Sorting the categories in descending order by dollars spent would go a long way toward straightening up this chart and making your spending habits easier/faster to understand.

It is not the case in the US that a larger proportion of Black women have advanced degrees compared to the proportion of White women who do.

Additionally, when Black women do earn advanced degrees, they don’t see nearly the return on investment that White men or women do.

A Master’s category should never include PhDs; a PhD category may, however, include plenty of people who have earned both degrees.

‘Associates degree’ is a weird category: most people who earn them are either young (like right out of HS) or older than those who stop at a Bachelor’s: women who return to school during or after raising families, for example. Either way, an Associates degree is nowhere near comparable to a Bachelor’s in terms of the health or economic benefits that accompany that level of educational attainment. Statistically, a person with a terminal Associate’s is no better off than someone who ended their formal education with a HS diploma.

This is why demographers frequently separate educational attainment categories as HS or less vs. Some college or more, or Bachelor’s degree or more vs. Some college or less (this category includes those who’ve completed formal education with a HS diploma or GED but no college at all, even if a person completed five years of trade school and makes $100K/yr).