I lived with my parents and went to the local college because I didn’t have big ambitions.
The course gave everyone work placement with most people keeping the job after the course, starting at €28,000 - €35,000 salary on average.
My following job 4 years later paid €70,000 and then 2 years later €80,000.
At age 28 I am €35,000 above the median Salary of the country which is around €44,000.
The ROI has been massive on that €12,000 spent on college.
edit: I additionally have many friends who came from family’s where their parents / siblings were not working and sitting on welfare. through free college via grants, these friends became the first in their families to get degrees and subsequently are earning well over €60,000+ on average. I would also like to highlight that some of these people even only got a very low passing grade and weren’t prodigies by any means of the word.