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“Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a univers

“Over the course of their working lives, American college graduates earn more than a million dollars beyond those with only a high-school diploma, and a university diploma is required for many jobs as well as most professions, technical work and positions of influence.” From the article. There are folks getting useless degrees and/or taking on too much debt, but getting a college degree on the whole is worthwhile.

torstenvl 5y ago
Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?
- zsmi 5y ago
  What is the experiment you're proposing? I didn't follow. What about just measuring the ROI of the degree? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree-investment-return.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree... "All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no return on investment, the report found, meaning most of their graduates are earning less than a typical high school graduate." So this study more or less backs claim that some degrees offer a positive ROI while others do not. As to whether or not a given degree is "worthwhile," I'd leave that as an exercise for the reader. :)
  - tfehring 5y ago
    Not the parent commenter but I think they’re suggesting that the degree may not be the cause of the increase in earnings, but rather that the people who get college degrees have attributes (e.g. intelligence, work ethic, good K12 education, wealthy parents) that would lead them to out-earn their peers even without a degree. To be clear, I don’t buy that argument. Obviously those factors explain some of the difference, but I think most of the highest-paying jobs in STEM and many of the highest-paying jobs in other fields (e.g. business/finance) require skills that would be hard to reliably obtain without a college degree or something similar.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Yes, that was my angle. And while I share your intuition to some extent, I maintain that it's difficult to get a scientifically sound conclusion without controlling for those variables. Specifically, to refer to an average of $1,000,000 as a specific effect size, without controlling for the fact that many people with only a high school diploma would not earn more even if they had a college degree, seems suspect.
- pwthornton 5y ago
  A huge chunk of well paying jobs literally require at least a bachelors degree, and you can't submit your SAT scores instead. I think we can say it is in fact causal that on average a college degree earns more money than not having one just by this fact alone.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Earned* . These statistics should always come with caution that past performance does not guarantee future returns.

torstenvl 5y ago

Far too many variables to draw any clear conclusions, in my opinion. Have there been any of these studies that show the effect holding constant when controlling for high school GPA, SAT/ACT, and IQ?

zsmi 5y ago
What is the experiment you're proposing? I didn't follow. What about just measuring the ROI of the degree? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree-investment-return.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/your-money/college-degree... "All of the largest programs in electrical and communications engineering, for instance, allowed most of their graduates to recoup their educational investment in five years or less. But many programs in some fields, like drama and dance, show no return on investment, the report found, meaning most of their graduates are earning less than a typical high school graduate." So this study more or less backs claim that some degrees offer a positive ROI while others do not. As to whether or not a given degree is "worthwhile," I'd leave that as an exercise for the reader. :)
- tfehring 5y ago
  Not the parent commenter but I think they’re suggesting that the degree may not be the cause of the increase in earnings, but rather that the people who get college degrees have attributes (e.g. intelligence, work ethic, good K12 education, wealthy parents) that would lead them to out-earn their peers even without a degree. To be clear, I don’t buy that argument. Obviously those factors explain some of the difference, but I think most of the highest-paying jobs in STEM and many of the highest-paying jobs in other fields (e.g. business/finance) require skills that would be hard to reliably obtain without a college degree or something similar.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Yes, that was my angle. And while I share your intuition to some extent, I maintain that it's difficult to get a scientifically sound conclusion without controlling for those variables. Specifically, to refer to an average of $1,000,000 as a specific effect size, without controlling for the fact that many people with only a high school diploma would not earn more even if they had a college degree, seems suspect.
pwthornton 5y ago
A huge chunk of well paying jobs literally require at least a bachelors degree, and you can't submit your SAT scores instead. I think we can say it is in fact causal that on average a college degree earns more money than not having one just by this fact alone.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Earned* . These statistics should always come with caution that past performance does not guarantee future returns.