[Cass]

The math on this doesn't add up because your career doesn't just have to finance your retirement, it also has to finance the decades of your life before that.

Sure, if you had 150k at age 18 and weren't going to need another cent until you turn 65, you could drop that money in the stock market and wait for riches to come to you. But as it is, you're going to need some kind of job. And while there's a few pleasant careers available without college these days (software engineering being one of them), for most jobs that aren't heavy physical labor or minimum wage drudgery, you're going to need that college degree.