4 ms·

This is the typical politically oriented piece form The Guardian and as such it is indeed 'liberal' with facts. Apparently, "At the median, graduates with a ba

This is the typical politically oriented piece form The Guardian and as such it is indeed 'liberal' with facts. Apparently, "At the median, graduates with a bachelor’s degree earn $2.8 million over the course of their careers, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, compared to $1.6 million for high school graduates" [1] So a student loan seems like a bargain if the median return over a career is $1.2 million or 75% more income. [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-salary-college-graduates/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-salary-...

readthenotes1 3y ago
Betcha the average return isn't there for teachers and writers.
0xfaded 3y ago
Brushing over individual experience with aggregate statistics. How utilitarian. Much of the article is about the author's experience of being lifted out of her family's social level, only to find herself not belonging to any class. Her family mocks her, and the saddled debt makes it harder to keep up with her debt free peers. Also, before cherry picking convenient statistics, it's important to control for other correlation, such as income compared to parents income, and college attendance compared to parents income. Here are some more liberal facts: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/05/18/first-generation-college-graduates-lag-behind-their-peers-on-key-economic-outcomes/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/05/18/first-g... Given that median income of first generation college graduates is 27% lower than their peers, I think it is indeed likely that there is greater issue here. To plug the numbers into your above math, we're now looking at $2.05m vs $1.60m. Not bad, but frankly in real terms over 40 years they'd probably be better off putting the $120k against the s&p500. Which is probably what the author's debt free peers will be doing. I still think for this individual college was likely the right choice and will lead to a fulfilling life. I also still think loading up teenagers with $120k of debt is utter bullshit.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  > Brushing over individual experience with aggregate statistics That's the only way to discuss such issues. There'll always be good and bad experiences so wee need to look at aggregates, not individual data points. This is indeed utilitarian: yes tuition may be expensive and yes a student loan may be a significant amount as a consequence but this is an investment decision and if the return is indeed worthwhile so what? And if it's not then it's also one's decision. Or the complaint is on the political/ideological aspect of paying for education (this is The Guardian after all), not the practical, utilitarian aspect.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    I think what GP is getting at is that you have to separate selection effects of university admissions from actual effects of the university. The people who don't attend university are not in aggregate equivalent to the people who do - I think I remember seeing a study once that people who were admitted to MIT but chose not to attend had similar career outcomes (and incomes) to people who did end up attending MIT (as one example). In that case the signal was the selection effect of being admitted to MIT, not anything that MIT specifically did to help people make more money over the long term. So attending University might look good on average and lead to higher career earnings, but it could just be a selection effect of people who would have made more money either way.
    - robocat 3y ago
      Absolutely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36644126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36644126 You also need to be careful of averages when people like Gates and Zuckerberg drop out of Harvard - the opposite skew! https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-match-school-and-student-rank https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-match-school-and-studen... links to a study showing it might not be worth it: An oft-cited paper, Dale and Krueger, appears to find that, controlling for applicant characteristics, people who attend more selective college don’t earn more money later in life.
- catlover76 3y ago
rspoerri 3y ago
That is 40k vs 70k per year if you take 40 years of working towards the 1.6 or 2.8 mio $. Or 3’333$ per month vs. 5’833$. Not that much for a mean if you look at it that way.

readthenotes1 3y ago

Betcha the average return isn't there for teachers and writers.

0xfaded 3y ago

Brushing over individual experience with aggregate statistics. How utilitarian. Much of the article is about the author's experience of being lifted out of her family's social level, only to find herself not belonging to any class. Her family mocks her, and the saddled debt makes it harder to keep up with her debt free peers. Also, before cherry picking convenient statistics, it's important to control for other correlation, such as income compared to parents income, and college attendance compared to parents income. Here are some more liberal facts: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/05/18/first-generation-college-graduates-lag-behind-their-peers-on-key-economic-outcomes/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/05/18/first-g... Given that median income of first generation college graduates is 27% lower than their peers, I think it is indeed likely that there is greater issue here. To plug the numbers into your above math, we're now looking at $2.05m vs $1.60m. Not bad, but frankly in real terms over 40 years they'd probably be better off putting the $120k against the s&p500. Which is probably what the author's debt free peers will be doing. I still think for this individual college was likely the right choice and will lead to a fulfilling life. I also still think loading up teenagers with $120k of debt is utter bullshit.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
> Brushing over individual experience with aggregate statistics That's the only way to discuss such issues. There'll always be good and bad experiences so wee need to look at aggregates, not individual data points. This is indeed utilitarian: yes tuition may be expensive and yes a student loan may be a significant amount as a consequence but this is an investment decision and if the return is indeed worthwhile so what? And if it's not then it's also one's decision. Or the complaint is on the political/ideological aspect of paying for education (this is The Guardian after all), not the practical, utilitarian aspect.
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  I think what GP is getting at is that you have to separate selection effects of university admissions from actual effects of the university. The people who don't attend university are not in aggregate equivalent to the people who do - I think I remember seeing a study once that people who were admitted to MIT but chose not to attend had similar career outcomes (and incomes) to people who did end up attending MIT (as one example). In that case the signal was the selection effect of being admitted to MIT, not anything that MIT specifically did to help people make more money over the long term. So attending University might look good on average and lead to higher career earnings, but it could just be a selection effect of people who would have made more money either way.
  - robocat 3y ago
    Absolutely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36644126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36644126 You also need to be careful of averages when people like Gates and Zuckerberg drop out of Harvard - the opposite skew! https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-match-school-and-student-rank https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-match-school-and-studen... links to a study showing it might not be worth it: An oft-cited paper, Dale and Krueger, appears to find that, controlling for applicant characteristics, people who attend more selective college don’t earn more money later in life.
catlover76 3y ago

rspoerri 3y ago

That is 40k vs 70k per year if you take 40 years of working towards the 1.6 or 2.8 mio $. Or 3’333$ per month vs. 5’833$. Not that much for a mean if you look at it that way.