2/10‐ Asset #1: The Four-Year College Degree "Go to college," we are told from the time we learn to read, "and you will get a better job, earn more money, and enjoy a higher standard of living." And indeed, in aggregate, those with bachelor's degrees do earn more on average than those with only a high school diploma. Yet the average wage premium masks dramatic variation by field of study, type of institution, and the debt required to obtain that degree. Consider, for example, the student who attends a private college with annual tuition of $50,000, financed almost entirely with loans. Two students realize that even after interest capitalization, they may graduate owing $80,000 or more. If that student majored in a STEM discipline, landing a well-paying engineering job might indeed justify such debt. But if the major was philosophy or communications and the student ends up in a part-time retail job for which a high school diploma would have sufficed, that $80,000 debt becomes a lifelong burden. Interest payments on the loans reduce discretionary income, discourage saving, and delay discretionary life choices like marriage or home ownership. Meanwhile, the launched expectation that the college-educated would automatically command a high-paying career fails to materialize. Census data from 2018 shows that one in six college graduates is underemployed, working in a job that does not require a bachelor's degree, and many of those underemployed graduates still struggle to make monthly loan payments. Thus a college degree, once the gold standard for social mobility, can become an albatross locking its bearer into debt bondage. Politicians talk about free college or income-based repayment plans, but those proposals do not change the reality that many more students pursue expensive degrees without considering alternatives: community colleges, vocational training, or work-study programs that keep debt minimal. The result is a generation saddled with debt that they cannot realistically pay off with wages expected today, especially when so many entry-level positions have stagnated at $30,000 or less per year.