<story><title>Peter Thiel’s Graph of the Year</title><url>http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/30/peter-thiels-graph-of-the-year/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone</author><text>That graph is a bit of a lie. Student debt is summed over all students, so it grows if the student population grows (which it has; 2013 saw a decline, but that will not factor much in this data yet). It also integrates over many years. That makes the total debt look more threatening.&lt;p&gt;It would be more reasonable to show a per-year, per student debt (people graduating in year X had an average debt of $Y; people leaving without graduating had an average debt of $Z)&lt;p&gt;Such a graph probably still looks bad (median income has dropped, after all), but it will be more informative.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ronaldx</author><text>I knew that graph was misleading, but I still missed that it was &lt;i&gt;total&lt;/i&gt; student debt vs &lt;i&gt;per capita&lt;/i&gt; median income.&lt;p&gt;I nominate it for worst graph of the year: if you set out to make a biased graph, you couldn&amp;#x27;t do much better.&lt;p&gt;Drawing such an obviously bad graph undermines the point being made, in my view.</text></comment>
<story><title>Peter Thiel’s Graph of the Year</title><url>http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/30/peter-thiels-graph-of-the-year/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone</author><text>That graph is a bit of a lie. Student debt is summed over all students, so it grows if the student population grows (which it has; 2013 saw a decline, but that will not factor much in this data yet). It also integrates over many years. That makes the total debt look more threatening.&lt;p&gt;It would be more reasonable to show a per-year, per student debt (people graduating in year X had an average debt of $Y; people leaving without graduating had an average debt of $Z)&lt;p&gt;Such a graph probably still looks bad (median income has dropped, after all), but it will be more informative.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spikels</author><text>We can argue about the details but the underlying story is accurate: the cost of higher education has gone up a lot while the income of college graduates has been flat or declined slightly. This is not news[1a][1b].&lt;p&gt;The big question is will collage graduate wages rise in the future so that these debts become manageable - many are concerned they won&amp;#x27;t and these debts will consume many years of their earnings. And nobody is predicting college inflation will decline anytime soon so college may be even less affordable in the future.&lt;p&gt;BTW - Undergraduate and graduate enrollment was up only about 25% (flat since 2010)[2] while total student debt tripled since 2003. Average student debt probably nearly doubled since 2003 (up 58% 2005-2012[3] do the math to estimate 2003-2013 - up about 92%).&lt;p&gt;[1a] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/09/earnings_of_you.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessweek.com&amp;#x2F;the_thread&amp;#x2F;economicsunbound&amp;#x2F;arch...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1b] &lt;a href=&quot;http://theatlantic.tumblr.com/post/24693728700/dont-fall-for-this-misleading-graph-about-college&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theatlantic.tumblr.com&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;24693728700&amp;#x2F;dont-fall-for...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/03/number-of-students-enrolled-in-college-drops/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blogs.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;economics&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;number-of-students...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/01/29/more-evidence-on-the-student-debt-crisis-average-grads-loan-jumps-to-27000/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;halahtouryalai&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;more-e...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>