But, barring the fact that they're an Apples-to-Oranges comparison to typical liberal arts colleges and should be segmented as such in the data, I nonetheless think it's interesting information. Trade school expansion is often touted as a reasonable alternative to pushing more people into the higher education pipeline. To that end, we should seek to highlight and study which trades are actually worth pursuing from an economic perspective.
They grouped barber colleges with 4 year schools to make the overall statistics look worse. Then they combine that with anecdotes about a few poorly performing 4 year schools.
To you're point about Oberlin--the data isn't separated by major, and from Oberlin's website they emphasize college and conservatory of music. It's not surprising that musicians aren't making a lot of money.
Of the College students, most major in literature, art or social sciences. And there's a strong tendency to work in non-profits or academia after graduation.
This would all be fine if it weren't so damn expensive to attend. While I had a great time there and learned a lot, I wouldn't recommend the same path to my kids.
Saying that only 52% of Oberlin graduates make more than the average high school graduate is pretty close to saying that the performing arts don't tend to pay well.
Of course correlation is not causation...