Huh? That chart in figure 3 tells it all; on the assumption that an employer in the 80s valued a college degree as much as a company in the 2010s, then as more

Huh? That chart in figure 3 tells it all; on the assumption that an employer in the 80s valued a college degree as much as a company in the 2010s, then as more people attain a college degree, it's value (i.e wages) won't move up. In fact you'd expect it to go down but that increase in "productivity" probably offset the downward pressure. If you asked me, the problem facing workers in their 20s and 30s is that people are having longer careers, either by choice or by necessity. This is coupled with a job market which has never really recovered from the mid 2000s peaks. Until the Baby Boomer generation really begins to retire, the job market will remain tricky to navigate. Compound it all with an ever increasing cost of living (basically, the cost of housing) in pretty much every market and you get the bleak landscape we have now.