一张图表告诉你为什么大学不适合所有人

    对此，专家们会说，虽然攻读学位的费用不断增加，但是就读大学依然有所回报。

    有统计资料证明了这一观点。与只有高中学历的工人相比，大学毕业生一生平均多收入100万美元，最终使高达六位数的前期投资得以回报。但是，中途退学或大学毕业时债台高筑、无法使学位投资有所回报的学生案例比比旨是。

    我们如何使统计资料和具体案例保持一致呢？纽约联邦储备银行（Federal Reserve Bank of New York）提供的图表说明，如果我们只着眼于平均情况，就会错失很多信息：

    与普通的高中毕业生相比，底层四分之一拥有大学学历的工薪阶层所得薪酬大体相当，而且40年来这种情况没有发生真正的改变。事实上，这个图表说明，或许由于高薪蓝领工作（如制造业工作）的消失，大学学位对底层四分之一的工薪阶层来说更加重要。当然，过去40年来攻读学位的费用增长了12倍，而把通货膨胀因素考虑在内后，大学毕业生的薪酬并没有出现增加。

    If you listen to the experts, they’ll tell you that, despite the rising cost of a degree, college still pays off.

    And the statistics bear this argument out. A college graduate will on average make $1 million more than a worker with just a high school degree over the course of his lifetime, making even a six-figure upfront investment well worth it in the end. Yetanecdotal evidence abounds of students who either flunked out of college or graduated with large debt loads and are still unable to land jobs that will make the investment in a degree pay off.

    How do we reconcile the statistics with these stories? This chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that we can miss a lot when looking at just the average experience:

   The bottom quarter of earners with a college degree don’t make more money than the average high school graduate. And this hasn’t really changed much in 40 years. In fact, this graphic shows that a college degree has become more valuable even for the bottom quarter of earners, likely as a result of the evaporation of high-paying blue collar jobs, like those in the manufacturing industries. Of course, over the past 40 years, the cost of a degreehas increased 12-fold, while a degree holder isn’t making more money at all, when accounting for inflation.