So What, Who Cares (vol 1, issue 67) How college education can create -- or hamper -- personal wealth

Hello, and welcome to Day Three of Carol of the Bells: Satan's Favorite Ditty or Divine Little Tune?

The latest round of feedback is more evenly split, with some arguing that so long as one excludes versions like Mannheim Steamroller or Trans-Siberian Orchestra, then one is free to enjoy "Carol of the Bells" as a refreshing tonal shift from relentlessly upbeat holiday tunes. My friend Kaitlyn was kind enough to point me to George Winston's piano arrangement. I dig it -- but I have a soft spot for Windham Hill Records in general, as evidenced by owning both the Modern Mandolin Quartet's Nutcracker Suite and Windham Hill: A Winter's Solstice.

Which raises the next holiday music question: Is there a holiday music version that you're a sucker for? Do you feel compelled to own any bluegrass version of any carol? Turn up the volume the minute you hear an a capella breakdown of "We Three Kings"? Share the holiday musical genre against which you're powerless via email or Twitter.

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The gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record. I'm just going to let the Pew Research finding speak for itself:

In 2013, the median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500), the widest wealth gap seen in 30 years. [...] In addition, America’s upper-income families have a median net worth that is nearly 70 times that of the country’s lower-income families, also the widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years.

So what? This finding reinforces the story that income stagnation has eaten away at any/all gains the middle class has made in the past decade or more. Much of the wealth generated and gained was in stock holdings, a source of revenue that is disproportionately large among upper-income families.

Who cares? The wealth gap also shows the growing role that debt is playing in suppressing people's potential to amass wealth. Not only does student loan debt cut into a household's wealth calculation, it also prevents a median household from acquiring one of its most likely sources of wealth -- a house. More than half of first-time homebuyers say they can't amass enough of a down payment on a house owing to their student loan burdens; this has contributed to the slowest rate of first-time home ownership in 27 years. Another side effect of student loans: They can discourage young people from shooting for another wealth-generating channel, entrepreneurship via start-ups.

As of September 2014, more than 40 million Americans have student loan debt totaling approximately $1.2 trillion dollars. If you are a college graduate today, there is a 7-in-10 chance you'll be graduating with student loan debt, and you'll owe, on average, $28,400.

Not helping: college costs have risen faster than the rate of inflation for thirty years, so even if a household's managed to keep pace with inflation, they're still not making enough to cover college costs for a member. (This is where the loans come in.)

So why bother with college if paying for it is going to handicap your household wealth? Because, for many people, college is also the primary factor in determining earning power -- another huge wealth generator for middle-income families. According to the New York Times:

Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree. That’s up from 89 percent five years earlier, 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s.

This general "college graduates earn more" observation is backed up by Pew, which notes that the median income for a young adult (age 25-32) with a bachelor's degree is $45,000, while a young adult who's topped out at a two-year degree or "some college" earns 33% less and a young adult who's a high school graduate earns 37% less.

And that's how people end up going into debt: the gamble that a temporary depression in wealth will help generate a longer-term accumulation in terms of income earned.

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My self-promotional note of the day: I've had the good fortune to write for Glenn Fleishman's The Magazine twice. In issue 24, I wrote about how pregnancy turned me into a cyborg in "Look Within." And in this most recent issue, No. 58, I write about the eyeless, levitating member of our family, my daughter's imaginary friend "Black Hand."

I've also been on a few podcasts: The Incomparable Book Club tackled Ben Winters' The Last Policeman -- a book I have been recommending all year -- and I was on that podcast, gushing away about the trilogy. On Teevee, I helmed the hella-long series finale podcast for Sons of Anarchy, where my compadres Phil Mozolak and Tony Sindelar joined me in brainstorming which TV show we'll flashcast next. (Hint: The Flash.) And finally, in Phil And Lisa Ruin The Movies, we provided Hallmark with an exciting new market opportunity.

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Your holiday pop-culture note of the day: Someone has scanned in Marvel Comics' 1978 adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and it is glorious. But if what you really want is an adaptation of A Christmas Carol where J. Jonah Jameson is the one being taught lessons about the real meaning of Christmas, block out an hour of your life to watch "A Badly Animated Marvel Christmas Carol." You're welcome.

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