Wealth disparity: Apples and oranges

I heard the following claim on a promotion for the podcast, 'Why is this happening?' hosted by Chris Hayes: "A white high school dropout has more wealth than a black college graduate." This was cited as evidence that "something is wrong."

Assuming that the wealth of a higher-educated minority should be higher than the wealth of higher-educated white person is a poorly constructed hypothesis and a foolish assumption. This is a classic, misleading comparison -- apples and oranges, if you will -- comparing two races at different stages of life. A better comparison for the purposes of establishing a bias would be to compare black college graduates with white college graduates, or black high school dropouts with white high school dropouts. The speaker assumes that people with more education are certainly going to have more wealth, but that is not the case for the years before and after college. The real problem is that college graduates in general have less wealth after college than before college, regardless of their previous education, due to the excessive amount of debt assumed by college graduate, regardless of race. With college debt in excess of $1.8 trillion dollars, the poorest -- least wealthy, not not necessarily lowest annual income -- demographic segment in America today is recent college graduates, basically those between the ages of 22 and 28. Basically, for most Americans, completing college -- in the short run -- is an almost sure fire route to becoming poorer in four or five years, than any other 'wealth creation' strategy today.

Yet, as Thomas Sowell points out, that debt (short-term poverty) may be key to long-term earnings and wealth. Not for every college graduate, and especially not for this who earn relatively useless degrees while majoring in impractical subjects, while taking on massive debt, yet a 'good' college degree today remains a good investment. Much like taking on a mortgage to invest in a home, investing in a good, reasonably priced college degree is usually a great investment.

If there is a villain here, it is higher education, not racism. Ironically, while colleges today seem to claim a position of social justice and racial equity, they are also the primary source of debt for most Americans under the age of thirty. College graduates with significant debt can't afford to buy a home, buy a new car, or to enter into a sustainable marriage. And college compound this problem by claiming that the investment is worth it, regardless of the major, the degree or the cost incurred.

What we do know with confidence is that the best way to avoid poverty in America is to finish high school, get a job, and get and stay married (or at least not have any children outside of marriage).