Post-College Income, Canceled TV Shows, and Leia's Metal Bikini | The Odds

We’re all footballed-out here at The Odds, mostly because the Eagles’ outrageously poor performance ruined our fantasy team. When does hockey start again? Because the world doesn’t revolve around the gridiron, here are other news bits you can hang your bets on.

1. Chances Are You Don’t Earn a Lot Even If You’re a College Grad

Is college worth it? High school students around the country are told that heading to college will inevitably make their lives better, but a new database called the College Scorecard released by the White House through the Department of Education and the Treasury Department says that literally may not be the case. The statistics collected takes a look at all students who received federal grants or student loans since 1996 and matches those figures with their income tax records as a way to judge how students did financially during and after college. The numbers don’t look good, though the database isn’t meant to be a total bummer. Instead, it’s meant to act as a tool for students to help them decide for themselves about the pure numbers it takes to go to college. Despite the fact that it only covers student loan borrowers, the information can be generalized to fit every broke college grad out there. While nobody expects colleges to just up and make them rich, it seems like a dire situation for some who choose certain universities.

Over/under on the yearly amount students at over 200 particular U.S. colleges earn a decade after they first enrolled: $25,000.

2. Your Favorite New TV Show Will Probably Get Canceled

The chill in the air means no more sweating your ass off during the waning summer, but it also means hours and hours of new network TV shows to consume while sitting comfortably on your dry derriere. This season’s crop of new shows is particularly lacking in quality for any sane human being, but there will be some inevitable favorites among your least favorite relatives this holiday season. Some of our quick picks for new intelligence-reducing TV fare included Ken Jeong’s semi-autobiographical show Dr. Ken, Rob Lowe’s walking pun of a show called The Grinder, and Wesley “Gotta Pay Those Back Taxes” Snipes’ Vegas thriller The Player. There’s also Heroes Reborn, a reboot of a show that fizzled out five years ago that NBC for some reason thought should be brought back. But none of them are as laughably bad as ABC’s Quantico, a show that tries to make FBI recruits and their training grounds seem like a sexed-up college dorm. We get why that would sound good, but we don’t want to watch it.

Odds Quantico will be renewed for a second season: 10 to 1.

3. Texas Doesn’t Much Care for Your Science-Learnin’

By now, a good portion of the country has at least heard of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas student arrested at his school in the Irving Independent School District for carrying a homemade clock that school officials thought was a bomb. Backlash followed. Many accused officials of jumping to a conclusion that stank of fear-mongering (or racism). Ahmed became an unlikely hero, and was tapped by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama for some face time to talk about his “bomb.” The Texas officials deny racial profiling, but it turns out this sort of treatment is endemic to the Dallas suburb’s school district. Irving expelled more students than all but five of Texas’ 1,000 districts last year. Worse yet, African American students seem to have been disciplined at a disproportionate rate out of the state’s more than 4 million students.

Odds that a student getting suspended in Irving (13 percent black) is African American: 25 percent

4. Princess Leia’s ‘Return of the Jedi’ Bikini Could Be Yours

Ewoks be damned. One of the parts that any Star Wars nerd liked about the third installment of the original trilogy growing up was the Sarlacc pit sequence. Mostly because Luke totally outsmarts Jabba the Hutt and we also get to see the demise of Boba Fett, but also because Leia’s metal bikini nudged many a squeaky-voiced teenager into puberty proper. Actress Carrie Fisher’s infamously skimpy outfit is set to be put up for auction on October 1 by auction house Invaluable.com, along with other Star Wars memorabilia like an original Stormtrooper helmet and a prototype Darth Vader mask. But the bikini is the prize of the lot for rich nostalgic weirdos who could maybe convince their poor girlfriend to wear it out to The Force Awakens premiere in December.

Over/Under amount on the winning bid: $80,000

5. More Jobs Doesn’t Mean Less Poverty

Unfortunately, The Odds can’t be all futuristic bikini auctions. Recent job growth has led many to believe that by putting more Americans to work that means they get more money. Yet the median American household income ($54,000 last year) has been steadily dropping since 2000. This despite the fact that 2014 was the strongest post-recession year with 3 million new jobs created. It points to a single fact: Job growth has risen, but income hasn’t. According to new data from the Census Bureau, nearly 47 million people are living in poverty since the recession, and even if they get a job it doesn’t look like it will help. This is based on the official definition of poverty, which considers any individual making less than $12,000 a year as someone who is poor. But some say an alternative method, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in government aid and necessary expenses in a person’s income, gives a better percentage of those below the poverty line.

Over/under percentage on the current poverty rate based on Supplemental Poverty Measures: 15 percent