"The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room"
Might vary where you live, but my understanding is that the author of a piece is not usually the one picking images and writing the headline. There are some instances where the writer and photographer are the same, but that's not the case here.
It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males in school? Stats about "people considering not going to college" is not as compelling as this story with stronger stats about what people are actually doing, IMO.
Note that the focus of blame here is on the education system and then look at the image. The person in frame is the teacher, representing the Educational System, and the boy. The article mentions both college rates and high school dropout rates.
You are right that its generally not the author of the written text that chose the image, through the words I would describe if I was being a more technical correct about it would be authors of the article since an article rarely if ever now days has a single author. There is the author/s of the text, the editor, the proof readers, layout design, image selection, and each participated in creation the collaborated created work.
As you said, that's a different narrative with a different picture. OP's story is about individuals saying they feel lost, and then it shows them bumming around at home.
After I quit university and before I found my eventual career path back in the 90s, a relevant picture would've been me stuffing around on the computer as that's largely what I did (writing a book, playing Hextris, typing up things for my dad, seeing what a modem could do, etc).
Might vary where you live, but my understanding is that the author of a piece is not usually the one picking images and writing the headline. There are some instances where the writer and photographer are the same, but that's not the case here.
It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males in school? Stats about "people considering not going to college" is not as compelling as this story with stronger stats about what people are actually doing, IMO.