There used to be some wealth in my extended family and traditionally a huge emphasis on the immense importance of getting a degree. That wealth is gone, spent on useless degrees and vacation homes. This generation, the degreed work in the businesses started by the drop-outs.

> useless degrees and vacation homes

Strange to lump those together before considering them separately.

How many businesses did the dropouts start? How many dropouts didn't start busineses?

I'm in this age group and have lots of debt. I'm also an entrepreneur that can't attend accelerators or forgo a salary for a couple years because of said debt. It feels like startups are for rich people.

I'm in the same situation. Went down to Latin America where it's cheap to live. Been bootstrapping for a year and closing in on launch. It can be done solo, but you have to be ready to go for broke. It's sad but you are 100% right, this is a game that regular people are locked out of unless you are willing to do extreme things.

Colleges and banks have figured out how to eat the earnings bonus: excessive tuition, student loans to cover excessive tuition, and interest on said student loans.

Kind of like landlords who own a high foot traffic location, rent it out for overpriced coffee stands, and eat up nearly all the revenue as rent while the business operator barely breaks even.

Or the technology-related productivity bonus being eaten by employers and the healthcare industry.

No longer true for nonwhite people born in the 80s. And the source data does not directly implicate student loan debt as the culprit.