4 ms·

Do run those numbers on a per-major basis, though. And try (though is is hard to get data) to separate the cohort who went to study and the cohort who went to p

• randomdata 14y ago
  I'm not sure where to even begin finding numbers for people working without a degree in the same field as the typical graduate of a given major to make the comparison, but I am definitely interested in seeing the results. My hunch says that we'll find very little difference between those with degrees and those without. Unless you mean against minimum wage, but I'm not sure how telling that is. Certainly those with CS degrees will appear to be faring rather well, but that ignores that people without any degrees at all are doing just as well in the industry, and therefore are actually doing significantly better once you factor in the aforementioned costs.
• _delirium 14y ago
  There are also some issues around job preferences not being solely based on pay. The kinds of low-ish pay jobs worked by degree holders aren't identical to the distribution of low-ish pay jobs worked by non-degree holders, and skew, I believe, more office/white-collar rather than manual labor. Some people implicitly attach a significant value to that, whether due to working conditions or status, enough that they're willing to take that route even if they knew up front that it's not a net-positive financial decision. E.g., if attending college means you effectively make $10k/yr less, taking all costs into consideration, but you have a 60% greater chance of it being at a desk in an air-conditioned office, that might be worth it to some people. In other words, some data on job-type mix rather than solely median salaries would be interesting.