(p. A23) It’s a cruel irony that a college degree is worth less to people who most need a boost: those born poor. This revelation was made by the economists Tim Bartik and Brad Hershbein. Using a body of data, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which includes 50 years of interviews with 18,000 Americans, they were able to follow the lives of children born into poor, middle-class and wealthy families.
They found that for Americans born into middle-class families, a college degree does appear to be a wise investment. Those in this group who received one earned 162 percent more over their careers than those who didn’t.
But for those born into poverty, the results were far less impressive. College graduates born poor earned on average only slightly more than did high school graduates born middle class. And over time, even this small “degree bonus” ebbed away, at least for men: By middle age, male college graduates raised in poverty were earning less than nondegree holders born into the middle class. The scholars conclude, “Individuals from poorer backgrounds may be encountering a glass ceiling that even a bachelor’s degree does not break.”
. . .
It shouldn’t here, either: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than 20 percent of American jobs actually require a bachelor’s degree. By 2026, the bureau estimates that this proportion will rise, but only to 25 percent.
Why do employers demand a degree for jobs that don’t require them? Because they can.
What all this suggests is that the college-degree premium may really be a no-college-degree penalty.
For the full commentary, see:
Ellen Ruppel Shell. “College May Not Be Worth It Anymore.” The New York Times (Thursday, May 17, 2018): A23.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 16, 2018. The online version is substantially longer, and in some places has different wording, than the print version. Where the wording of a quoted passage differs, my quotation above follows the print version.)
The research by Tim Bartik and Brad Hershbein, mentioned above, is:
Bartik, Timothy J., and Brad J. Hershbein. “Degrees of Poverty: The Relationship between Family Income Background and the Returns to Education.” Upjohn Institute Working Paper 18-284, March 2018.
Shell’s commentary is related to her forthcoming book:
Shell, Ellen Ruppel. The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. New York: Currency, 2018.