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> Education powerfully influences lifetime earnings Based on what? There is positive correlation between educational attainment and lifetime earnings, but that

> Education powerfully influences lifetime earnings Based on what? There is positive correlation between educational attainment and lifetime earnings, but that does not imply that education is an influencer. One reasonable explanation for that correlation is that one who has qualities and habits that allow them to do well in the education system are also qualities and habits that do well in the economy. Certainly, those with crippling disabilities or other life challenges that sees them do poorly in school are also understood to have no economic future due to those same disabilities/life challenges, so it seems we have an intuitive understanding of that to some degree. To find influence we can't just pick a top economic performer at random and compare him to a poor economic performer. We need to find the same person with and without an education. Luckily we can essentially do that, to a close enough approximation, by looking at an average person in the past when people didn't seek education and an average person after seeking education became commonplace. Unluckily, primary school rose in prominence before we had good record keeping. But, luckily, post-secondary education rose during the time where we started having great record keeping. Here's the thing: Incomes held stagnant during that time. Lifetime earnings did not increase for the individual after gaining a (post secondary) education. They made just as much when they didn't go to college. Those with high earnings were more likely to go to college by this time, sure, but that's not the same thing. Despite the record keeping being poor, we do know that incomes did rise during the rise of primary and secondary education. So while a post-secondary education clearly has no impact on lifetime earnings, even if someone destined to have high lifetime earnings is likely to attend a post-secondary school, the effects of primary and secondary education remains less clear. However, during that time incomes continued to rise even when there was no meaningful change in the education received, so the correlation in that case is most likely just coincidence. There was a lot of economic change happening at that time that provides a much more reasonable explanation for why incomes were rising.

tptacek 2mo ago
You're making the mistake I called out but on a grander scale. Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Labor markets, demographics, taxes, unionization, labor force participation, even technology; you name it. I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. I think this argument feels intuitively true to you, and maybe it could be, but maybe any argument is true.
- win311fwg 2mo ago
  > Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Not meaningfully so. Life doesn't move that fast. There is only one year between when the average person didn't go to college and when the average person did go to college. More ideal would be to put the exact same person into parallel universes on those different tracks, but let me know when you figure out how to do that. In the real world, that is the closest approximation we can get. And what we were able to plainly observe is that there was no change in earnings. Which is interesting as it pertains to your point as it is unlikely in a vacuum that two random average people would ever have the same earnings, so the fact that they landed in the very same spot does suggest that our approximation is much closer than it seems you want to believe. > I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. Nobody does. There are plausible explanations, but we have no scientific evidence of what the "secret sauce" is. Which, with your recognizing that, makes your earlier claim of education influencing lifetime earnings even more ridiculous. > I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. You must have misread something as the only certainty I offered was that college hasn't lead to higher lifetime earnings for individuals, which we know is the case as we have comprehensive income data to prove it. You cannot both earn more and earn the same. Someone with high lifetime earnings, statistically, also having a college education is not the same thing. There is one caveat here. We can see in the data around the top 1% of earners that the majority of them have access to a restricted market (think doctor, lawyer, etc.) which most people legally are not allowed to participate in. As you know from Econ 101, an artificially restricted supply artificially increases prices, so that offers a pretty good explanation for how they are able to earn so much more than everyone else. Here's where things get messy: Access to those markets is often granted through the colleges. That might be where you got the idea that education influences lifetime earnings, but we find the same economic benefits where access to restricted markets is given outside of colleges as well. There is little evidence that college is signifiant there—only the access part. But I can understand your confusion if that is what you had in mind, conflating it because colleges also try to offer education.
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    We're probably talking past each other then because I read you the other way. Either way: in 2026 there is still a striking college income premium, statistically (it's over 50%). It's presumably much lower than it was before (more people go to college and also the labor market changed; it will change even more sharply in the coming years due to automation). If we're both arguing that economic outcomes are messily related to lots of different causes, we're saying the same thing.

tptacek 2mo ago

You're making the mistake I called out but on a grander scale. Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Labor markets, demographics, taxes, unionization, labor force participation, even technology; you name it. I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. I think this argument feels intuitively true to you, and maybe it could be, but maybe any argument is true.

win311fwg 2mo ago
> Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Not meaningfully so. Life doesn't move that fast. There is only one year between when the average person didn't go to college and when the average person did go to college. More ideal would be to put the exact same person into parallel universes on those different tracks, but let me know when you figure out how to do that. In the real world, that is the closest approximation we can get. And what we were able to plainly observe is that there was no change in earnings. Which is interesting as it pertains to your point as it is unlikely in a vacuum that two random average people would ever have the same earnings, so the fact that they landed in the very same spot does suggest that our approximation is much closer than it seems you want to believe. > I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. Nobody does. There are plausible explanations, but we have no scientific evidence of what the "secret sauce" is. Which, with your recognizing that, makes your earlier claim of education influencing lifetime earnings even more ridiculous. > I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. You must have misread something as the only certainty I offered was that college hasn't lead to higher lifetime earnings for individuals, which we know is the case as we have comprehensive income data to prove it. You cannot both earn more and earn the same. Someone with high lifetime earnings, statistically, also having a college education is not the same thing. There is one caveat here. We can see in the data around the top 1% of earners that the majority of them have access to a restricted market (think doctor, lawyer, etc.) which most people legally are not allowed to participate in. As you know from Econ 101, an artificially restricted supply artificially increases prices, so that offers a pretty good explanation for how they are able to earn so much more than everyone else. Here's where things get messy: Access to those markets is often granted through the colleges. That might be where you got the idea that education influences lifetime earnings, but we find the same economic benefits where access to restricted markets is given outside of colleges as well. There is little evidence that college is signifiant there—only the access part. But I can understand your confusion if that is what you had in mind, conflating it because colleges also try to offer education.
- tptacek 2mo ago
  We're probably talking past each other then because I read you the other way. Either way: in 2026 there is still a striking college income premium, statistically (it's over 50%). It's presumably much lower than it was before (more people go to college and also the labor market changed; it will change even more sharply in the coming years due to automation). If we're both arguing that economic outcomes are messily related to lots of different causes, we're saying the same thing.