Back 2011 the Freakonomics guys said this:
> According to the College Board, a year of tuition at a public college for an in-state student costs an average of $7,605, while a year at a private college costs an average of $27,293. Meaning that (assuming you graduate in four years) a college diploma from a public school costs about $30,000, and about $109,000 from a private school. That’s a lot of coin, but consider this: the difference in yearly income for a person with a college degree and a person with just a high school diploma is $19,550, according to the 2010 Census. So keeping things simple, on average, a public school college degree pays for itself in less than two years, and a private school diploma in less than six. Which is probably why, according to the Pew study, the vast majority of college graduates (86%) say that college was a good investment for them.
Now things are more expensive, but even if the payoff is 2x or 3x longer now, it's still an overall good investment.
Plus, who knows what the benefits would be if the US were producing millions of great global citizens each year. If those global citizens helped educate and raise the world's poorest people out of poverty, those countries would likely stabilize somewhat and maybe that would ease conflict and spending on war.
And even if all the things I just said were wrong, sometimes ROI isn't a great way to value things. For example, journalism, especially at a local level, is hard to fund yet the value isn't zero. Lots of people who don't pay for news still benefit from having eyes on the powerful.