<p>I might have missed it, but did the study look at the initial family income of the participants? I’d imagine that a 16 year old whose lives below the poverty line would be substantially less happy than another 16 year old with parents that make more than $100,000 a year. Even if the impoverished student and the upper middle class one both earned a BA and had similar levels of self esteem, the road to financial stability would likely be far smoother for the upper middle class student than the impoverished one.</p>