I guess to me it mattered more that he was an adult than that he was a college student. Of course the relationships in the Bugle and Peter's own character changed a lot so I feel like there was growth in that sense.
It goes both ways. The worst Perry White is one step away from being J. Jonah Jameson.
It's just we've seen them try science jobs numerous times and they never seem to stick/land quite as well.A science job could do that too, I don't expect that to happen, writing cool new characters is hard even if writers decided to bother, but it could happen, same way Bugle was made to be such a different experience compared to Planet, but interesting in its own way.
It's still been enough for him to get by...His money problems all happen because JJ underpays him all the time, even when Peter grows a pair and demands higher payment, JJ may mentally note the pictures are worth more.
News media can be relevant or whatever, but Bugle has been fake news for most of its existence, so if we use real life to compare, Peter should move the **** away from it, not that I think we should use silly real life stuff to interfere too much with comics, specially if we risk getting another Secret Empire lol.
The Bugle is only really fake news when it comes to Spider-Man, everywhere else it's generally a bastion of good, decent, journalism, which is the funny thing.