Rabbits. You know that statistic that college adds $1 million to your lifetime earnings? Not so fast.

Substituting some of his own assumptions for those used by the board — including six years of tuition costs (and hence two fewer years of work), private college tuition instead of in-state public tuition, etc. — Miller calculates his own college premium. “[P]roperly using the present value of the lifetime earnings, adjusted for the cost of going to college and the difference in the number of working years, and excluding those graduates with advanced degrees, calculated at the three percent discount rate used in the report,” he wrote, “produces a lifetime earnings differential of only $279,893 for a bachelor’s degree versus a high school degree!”

He writes: “With clearly questionable assumptions in the analysis traditionally used to prove that ‘education pays,’ with the reality of continually increasing costs of college above average inflation, with weak income growth in general, and with the reality of a very narrow economic benefit to the individual with a college education, it is reasonable to conclude that a college degree is not as valuable as has been claimed.”

This sounds a lot more reasonable that the $1 million figure. Especially as I presently have seven letters after my name and will be working for free on May 1.

Moreover, the “broad education” stuff doesn’t wash with me. I am well-read. But almost all of that came after college. My blogging buddy at RTLC, Lee, does not have a college degree. He also has a great job, makes lots of money and is extremely well-read.

I still think college is worth it — $300 grand is a lot of money and college was one of the best times of my life and enabled me to pursue the career I wanted. But there’s no need to shovel bullshit onto the public. There’s more than one way to succeed in this country.