CareerReturns

Editorial Policy

Last updated: October 2, 2026

CareerReturns publishes financial models and guides that people use to make six-figure education and career decisions. That raises the bar for accuracy. This page explains where our numbers come from, how a guide is built and reviewed, how often it is refreshed, and what we do when we get something wrong.

Who writes and reviews the content

Every guide and calculator is researched, modeled and reviewed by Himanshu Gauba, the founder of CareerReturns, who has a background in financial modeling and software engineering. Where a page carries a byline, that person is accountable for its accuracy. CareerReturns does not publish guest posts, sponsored articles or paid placements.

Where our data comes from

We prefer primary sources over secondary ones, and we state ranges rather than false precision when sources disagree.

School employment reports

Each program's official annual employment report (median base, signing bonus, % employed, industry mix). These are the primary source for school-level salary figures.

GMAC surveys

Corporate Recruiters Survey and Prospective Students Survey for market-wide starting salaries and hiring intent.

Program cost pages

Tuition, fees and the school's own cost-of-attendance budget, taken from the admissions or financial-aid page for the current academic year.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Occupational wage data and wage growth used for pre-MBA baselines and non-MBA comparison paths.

Federal Student Aid / VA

Loan interest rates, repayment plan rules, GI Bill caps and Yellow Ribbon rules.

Compensation aggregators

Levels.fyi and Glassdoor, used only as a cross-check for tech and finance total compensation — never as the sole source.

How a guide is built

  1. Define the decision the reader faces (for example, “part-time vs full-time MBA for a $90K engineer”).
  2. Collect current figures from the sources above and record the source year for each.
  3. Run the scenario through the same discounted cash flow engine that powers our calculators — 6% discount rate, 10-year horizon, loan amortization and opportunity cost included — so every number on a guide is reproducible in the tool.
  4. Write the explanation, including the assumptions and the cases where the conclusion flips.
  5. Check every figure against its source before publishing, and again at each scheduled review.

The full model specification is described in our methodology.

Update schedule

Salary and cost pages are reviewed at least twice a year: once when schools publish employment reports (typically October–December) and once when new tuition figures are released (spring). Loan-rate and GI Bill pages are reviewed each July when federal rates reset. The “Last updated” date on a page changes only when its substance changes — not for cosmetic edits.

Use of AI tools

We use AI assistants for drafting help, code and proofreading. AI tools are never the source of a figure: every number is taken from a cited source or produced by our own calculation engine, and every page is reviewed by a person before it goes live.

Corrections

If you spot an error, please tell us through the contact page with the page URL and the figure in question. We verify reports against the source, usually within a week. Material corrections — anything that changes a conclusion — are noted on the page with the date of the change.

Advertising and independence

CareerReturns is free and is supported by display advertising served by Google. Advertisers have no influence over what we write, which schools or programs we cover, or what our calculators output. We are not affiliated with any business school, lender or employer. If we ever add affiliate links, they will be labeled on the page and disclosed in our disclaimer.