2 ms·

That data doesn't reference the point I'm making. What I'm saying is that it's very possible that if the same people that got bachelor degrees instead entered t

That data doesn't reference the point I'm making. What I'm saying is that it's very possible that if the same people that got bachelor degrees instead entered the workplace, they'd have equal or greater lifetime earnings. To put it another way, earnings are correlated with an individual's talent and drive. Currently, many of those people end up getting degrees. It's a correlation, it's not the degrees that are causing the jump in earnings, it's the individual's skills.

dahart 7y ago
You’re right, figure 3 doesn’t answer your question. But your point/topic is not addressing my original point. My point above was that income before taxes alone is what you need to evaluate whether the student loan program offsets the student loan default rate. The financial return on investment of the student loan program is determined solely by the increase in income, not the wealth premium. To address your separate point directly, there are studies that attempt to directly answer the question you’re asking. For example: http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gensowski_m6556.pdf http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gens... However, your conclusion isn’t shared by the authors. They show a positive return on college degrees, it’s just smaller than the unadjusted difference in income. One probable factor for this is cultural bias toward giving jobs to people with degrees, and paying employees more who have degrees. Individual skills alone do not explain the difference in earnings, so despite the fact that talent correllates with income, the correlation is not 1, and thus it is not likely that the same people earn equal or greater without a degree than with. It is likely that the same person without a degree will earn less than with a degree, on average.

2 ms·

That data doesn't reference the point I'm making. What I'm saying is that it's very possible that if the same people that got bachelor degrees instead entered t

by malvosenior 7y ago

dahart 7y ago
You’re right, figure 3 doesn’t answer your question. But your point/topic is not addressing my original point. My point above was that income before taxes alone is what you need to evaluate whether the student loan program offsets the student loan default rate. The financial return on investment of the student loan program is determined solely by the increase in income, not the wealth premium. To address your separate point directly, there are studies that attempt to directly answer the question you’re asking. For example: http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gensowski_m6556.pdf http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/CoNoCoSk2011/gens... However, your conclusion isn’t shared by the authors. They show a positive return on college degrees, it’s just smaller than the unadjusted difference in income. One probable factor for this is cultural bias toward giving jobs to people with degrees, and paying employees more who have degrees. Individual skills alone do not explain the difference in earnings, so despite the fact that talent correllates with income, the correlation is not 1, and thus it is not likely that the same people earn equal or greater without a degree than with. It is likely that the same person without a degree will earn less than with a degree, on average.