Kevin Carey has written an excellent essay for The New Republic about the costs and benefits of higher education. It deserves highlighting because it persuasively argues against an idea I have been attracted to, which has caught on in this blog, and which has been picked up — as he notes — in more and more media stories: that a college degree might no longer be worth it.
The first point he makes is that this story has been told before:
Sally Cameron thought she had done everything right. After studying French and Arabic at a tony liberal arts college, she knew that graduate school would help her career chances. But when she hit the job market, her Ivy League management degree didn’t seem to matter. . . . Sally paid the rent by tending bar and filled her time with volunteer work. Sally’s story sounds like the kind of depressing story filling the pages of newspapers and the popular press these days. There’s only one difference: Sally Cameron earned her master’s degree from Yale in 1980.
When we revisit Sally three decades later — and others who had stories just like hers — she’s doing well and wearing white collars.
Carey’s second point is that economic data show the financial returns to education are unquestionably very great, and only increasing, while wages for unskilled workers have stagnated:
Yet despite the increase in supply, the price that employers were willing to pay for college graduates went up, not down. The inflation-adjusted median wage of bachelor’s degree holders increased by 34 percent from 1983 to 2008. (The earnings for high school dropouts, on the other hand, fell by 2 percent during the same time.) People with graduate degrees did even better, increasing their earnings by 55 percent.
And his third point is that we can expect this trend to continue because as the world becomes more technologically complex, the financial returns to high cognitive ability will only increase.
All three points taken.
But I don’t think the facts Carey presents are dispositive. Here’s why: Those of us who question the price and value of higher education don’t disagree that people with B.A.s do much better in life, especially in employment. We disagree about the source of that advantage: The B.A. may mostly correlate with and signal for, rather than impart important qualities. (Really we all agree it’s some mix of the three factors — our differences are of emphasis.) The data Carey presents are perfectly consistent with this view.
We skeptics think this: Since employers can no longer measure job applicants’ IQs nor put them through long apprenticeships, graduating college is the way job-searchers signal an intelligence and diligence that college itself may have contributed little toward. Employers are (to use a little economic jargon) partially outsourcing their employee search to colleges. This is a good deal for employers, because college costs them nothing, and the social pressure to get a BA means they won’t miss too many good prospective recruits by limiting their search to college grads. And higher ed is a good bet for each individual high-school senior because, in the current system, that’s what employees are looking for — and the payoff is still greater than the costs of college.
(In a funny way, Carey’s data almost supports this position: He notes that BAs’ salaries increased by 34 percent between 1983 and 2008; but other studies have shown that students studied less over the same period. So the BAs’ wage advantage was increasing, even as the knowledge acquired in its attainment decreased.)
To use one economic jargon just once more: If this view is correct, our higher-education system is a big prisoner’s dilemma. Every individual person — the high-school senior and the human-resources manager — has a rational incentive to pursue a BA, but the system as a whole is massively wasteful. There should be a way to prove high intelligence and cultivate diligence and refine social graces that doesn’t cost tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars and four to six years, and saddle would-be entrepreneurs with debt (and, dare I add, afflict young people with the grievances and resentments of the academic Left).
This is a roundabout way of saying that higher education as it exists today can simultaneously be a good bet for each student and a bad and outdated model for society as a whole.
Carey adequately proved the former point. But he did not, I think, disprove the latter point, and so his excellent piece should not detract from efforts to look for a more efficient way to provide the goods that higher education is currently providing at a too-high cost.
The subject person really isn't a good example. A ivy league school opens doors that a regular college (the colleges that the other 99.99999999% of us went to) do not open. I would say that very few recent ivy league grads are tending bar even in today's terrible job market.
It has to be a person who went to a normal college who graduated in 1980. How are they doing?
It also still does not account for those that college is not the right thing for them to do. There has to be other ways for people to get an education and to get ahead. Frankly there are many jobs where college is a bad idea. But there is no other way.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe they also need to filter out, at least, federal employment, if not all government employment. Over that time period in question, credentials inflated in federal employment with improved salary for higher degrees even before proven ability (same job, higher pay based solely on higher credential, even if lesser credentialed has more experience)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe they also need to filter out, at least, federal employment, if not all government employment. Over that time period in question, credentials inflated in federal employment with improved salary for higher degrees even before proven ability (same job, higher pay based solely on higher credential, even if lesser credentialed has more experience)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI once had a hiring manager say that the value of a college diploma was its proof that someone could see something through. Whether that characterizes stubbornness or stick-to-itiveness is something the interview will determine but at the cost of today's BA, it's certainly a character trait that might be discovered through a cheaper medium.
