I also find the analysis strange because it depends heavily on whether you're profit focused.
If you are, then the average outcome probably doesn't matter to you, because you're going to select for profitability in your degree choice, you're going to move around for work, continuously study and train in adult life, and generally you're gonna be fine financially (if perhaps not emotionally, oho).
If you're not profit focused - if you're doing the degree primarily and substantially because you love X and want to do X - then what do you care if it doesn't pay back? You got to be an X! The question is almost irrelevant.
I think a lot of analysis suffers from this averaging effect whereby actually that average person doesn't exist.
There is no realistic path that would have lead to me making the average income for my cohort, for example, because I'm just not that sort of person - I'd rather just go relatively all out, or else work for a non-profit or scrappy startup or whatever, so I either bin high or low.
If you are, then the average outcome probably doesn't matter to you, because you're going to select for profitability in your degree choice, you're going to move around for work, continuously study and train in adult life, and generally you're gonna be fine financially (if perhaps not emotionally, oho).
If you're not profit focused - if you're doing the degree primarily and substantially because you love X and want to do X - then what do you care if it doesn't pay back? You got to be an X! The question is almost irrelevant.
I think a lot of analysis suffers from this averaging effect whereby actually that average person doesn't exist.
There is no realistic path that would have lead to me making the average income for my cohort, for example, because I'm just not that sort of person - I'd rather just go relatively all out, or else work for a non-profit or scrappy startup or whatever, so I either bin high or low.