NSW’s massive education data analysis, the Pathways for the Future Program, tells the story of 3.5 million students over 20 years to 2016 and how their year 10 study selections affect their income 10 years later, at the age of 24.

Like its predecessor, Their Futures Matter, which similarly mapped the pathways of millions of disadvantaged NSW children, it is not that the results are so very surprising, but that it has been done at all.