I guess it depends on your country. Here in Brazil you either:
- Go to public university: they are by far the best in quality and normally figure in the top 800 rank of best colleges in the world. They are free. Competition is tougher but there are a lot of them.
- Go to a private university: the quality of teaching varies a bit, going from cheap, low quality institutions to the better and a bit more expensive. Anyway, the monthly fee ranges from 300 to 1200 reais in most cases (some like PUC can co as far as 3000). 1 US$ = R$ 3.1. You can also get your course for free through government programs such as PROUNI, I would say that easily between 25% to 50% of people on private universities are doing this.
In Brazil it is generally well worth it. With just high school education, you won't get an well paid job here. Being an engineer, medic or lawyer will give you a substantial upgrade. It's 2.7 times more on average, but that considers low paying superior level jobs such as primary teachers.
Of course, a college degree isn't worth if you plan to do a low paying bachelor. At least here, history, math and basically any course in humans will pay basically the same as having high school education only, so don't expect to get much more than R$ 2000 monthly. An engineer (or any computing professional) starts easily at 5K and can go as far as 10 to 15K. Medicine and law can pay more than 10K too and that's a really great salary here that will give you a comfortable life even in high-cost cities such as Rio and São Paulo.
A good option for high-school educated people here is to get a public job, that can pay even 6K. But mind that with a college education a public job can pay 10 to 20K. Public jobs also have increased stability. You can't be fired unless you do a really, and I mean really, terrible shit.
Edit: if you plan to be a techaer here, you can get a good pay. While up to high school teaching pays miserable salaries, university teachers with a PhD on a public college start with 9K and sometimes teach less than 20 hours per week. Also, as public jobs, they can't be fired.
