. CS at a state school beats both — but only if the student actually completes the degree and enters a CS-adjacent career.
The question isn't whether college is worth it. It's whether this major, at this school, at this net price delivers the earnings that justify the debt. Every family deserves to run that calculation before signing the enrollment agreement.
Run your numbers at Tuvelan — we've built the model so you don't have to build the spreadsheet.
Sources
- This Week In College And Money News: April 10, 2026 — The College Investor
- Trump squeezed Brown U. for $50 million in job training. Here’s who gets the money — The Hechinger Report
- New Data: Colleges Now Discount Tuition 56% on Average — A Record High — The College Investor
- PNC Bank’s New Loyalty Program Offers Credit Card Rewards Boost — NerdWallet Education
- How to Use Miles to Upgrade a Flight (and When Not To) — NerdWallet Education