Much of the current skepticism about the financial payoff of higher education emerges from recent media focus on young college graduates struggling to enter a weak labor market. This brief highlights some of the complexities underlying discussions of the return to the investment in postsecondary education and describes some of the variation in outcomes that leads to the prevalent uncertainty about the value of the investment, clarifying that disappointing outcomes for some are not inconsistent with a high average payoff and significant benefits for most students. [Jennifer Ma and Charles Kurose collaborated with the author on the College Board publication that provided the inspiration for this brief. Greg Acs, Jennifer Ma, and Kim Rueben provided helpful comments and others at the Urban Institute also made valuable contributions to this work.]