Take it from someone who’s paying off her student loans: College is way too expensive, especially considering how little the degrees financially benefit graduates. The average salary of a college graduate this year, for example, is about $55,000. That’s not a bad number at all — unless you’re one of the many, many college students who expects to make $103,000 right out of college.

Perhaps these bloated salary expectations are why so many young adults feel comfortable taking on tens of thousands of dollars in debt to pay for their higher education. Or maybe they feel they have no other choice, since the message has been made clear by both our parents and grandparents that college is non-negotiable and that the only way to succeed is to earn that degree.