Is It Worth the Money to Get a College Degree? Lets Do the Math and Find Out!

[dfrecore]

Few people can save $20K a year.

Most don't save $20k/yr - but some do.  And many are required to put a good chunk in.  If you're a public employee in a state where you have a defined contribution plan, you may be required to put 7%, 9%, 12%, even 15% of your salary into the plan each year.  That's teachers, firefighters, cops, local and state government employees, etc.  For many, that's going to be many thousands each year.

To say that the vast majority lives paycheck to paycheck may be correct, but that does not mean they're not forced to save money in a 401(k) even if they weren't so inclined to.

Many states don't require employees to contribute to 401Ks. They just don't have a pension anymore. Comparing state employees to the general population is odd since the entire state population can be millions while there could be a few tens of thousands of employees. 

There are plenty of stats to show that the vast majority of the population of the US lives paycheck to paycheck. It's not possible for most people to save $20K a year while living paycheck to paycheck.

Between federal, state, and local government - 15% of the US workforce works for the government in one way or another.

I did not say that it's possible for most people to save $20k per year, but I did just want to say that MANY save a good chunk of change in their 401(k)'s or 403(b), even if they don't want to; and a lot of those get an employer match of some percent as well.  So if I save 10% of my check (even by force) and my employer matches 50% of that, I'm "saving/investing" 15% of my paycheck.