There's too many variables for people to be crunching numbers like this... while I went through university I lived at home and worked at jobs that paid $17/hour

There's too many variables for people to be crunching numbers like this... while I went through university I lived at home and worked at jobs that paid $17/hour minimum. My total take home would probably be comparable to that of a person making less but paying for room and board. I say this with the assumption that those who skipped post-secondary education in favor of a job moved out of their homes almost immediately. So where are those types of values in the calculations? Now that I've graduated my starting job is ~$60k with a $20k annual raise once I've been in this position for a little over three years. There's not one friend that started work directly out of school that I can say that for. Not to mention my degree allows me to venture to the upper ends of this company where education is a requirement while they'll plateau in seniority because of that. Again, way too many variables and gray areas for us to do a number to number comparison because no two situations are identical and the idea of "average" or "typical" probably only makes up a small percentage of personae anyway.