College May Not Pay Off for Everyone

Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz

No 20140904b, Liberty Street Economics from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: In our recent Current Issues article and blog post on the value of a college degree, we showed that the economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree still far outweigh the costs. However, this does not mean that college is a good investment for everyone. Our work, like the work of many others who come to a similar conclusion, is based in large part on the empirical observation that the average wages of college graduates are significantly higher than the average wages of those with only a high school diploma. However, not all college students come from Lake Wobegon, where “all of the children are above average.” In this post, we show that a good number of college graduates earn wages that are not materially different from those of the typical worker with just a high school diploma. This suggests that, at least from an economic perspective, college may not pay off for a significant number of people.

Keywords: human capital; college wage premium; returns to education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-09-04
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