Education as the last priority

New York Times has this chart in today's issue:


The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10cox.html.

The graphic spells difference in the way lowest, middle, and upper quintile of the population allocates their money. What jumps out for me, is that across the whole spending spectrum, for all income groups, the education comes dead last. It is lower than "Apparel and services", lower than "Telephone, Utilities, Public Services", and lower than "Entertainment".

In the country where post-secondary education is one of the (the?) most expensive in the world - a year at an Ivy League school trends to $40K per year these days - and the clothes are extremely cheap, this is downright scary!