I don't think this comparison is sound. First of all, are you investing the same money in both cases? Even with a smaller annualized ROI you can earn more by i

I don't think this comparison is sound. First of all, are you investing the same money in both cases? Even with a smaller annualized ROI you can earn more by investing more at the start. This brings us to the second point: if you skipped college to just invest in the market, where are you taking the money? I would be very surprised if you managed to obtain a loan of some tens of thousands of dollars by stating that you will invest then. And even if you did, the blog post calculations didn't account for the interest rate that would necessarily have to be included in this case. Let's say you invest your savings then. The majority of teens out of high school has little to no savings, and it's a fact that jobs you can apply to out of high school pay much less than those requiring a degree or more (at least in the first few years).