I know complaining about journalism is a tired old drum, but.. This combination of "reports" press releases and journalism that cherry picks and tortures stati

I know complaining about journalism is a tired old drum, but.. This combination of "reports" press releases and journalism that cherry picks and tortures statistics is scientism of the worst kind. Where is cause and where is effect effect? What other things have interlinked causal relationships with these things? These realities are complicated and trying to boil it down to this college degree earns people this much is just not really the way reality works. A 25 year old with a solid academic background in statistics, big data & business from name brand Universities is likely to be optimizing his earning potential. He's very likely to be getting knowledgable advice, assistance and socialization to this end from parents. This is not a randomized experience. The got into the degree. They passed it. They decided to get into it. Causation runs both ways, in loops, in zigzags. For a high school graduate with decades of experience… What circumstances yield 35 year olds without any tertiary education in 2015? The starting point is different, the trajectory is different. It's complex. Coming from a non American who quite like americans I would also point out that there are many uniquely american blind spots here. One is the mercantile approach to education. Universities can proudly and flagrantly advertise their prestige with prices and viscera versa. First, the American student is a consumer and investor. This is kind of cool and useful in that it forces people to consider realities like the market demand for graduates of a degree. But it also generates the kind of flat, dull and incorrect analysis where a degree is going to be causally linked to a salary, justifying the enormous (and often unnecessary) costs. Universities need this to justify what they charge and students need to justify their spend. Second, I think Americans have a very weird relationship with the concepts and vocabulary of socialism. Socialism (followed closely and arguably by Liberal Capitalism) was probably the most influentially socio-economic-political movement of the 20th century. The ideas influence the US no less than anywhere. But Americans have a weird relationship with them. At the centre of it all is the aversion to considering anything from the lens of class. Universities are now and have always been, central to class issues. They are where class is established. They are instruments of class mobility, class immobility. They are places where class culture is consolidated. I would guess that class is a major determining factor in earning potential, and that a lot of the mechanics of this are via universities. When you consider some cluster of college graduates and compare them to high school graduates with 10 years experience, you are comparing samples of class clusters.