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post-high-school plans as just this: a significant matter to be
decided. You wouldn’t buy a house on a whim, so why would you
choose college on a whim? Instead, it’s essential to consider all the
pros and cons when thinking about college as well as all of your
personal preferences, goals, hopes, dreams, and desires.
Certainly, there can be big advantages to having a college degree.
In the 2010s, the Hamilton Project—an “economic policy initia-
tive” that exists within the Brookings Institution and “produces
evidence-based policy proposals and analyses to promote broad-
based economic growth”—studied 98 different college majors. That
study found that median earnings for college bachelor’s degree
holders in all 98 majors were higher than the median earnings of
people with just high school degrees. In other words, there is some
evidence that a college degree can open doors to more jobs and to
higher-paying ones at that.
But that number doesn’t tell the full story. It doesn’t note, for
instance, how severe the college debt situation is in the United
States. It doesn’t note that, per the National Student Clearinghouse