I like that they calculate net opportunity cost, as foregoing 4 years of salary after the age of 30 can be equal or greater than the benefit of having the degre

I like that they calculate net opportunity cost, as foregoing 4 years of salary after the age of 30 can be equal or greater than the benefit of having the degree. Intuitively, it seems like the financial benefit of a degree appears to be proportional to the price of a house in an area where graduates of a given program live. This analysis seems mainly for US citizens, as the big value of a degree for people outside the US is the preference for graduates for immigration and expat job opportunities. Without a degree, you are competing mainly in your national vertical job market, whereas with one degree or more, you have a horizontal job market around the world. The opportunity for graduates in the job market is many orders of magnitude greater, and without a degree, your competition in your national market comes from the best in every other country, who are using their education as leverage to get into the US/CA/UK etc. Direct ROI is only a proxy for these other factors. Finishing a degree is the dominant strategy, and I'd say the conditions under which it might seem reasonable or strategic to not do one is if you already own a home in a city outright, own a successful business that generates the equivalent of a decade or more of earnings in passive income, or are succeeding at a fame-work business with lifetime level returns where the opportunity isn't there after the age of 25-30. Otherwise, even in these, and almost every other situation, you should go to school.