Links for 5/19/10 – David Leonhardt vs. Skeptics Edition

The JACQUES STEINBERG story in which some argue that we are sending too many people to college has set off a bit of a firestorm.

DAVID LEONHARDT

the real pay of college graduates has risen over the past 25 years. The real pay of every other group has dropped…

It’s theoretically conceivable that these trends have nothing to do with the actual education that college students receive. Perhaps graduates gain little or nothing from college that they didn’t already know — but the economy has been changing in ways that favor the kinds of people who enroll in college and make it through. In that case, the charts above would say nothing about the college.

As it happens, though, labor economists have spent years trying to answer this exact question, devising careful studies to see whether students actually benefit from college. The answer, in a nutshell, is that they do...

Floyd Norris

I remember having doubts about that data the first time I heard about it, which was probably from a teacher in junior high school. My logic went like this: Rockefeller children go to college. Rockefeller children do quite well in life. That does not prove college made a difference.
To put it more elegantly, such data does not control for the qualities and other attributes of the person entering college…

One question that I think should be pondered is this: If somehow every 22-year-old did graduate from college, and if that was not accomplished by dumbing down the requirements, would all the graduates earn as much as graduates do today?...

Daniel Indiviglio

Just because college graduates earn more doesn't mean that their degree provides them any additional knowledge necessary to succeed in their jobs; it just means that employers found them more attractive because of the degree…

Other college students major in subjects with little practical use in the job market -- like anthropology or Russian literature. Those graduates often end up in careers that have little or nothing to do with their education, but their college degree still gives them an edge over someone with just a high school diploma. Employers would rather you have studied something irrelevant to the job in college than nothing at all…

What's so bad about a population with more knowledge than it needs? The problem is the expense and opportunity costs. By plowing more money into an education, many students incur incredible amounts of debt before they ever get their first paycheck…

Saying college is valuable for many young adults is an indisputable claim. But saying it's valuable for all -- or even most -- young adults isn't as clear.

Some commenter on the story

As a former college professor I have long been concerned for the students being funneled into the college mill, not because it would benefit them, but because schools profit.

DAVID LEONHARDT

What worries me is that the small group of economists who believe that many students should not go to college — and whose ideas get a lot of media attention – will persuade some would-be graduates that they would be better off dropping out. Might that be correct in some cases? Sure. But for most students, it’s among the worst advice they could get.

I’m reminded of what happened in this country in the first half of the 20th century, when a high school education changed from being elite to being commonplace. At the time, some European intellectuals dismissed the new American high schools as wasteful, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz note. Instead of offering narrowly tailored apprentice programs, the United States was accused of overeducating its masses. Not everyone, the Europeans said, needed a high school education.

The decades that followed proved the Europeans wrong, of course. With the most educated population in the world, the United States built the most successful economy in the world.