Carefully read the following statement:

The payoff from ________ in education is so ______ and _______ that it is almost ________ as a predictor of economic change over a five to ten year period.

Fill in the blanks meaningfully, in the above statement, from the following options.

The sentence is written in a negative tone. Hence, option C is eliminated.

In option A, small and insignificant have similar meanings and thus, won't be used together. Hence, A is eliminated.

In option B, the word "productivity" is not suitable for the given sentence, as the sentence indicates some form of payment made for education. Hence, option B is eliminated.

Among options C and D, D is most suitable as for the predictor to be useless/irrelevant; it has to be random and not predictable.