>Unless you're going to enter a field that requires the pedigree that starts with college (i.e. medicine, law, engineering), it's arguable that college isn't ev

>Unless you're going to enter a field that requires the pedigree that starts with college (i.e. medicine, law, engineering), it's arguable that college isn't even worth the tuition you pay for it. I'm not sure why it makes sense to exclude those fields. Bloomberg's investment will help students from low- and middle-income backgrounds enter those fields, just as it will help others earn degrees that provide lower earnings potential. Speaking of earnings potential, even those with degrees in arts, liberal arts, and the humanities - who only make up 13.4% of college graduates, by the way - have median earnings of $51k/year [0], compared to less than $35k/year for high school graduates [1]. An extra $16k/year in earnings - nearly a 50% increase - over a lifetime can justify a lot of upfront tuition and opportunity cost. The only degrees that are arguably a bad financial investment for the individual are those in education [0], and teachers are important enough to society that I don't think it would be beneficial to discourage students from attaining those degrees. College degrees more generally also have positive spillover effects - see e.g. [2] and [3]. [0] https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/#full-report https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/... [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/more-education-still-means-more-pay-in-2014.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/more-education-still-means... [2] (PDF) https://eml.berkeley.edu//~moretti/socret.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu//~moretti/socret.pdf [3] (PDF) https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/publications/researchpapersmonographs/CFUE_Economic-Impact/CFUE_Economic-Impact.pdf https://www.amacad.org/multimedia/pdfs/publications/research...