College isn't in the plans for many rural students despite stepped-up recruiting efforts

College can make a huge difference in earning potential. An American man with a bachelor’s degree earns an estimated $900,000 more over his lifetime than a peer with a high school diploma, research by the Social Security Administration has found. For women, the difference is about $630,000.

These numbers are skewed, though, because today's retirees went to college in the 70s and 80s, when college was still affordable. Costs were just starting to take off on the 80s, got worse in the 90s, and got stupid insane since then, only taking a short break during the pandemic. There's a good chart here:

https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-costs-over-time/

40 to 50 years from now, they'll start looking at the current generation retiring, they will likely find that aside from a very few professions, college graduates have no earning advantage when the cost of financing their education is taken into account. Furthermore, even for those professions (lawyers, doctors, STEM), only a small portion of graduates will show this advantage -- the ones who got good gigs out of college and didn't have to endure a significant period of unenployment.

College turned Into a scam. I advise young people to.never ever take out student loans

College should be no where near as expensive!