What is less commonly understood is that college isn't just a bonus: it has, for a long time, been a safety net against wage decline. The chart below illustrates what this means. Since 1980, real wages for Americans with bachelor's degrees or higher have risen $3,000, or 6.7 percent. Over the same period, wages for Americans with less than a high school diploma and for those with a diploma or its equivalent have fallen 23 and 17 percent respectively. In other words, it's not so much that earnings for those with bachelor's degrees have accelerated rapidly; it's that they've held onto their market position while others have fallen precipitously.
This makes a difference in the way we think about educational attainment. If college was just a way to get a bonus, you might be content with what you have now. If, on the other hand, you understood that you would likely suffer large penalties over time if you opted not to go, you might think about college differently. You might see it as more essential.
1 comment:
I've always thought that when they show graphs like this, they should add an additional category showing those without college, but with professional/technical certifications... i.e. plumbers, electricians, nondestructive testers (my job), aircraft mechanics, etc...
For example, my field, nondestructive testing, doesn't require college, but requires you to be certified to a National Standard. You can get associate and/or bachelor degrees in the field, but all they do is reduce the amount of time it takes to get certified, and ironically the time it takes to complete the degree is more than the time saved.
All the talk about college as glossed over the fact that some degrees from some schools are almost worthless economically, and some certifications are worth much more than many college degrees.
I think European countries have a much better handle on this sort of thing, since they formalize apprenticeships and technical training and mesh it into their education systems.
The fact of the matter is that even if everyone had college degrees, someone would still have to fix your toliet, fix your car, fix aircraft, etc...
Our whole K-12 education system leans towards focusing on a single goal, and is measured by that same imperfect and impractical goal.
Just saying...
Rory
Post a Comment