The book I linked to in another comment collects relevant studies. To try to summarize, a degree does seem to matter to getting a better job (especially a bache

The book I linked to in another comment collects relevant studies. To try to summarize, a degree does seem to matter to getting a better job (especially a bachelor's or a high school diploma); but an incremental year of schooling matters disproportionately less, and the bulk of the benefit was in the degree (the sheepskin effect); a more-educated populace does not make a country richer, among current nations; and intangible benefits are dubious when you measure the outcomes on adults, whether it's knowledge of facts, skills, preferences for more-elevated art, or even political indoctrination. The idea that the economic benefit of education is mostly signaling makes sense of the fact that people consume more and more schooling in the face of its ineffectiveness.