Yep. And then plug in all the ancellary costs. Obviously room and board, meal plans and spending money, parental sponsored travel and leisure, all those years of lost income (and compounding returns), lost experience, etc.

Clearly there are some degrees that equal or even exceed that very steep investment. But most don't. And we still collectively look down on "votech" pathways, despite many far superior earning opportunities existing. Primacy, recency, expectation and normalcy biases, peer pressure and sunken cost falacies are real. Many children's paths are set almost in stone from the moment they get their first Baby Einstein video or their 529 is set up in infancy; College and nothing else, irregardless of the price, the outcome, the return on capital, our retirement or theirs.