🏫 Dropout Economics
FIRE BTC Issue #65 - College ROI is broken — and AI is killing what's left
I was recently on Preston Pysh's podcast discussing how I've been using agentic AI assistants to build tools I never could have built before. Diving into this technology has had me revisiting something I've been questioning for a long time.
College education.
My daughters are 8 and 10. Roughly a decade from college. And when I try to picture what the world looks like when they're 18, I draw a blank. Can you picture it? Because I can't.
So I've been asking myself a question that would have been heresy when I was growing up: Would I even recommend college?
I've been running the numbers, and the answer is getting harder to justify.
💸 The Price Tag
In 2026, a four-year degree at an in-state public university runs about $109,000 all-in. Go out of state and you're looking at $183,000. Choose a private school and you'll clear $235,000 before your kid has earned a single dollar.
That's not a typo. A quarter of a million dollars...for a bachelor's degree.
There's $1.81 trillion in outstanding US student debt spread across 42.8 million borrowers. And the average repayment timeline is 20 years. You finish paying off your education right around the time your own kids are heading to campus. Poetic, isn't it.
Since 2000, college costs have risen 157%. Even after adjusting for inflation, that's a 37.5% real increase. At historical tuition inflation rates, a private four-year degree could hit $230,000 or more by the mid-2030s — right when my girls would be enrolling.
College costs inflate because of the monetary system. Cheap government-backed credit flows into universities. Tuition ratchets up to absorb it. Students borrow more. Lenders extend more. And the cycle repeats. It's the same fiat debt spiral that inflates housing, healthcare, and everything else the government gets its grubby little hands on to either regulate or subsidize with easy money.
You're paying 2026 prices with 2046 dollars to learn 2016 skills.
📊 The Shrinking Premium
The standard defense of college has always been the wage premium — graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates. And that used to be a strong argument.
Used to be.
The college wage premium has stagnated since 2000. While costs skyrocketed 157%, the return flatlined. And it gets worse when you look at what happens after graduation. According to the Burning Glass Institute, 52% of college graduates are underemployed one year after finishing their degree. They're working jobs that don't require the credential they just spent four years and six figures acquiring. And 45% are still underemployed a decade later.
The public knows it, too. Only 22% of Americans say a four-year degree is worth it if you have to take out loans. Twenty-two percent. A vote of no confidence. Meanwhile, 53% of employers now claim to have dropped degree requirements from their job postings. The signal is weakening from both sides.
When I bring this up, someone always says, "But what about the socialization? The life experience?" You're paying $200,000+ for your kid to learn to live with roommates, go to parties, and figure out who they are.
Those are valuable experiences. Trust me, I enjoyed my time in college. But they're not $200,000 experiences.
Half of college grads are working jobs that don't require their degrees. Welcome to the credentialing racket.
🤖 The Intelligence Revolution
A few months ago, something shifted for me. I started building with AI in a way I never had before — not just prompting a chatbot, but working with agentic AI assistants that could actually do things. Write code. Build tools. Ship products.
I set up OpenClaw, an open-source, self-hosted AI assistant framework. I started vibe coding — sketching out ideas and letting AI handle the implementation. It has opened the door for me to create and build things that I never would have had the time, inclination, resources, or skill set to do before. And I've got something cooking for FIRE BTC readers that I'm really excited about. Stay tuned.
