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I was expecting something along the lines of this data: http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013 http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-201

I was expecting something along the lines of this data: http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013 http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013 College continues to provide good value to anyone who anyone who is careful selecting a school and major.

EpicEng 13y ago
I'd like to see a list like that broken down by major. Using averages is such a bad metric, the standard deviation is almost certainly huge.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  Median would be a lot more interesting.
- winslow 13y ago
  You can view the data broken down my major per school once you click on the school.
nimble 13y ago
Under methodology: """ Return from Attending College: The main financial benefit of attending college is the gain in income received by a college graduate over a high school graduate. However, by choosing to attend college, one is giving up 4-6 years of income one could have received if one went straight to work after high school. Therefore, we calculate the gain in median pay over a high school graduate (Earnings Differential) as the difference between the 30 Year Median Pay for a 2012 Bachelor's Graduate and Weighted 34-36 Year Median Pay for a High School. """ Unfortunately, they fail to take into account that the people who go to college probably would have been more successful anyway.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  Unfortunately, they fail to take into account that the people who go to college probably would have been more successful anyway. Eh... I don't know about that. We hammer the "you must go to college to be successful" mentality into every kid these days. A lot of people are going to college these days, and many of those people would be better served pursuing a career in skilled trade IMO.
  - randomdata 13y ago
    If we could somehow take the top college graduates and strip them completely of their education, would they fall into high school graduate earnings range to match their new education level, or would those people remain high earners regardless?
    - EpicEng 13y ago
      I doubt it, but you're talking about outliers now when the parent was including all college attendees.
      - lsc 13y ago
        I thought I read that the correlation between your income and your parent's income was stronger than the correlation between your education and your income. I can't find a reference, though, so it's possible I'm making it up. here we go: http://mmss.wcas.northwestern.edu/thesis/articles/get/776/ http://mmss.wcas.northwestern.edu/thesis/articles/get/776/ "I find that family income remains an important positive predictor of eventual adult outcomes. The effects persist even when many characteristics that are related to income, such as parents’ education, home environment characteristics, parental involvement, school characteristics and student ability, are controlled in a regression framework. " ... "Even conditional on a host of other characteristics such as grades, test scores, and parents’ education and level of involvement, a student from a family earning $50,000 a year can still expect to earn about 10% less in the future than an otherwise identical student from a family earning $150,000 a year. These relationships are all statistically significant at the 1% level."
      - randomdata 13y ago
        The parent was responding to a quote about successful people, so there would be no reason to look at all college graduates. A significant number of them will not be successful (as measured by income). As an aside, while trying to find income data by education that excludes outliers (sadly, I failed to find anything) as prompted by your comment, I noticed that college graduates with only a bachelors degree represent roughly 20% of every single income group, except for incomes below $30K, where they only represent ~10%. I haven't had much time to digest the data, so I am quite possibly overlooking something obvious, but wouldn't you expect that number to rise with incomes if simply having a degree provides an income advantage?
- robotresearcher 13y ago
  A very important benefit of college for me was not having to work a job for a few years. College was so much fun. I spent a little under 10% of my working years having a swell time with my main responsibility being learning stuff. And they pay me more afterwards? Win-win!

EpicEng 13y ago

I'd like to see a list like that broken down by major. Using averages is such a bad metric, the standard deviation is almost certainly huge.

enraged_camel 13y ago
Median would be a lot more interesting.
winslow 13y ago
You can view the data broken down my major per school once you click on the school.

nimble 13y ago

Under methodology: """ Return from Attending College: The main financial benefit of attending college is the gain in income received by a college graduate over a high school graduate. However, by choosing to attend college, one is giving up 4-6 years of income one could have received if one went straight to work after high school. Therefore, we calculate the gain in median pay over a high school graduate (Earnings Differential) as the difference between the 30 Year Median Pay for a 2012 Bachelor's Graduate and Weighted 34-36 Year Median Pay for a High School. """ Unfortunately, they fail to take into account that the people who go to college probably would have been more successful anyway.

EpicEng 13y ago
Unfortunately, they fail to take into account that the people who go to college probably would have been more successful anyway. Eh... I don't know about that. We hammer the "you must go to college to be successful" mentality into every kid these days. A lot of people are going to college these days, and many of those people would be better served pursuing a career in skilled trade IMO.
- randomdata 13y ago
  If we could somehow take the top college graduates and strip them completely of their education, would they fall into high school graduate earnings range to match their new education level, or would those people remain high earners regardless?
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    I doubt it, but you're talking about outliers now when the parent was including all college attendees.
    - lsc 13y ago
      I thought I read that the correlation between your income and your parent's income was stronger than the correlation between your education and your income. I can't find a reference, though, so it's possible I'm making it up. here we go: http://mmss.wcas.northwestern.edu/thesis/articles/get/776/ http://mmss.wcas.northwestern.edu/thesis/articles/get/776/ "I find that family income remains an important positive predictor of eventual adult outcomes. The effects persist even when many characteristics that are related to income, such as parents’ education, home environment characteristics, parental involvement, school characteristics and student ability, are controlled in a regression framework. " ... "Even conditional on a host of other characteristics such as grades, test scores, and parents’ education and level of involvement, a student from a family earning $50,000 a year can still expect to earn about 10% less in the future than an otherwise identical student from a family earning $150,000 a year. These relationships are all statistically significant at the 1% level."
    - randomdata 13y ago
      The parent was responding to a quote about successful people, so there would be no reason to look at all college graduates. A significant number of them will not be successful (as measured by income). As an aside, while trying to find income data by education that excludes outliers (sadly, I failed to find anything) as prompted by your comment, I noticed that college graduates with only a bachelors degree represent roughly 20% of every single income group, except for incomes below $30K, where they only represent ~10%. I haven't had much time to digest the data, so I am quite possibly overlooking something obvious, but wouldn't you expect that number to rise with incomes if simply having a degree provides an income advantage?
robotresearcher 13y ago
A very important benefit of college for me was not having to work a job for a few years. College was so much fun. I spent a little under 10% of my working years having a swell time with my main responsibility being learning stuff. And they pay me more afterwards? Win-win!