College is a Stock Option
Recently I came across Professor Andrew Lo's MIT OCW videos on Finance theory on youtube. In the video talking about stock options, he used the analogy of thinking of higher education as a option, or a call option to be exact. You paid tuition as premium. At the end of the 4 years, the degree may earn you a job with a good starting salary, just as the value of the option become as the stock price hit the strike price. The most you can lose is the tuition aka option premium.