this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I've read arguments that those figures are misleading because various forms of privilege are correlated with a college education the other way around; connections that could help you get a job, baseline cognitive aptitude, cultural fit with a high paid workplace, having the resources to be free to socialize and network rather than working a job on top of schoolwork etc. There is likely a large group of people who go to college and end up getting little to no benefit in terms of income potential.

You also can't fairly compare average income against median debt, because the outliers at the top I believe will pull the average higher than the median in both cases.

There's also how a higher income does not necessarily mean you are better off, and people who are in debt are obligated to have a higher income rather than reducing their expenses, so the debt itself is a cause of making more. Someone working multiple mentally/physically draining jobs at the expense of their non-work life will have a higher lifetime income, but that might be a situation they wish they were not in, and debt obligations will prevent them from downsizing their lifestyle.