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Are there any studies available on the difference in career earnings of grads vs non-grads in the same career? I don't doubt that a random college graduate earn

Are there any studies available on the difference in career earnings of grads vs non-grads in the same career? I don't doubt that a random college graduate earns 30% more over their lifetime than a random non-college graduate, but what about a random software developer with a degree vs one without?

svenkatesh 13y ago
>what about a random software developer with a degree vs one without? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your question, but the way you phrased it, there's already some survivorship bias -- the ones who don't have a degree but got a job have been through some sort of selection filter; this ignores people who don't have a degree but want to get a job in programming.
- randomdata 13y ago
  Degrees come with their own survivorship bias. Every level of the education system seeks to filter out those who are less capable in certain areas. This makes the "college graduates earn 30% more" meaningless, because most people are not capable of succeeding in college in the first place, and whatever causes that probably also prevents them from succeeding in the workplace, statistically speaking. I think where the parent was going is, if you took two people who are equal in every single way, except for one acquiring a college degree, how would their lifetime earnings differ?
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > the ones who don't have a degree but got a job have been through some sort of selection filter Very true. Its all about signaling (hence "or equivalent experience" although I believe that to be bullshit; each year of experience should count as 2-3 years in school). I have no college education, and dropped out of high school in 1999/2000 to pursue my career. I had to sell myself hard to get in the door, but once there, I've never been asked for a degree after my first job (junior admin->senior admin->built/sold webhosting company->managed hosting division for consulting company->data taking for LHC->director of technology->news network startup). I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime where companies value experience more than a piece of paper when the amount of experience is <5 years. The whole education process, at least for the technology field, should be revamped towards apprenticeship.
  - rjbwork 13y ago
    >The whole education process, at least for the technology field, should be revamped towards apprenticeship. Disagree, at least in the case of developers, and possibly ops/sysadmins. I simply don't want to work with people who don't understand the basic underpinnings of our work. I expect my co-workers to understand things like the relational model and relation algebra/calculus, SQL, OOP, DRY, writing reusable libraries, the OSI stack/model, some basic data structure/algorithms (trees, searches/sorts, graphs, Djikstra's algo, TFIDF, etc), complexity analysis, some basic design patterns (pub/sub, consumer/producer, MVC, DI/IOC, and various other Computer Science and Software Engineering concepts. I haven't learned the most abstract stuff in my time in industry thus far, and I certainly don't think most devs/engineers have either. We learn things like frameworks, languages, platforms, and sometimes a design pattern here or there, but the basic underpinnings were all learned under formal study in a university CS (and sometimes math) program. In the end though, maybe this is just my subconscious "elitist CS grad that wants to believe his time in university was worth it and well spent" speaking.
    - unschooledkid 13y ago
      > algebra/calculus, SQL, OOP, DRY, writing reusable libraries, the OSI stack/model, some basic data structure/algorithms (trees, searches/sorts, graphs, Djikstra's algo, TFIDF, etc), complexity analysis, some basic design patterns (pub/sub, consumer/producer, MVC, DI/IOC The stereotypical 18-year-old nerd has at least some high-level understanding of _all_ of this from web sites, magazines, pet projects and now from MOOC's. As a teen, you may not get things right the first time and move at a relatively slow pace but refactoring code in different languages and learning from various online resources add up over the years. At least a few fresh high school grads get full-time programming jobs at respectable companies. > "elitist CS grad that wants to believe his time in university was worth it and well spent" Efficiency isn't all-or-nothing and I think open credit-granting exams would make college much better (disclosure: I'm in France where the situation is much worse than in the US).
      - rjbwork 13y ago
        I would genuinely like to meet this high school grad you speak of, because only the most talented of students in my freshman year even knew a fraction of that stuff. Maybe MOOC's will change it, but not before the "learn to hack on javascript" classes aren't most of the offerings. The only theory focused course I've done that seemed good was Stanford's DB course. Hopefully the Georgia Techs and Stanfords of the world can change that soon enough.
mgkimsal 13y ago
Would be interesting to see one, but my own view is that geography may play a bigger role. I know people without any college degree at all making > $80k in software (in lower COL areas), and others with degrees making anywhere from $50k - > $100k. There are probably some correlations, but income seems pretty decoupled from college degree in the software field (moreso than in other fields). Pure anecdotal observations though.
snowwrestler 13y ago
What makes you think people will hold the same career their entire lives? Or that that is even a desirable goal? A major advantage of college is that it teaches people how to learn, analyze, and reason generally--skills which make it easier for them to change careers later in life.

