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Monetary success is an exception to begin with. Only 5% of the North American population earn more than $90,000 per year. Leaving me curious about your exceptio

Monetary success is an exception to begin with. Only 5% of the North American population earn more than $90,000 per year. Leaving me curious about your exception statement. Of the people in that top 5%, or even 1% if your data better supports it, what does the education distribution look like?

pc86 14y ago
Please take this with a grain of salt - I could only find it on Alternet[1] and I looked for the Gallup source they're referencing but shouldn't find it. The article is from December of 2011 as well. In the top 1% of US households (those with an income above ~$550,000 a year according to this article, but I've seen lower-end figures ranging from $380-660k/yr), 72% have a college degree v. 31% of the lower 99%. "Nearly half" of the top 1% has some form of post-graduate education v. less than 1 in 5 of the 99%. A lot of the 1% are CEOs, licensed professionals (JDs, MDs) and Wall Street executives, all positions the require baccalaureate or postgraduate degrees in almost every case. [1] http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_top_1_percent?page=0%2C1 http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_...
- randomdata 14y ago
  Thanks for the pointer. I was able to find a Gallup link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conservative.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conser... By the numbers, it seems that having completed a high school diploma or less puts you in better standing than having completed just a degree (27% vs 23%), though a post-graduate degree is the clear winner. So, it seems that if you are not willing to go through post-graduate studies (which, I assume, is primarily limited to the professional degrees you mentioned – MD, JD, etc.), you are slightly better off dropping out or not going to college at all in terms of achieving success as defined by the top 1%. That is actually pretty interesting data with regards to the subject of this thread.

pc86 14y ago

Please take this with a grain of salt - I could only find it on Alternet[1] and I looked for the Gallup source they're referencing but shouldn't find it. The article is from December of 2011 as well. In the top 1% of US households (those with an income above ~$550,000 a year according to this article, but I've seen lower-end figures ranging from $380-660k/yr), 72% have a college degree v. 31% of the lower 99%. "Nearly half" of the top 1% has some form of post-graduate education v. less than 1 in 5 of the 99%. A lot of the 1% are CEOs, licensed professionals (JDs, MDs) and Wall Street executives, all positions the require baccalaureate or postgraduate degrees in almost every case. [1] http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_top_1_percent?page=0%2C1 http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_...

randomdata 14y ago
Thanks for the pointer. I was able to find a Gallup link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conservative.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conser... By the numbers, it seems that having completed a high school diploma or less puts you in better standing than having completed just a degree (27% vs 23%), though a post-graduate degree is the clear winner. So, it seems that if you are not willing to go through post-graduate studies (which, I assume, is primarily limited to the professional degrees you mentioned – MD, JD, etc.), you are slightly better off dropping out or not going to college at all in terms of achieving success as defined by the top 1%. That is actually pretty interesting data with regards to the subject of this thread.