I think that degree lifetime income assumption is at the heart of the trillion dollar crisis we're seeing with "Big Ed". Yes if you add up all the surgeons and successful attorneys and engineers and airline pilots, etc, and you average in all the high school drop outs in prison etc etc etc the college crowd will earn more. But blowing 6 figures on a reading list of free material and entering a saturated job market 4 years older under crushing debt is a pathetic waste of money for most people these days. There's people blowing 6 figures to learn another language. Think about the stupidiy of that. Not to mention all the other "basket weaving" degree with a double major in graduation.

College can be used to prepare for a high paying career. But just going to college means nothing anymore. Far, far better to spend a fraction of that money working hard, saving and starting a business or three, or getting your ASE, working for a shop then starting your own business, or becoming a plumber or electrician or any number of things. Going to college for the experience and to party hardy in the quad just because your parents did is personally irresponsibile and the financial consequences are crushing if you don't pick the right majors, which most don't.

Standby for the Big Ed bubble. It will rival the liar loan mortgage bubble, both fueled by government entitlement politics.