svenkatesh 13y ago

>what about a random software developer with a degree vs one without? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your question, but the way you phrased it, there's already some survivorship bias -- the ones who don't have a degree but got a job have been through some sort of selection filter; this ignores people who don't have a degree but want to get a job in programming.

randomdata 13y ago
Degrees come with their own survivorship bias. Every level of the education system seeks to filter out those who are less capable in certain areas. This makes the "college graduates earn 30% more" meaningless, because most people are not capable of succeeding in college in the first place, and whatever causes that probably also prevents them from succeeding in the workplace, statistically speaking. I think where the parent was going is, if you took two people who are equal in every single way, except for one acquiring a college degree, how would their lifetime earnings differ?
toomuchtodo 13y ago
> the ones who don't have a degree but got a job have been through some sort of selection filter Very true. Its all about signaling (hence "or equivalent experience" although I believe that to be bullshit; each year of experience should count as 2-3 years in school). I have no college education, and dropped out of high school in 1999/2000 to pursue my career. I had to sell myself hard to get in the door, but once there, I've never been asked for a degree after my first job (junior admin->senior admin->built/sold webhosting company->managed hosting division for consulting company->data taking for LHC->director of technology->news network startup). I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime where companies value experience more than a piece of paper when the amount of experience is <5 years. The whole education process, at least for the technology field, should be revamped towards apprenticeship.
- rjbwork 13y ago
  >The whole education process, at least for the technology field, should be revamped towards apprenticeship. Disagree, at least in the case of developers, and possibly ops/sysadmins. I simply don't want to work with people who don't understand the basic underpinnings of our work. I expect my co-workers to understand things like the relational model and relation algebra/calculus, SQL, OOP, DRY, writing reusable libraries, the OSI stack/model, some basic data structure/algorithms (trees, searches/sorts, graphs, Djikstra's algo, TFIDF, etc), complexity analysis, some basic design patterns (pub/sub, consumer/producer, MVC, DI/IOC, and various other Computer Science and Software Engineering concepts. I haven't learned the most abstract stuff in my time in industry thus far, and I certainly don't think most devs/engineers have either. We learn things like frameworks, languages, platforms, and sometimes a design pattern here or there, but the basic underpinnings were all learned under formal study in a university CS (and sometimes math) program. In the end though, maybe this is just my subconscious "elitist CS grad that wants to believe his time in university was worth it and well spent" speaking.
  - unschooledkid 13y ago
    > algebra/calculus, SQL, OOP, DRY, writing reusable libraries, the OSI stack/model, some basic data structure/algorithms (trees, searches/sorts, graphs, Djikstra's algo, TFIDF, etc), complexity analysis, some basic design patterns (pub/sub, consumer/producer, MVC, DI/IOC The stereotypical 18-year-old nerd has at least some high-level understanding of _all_ of this from web sites, magazines, pet projects and now from MOOC's. As a teen, you may not get things right the first time and move at a relatively slow pace but refactoring code in different languages and learning from various online resources add up over the years. At least a few fresh high school grads get full-time programming jobs at respectable companies. > "elitist CS grad that wants to believe his time in university was worth it and well spent" Efficiency isn't all-or-nothing and I think open credit-granting exams would make college much better (disclosure: I'm in France where the situation is much worse than in the US).
    - rjbwork 13y ago
      I would genuinely like to meet this high school grad you speak of, because only the most talented of students in my freshman year even knew a fraction of that stuff. Maybe MOOC's will change it, but not before the "learn to hack on javascript" classes aren't most of the offerings. The only theory focused course I've done that seemed good was Stanford's DB course. Hopefully the Georgia Techs and Stanfords of the world can change that soon enough.

mgkimsal 13y ago

Would be interesting to see one, but my own view is that geography may play a bigger role. I know people without any college degree at all making > $80k in software (in lower COL areas), and others with degrees making anywhere from $50k - > $100k. There are probably some correlations, but income seems pretty decoupled from college degree in the software field (moreso than in other fields). Pure anecdotal observations though.

snowwrestler 13y ago

What makes you think people will hold the same career their entire lives? Or that that is even a desirable goal? A major advantage of college is that it teaches people how to learn, analyze, and reason generally--skills which make it easier for them to change careers later in life.