> A higher education degree doesn’t increase earnings for most people once you factor in the costs

The average tuition & fees for public, in-state college in 2021 is $9687 [0]. Adding room & board increase it to 20,050 [1]. So you could, theoretically, get a 4-year degree at a decent school for under $100,000.

Considering that a 4-year degree increases earnings, on average, from $38,376/year to $59,124/year (and also decrease unemployment from 5% to 2.4%), that's $20,748 per year increase. Over a 40-year career, that's $829,920 extra assuming no raises.

All of these figures can be adjusted for margins of error and you'll still be ahead with a 4-year degree.

[0] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76 [2] https://smartasset.com/retirement/the-average-salary-by-educ...

Couldn’t find the paper but I believe it was from NBER or one of the feds. It looked at how graduate school impacted wealth accumulation over the lifespan and found that graduate school, this is from my fuzzy memory based on a quick skim, decreased wealth because of debt burden and delayed peak earning years. It didn’t apply to undergrad or associate degrees both of which have very good roi, on average. So I agree with you, but I also feel like much of the value of an undergrad degree is signaling, not the acquisition of specific skills that makes people more employable, leaving aside associate degrees and certificates which are essentially vocational training.

If you take $100k in debt, you are not paying back $100k. You are going to be paying back more than double that when paid back over the 20+ years most student loans are repaid over

Yep. But how does that compare with the difference in wages over 40 years? Just do the math.

Now if you take on $500,000 in debt because you choose to go to a private college with no grants or scholarships, that's a different problem. And maybe it's not a good choice. But that's a different story than a 4-year public, in-state university.