We chose colleges for our children based on the assurance of those who ran the places that they'd "learn how to think, how to reason." Frankly I thought that was my job but kids often ignore what a parent says. I guess I was backing my bets with my checkbook and the confidence that nothing or almost nothing I'd done for eighteen years would be substantially undercut. I think it's worked out.
Still, as a man and business guy I have to say that a great number of young people seem to lack the basic elements of goodness and virtue that would get them a second look for any job. They don't make eye contact. They don't speak like adults. They don't seem centered or firm in even an outline of a world view. They often are not the people you want around you or could count on in a pinch. Kids who do are fighting for us in the military. But even there instructors have to reeducate many suffering from relativism.
But... all that said I think that many are starting to wake up to the bs they've been fed since grade school, that everyone gets a trophy. College diplomas without a firm foundation in first principles puts you at a disadvantage in life. And without the touchstones of what we've ignored: family, church, creeds... you're not going to get anywhere unless you chose to work among liars and cheats. And many do and have banked lots of money in the past few years, especially at places like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Charles Murray has it right on college, it's not for everybody. But the canon of our culture's tradition doesn't need a BA diploma to survive. Just access to a website like ISI.org and firstprinciplesjournal.com and some time well spent in the Great Books to be found there. Note to moms and dads: Bookmark it and email the darlings the address.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt never occurred to me as a young man not to pursue a university degree, not only because everyone in my family for several generations had done the same but also because I idealistically believed in the "life of the mind." I wound up as a professor. But the academic racket contributed mightily to turning me into a conservative. Keeping millions of young people imprisoned and wet-behind-the-ears in "school" when they could be learning something useful on the job is utterly wasteful.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA Yale degree is hardly typical in any era.
Having dealt with hiring and training recent college grads since my own entry to the workforce in 1974, I see a subtle but clear decline in the general standard... not at the Ivy or near-Ivy level, but just about everyone else.
To the extent a college diploma signifies real intellectual value to the economy (e.g., probably NOT Critical Gender Studies grads), there is more total value being created and the individual, being worth more, should command higher compensation. To the extent the author is correct that a college diploma does not mean inherent value but serves as a marker for something the exists rergardless, debasing its value as a marker will just force employers to find another way to compare applicants and make decisions. And, while useful to the applicant and the employer, the cost of that marker is in a larger sense economic waste if the underlying factor could be identified more cheaply.
But in any event it is all clouded at present, when govt policies stifle rather than encourage job creation and growth.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Employers are (to use a little economic jargon) partially outsourcing their employee search to colleges"...
Sort of. For decades, mid to large businesses ran "schools" - training (and yes, filtering) employees - FWIW, My stepGrandfather was a ChemE & ran the metallurgical school @ Republic Steel. This all came to a screeching halt w/a number of rulings (Griggs to Wards Cove), so businesses, not being fools, began using the degree as the badge.
Colleges, OTOH, have also picked up the proverbial ball, by heavily promoting the "get a better job" theme, thus reinforcing their image as the gatekeeper.
To Kenneth (top of the comments list) - I've heard similar from HR types - but they have all become mute when asked to describe the specific trait they desire that can be credited to the Degree...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think that there is a movement now towards the "10,000 Hours to become an expert" approach to learning, which I find fascinating. High School should be the place for generalized knowledge set development, where higher education could be more focused and pointed work within the field of choice. I.E. Google taking a naturally talented HS student, and focusing that student in Technical areas of interest, thereby cultivating an expert.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI find the most interesting aspect of this post to be the idea that businesses have outsourced their HR prep to universities. As Mr. Shaffer points out, "This is a good deal for employers, because college costs them nothing, and the social pressure to get a BA means they won’t miss too many good prospective recruits by limiting their search to college grads." Perhaps, instead of asking how we can continue to bend university to fit into this model, we should re-examine this form of corporate welfare?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"There should be a way to prove high intelligence and cultivate diligence and refine social graces"
We already have this, it's called high school. While, perhaps it does not refine social graces - but then again neither does binge drinking frat house colleges - it does prove high intelligence and cultivate diligence which is shown through grades and/or SAT/ACT scores. If one graduates in the top 10% of their class and has a high SAT/ACT score it is likely that individual would be better served by skipping college and going straight into the job market. Likewise the job market would be benefit as they would get top talent earlier.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt would be interesting to compare the income of college grads with the income of people in the top 10% of their high school class/SAT/ACT who did not go to college.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe -- but it'd be hard to get data, since most of the high performers did go to college.
And then you'd have to control for the reasons the high performers didn't go to college -- maybe the reason they didn't go to college was also a reason they can't earn much money. (For example -- and this is just an example that springs to mind -- they had to stay at home and help a sick family member. So they had to take a job that requires lots of flexibility and free time, which generally doesn't pay well. So they didn't go to college and didn't make much money, but it wasn't really the forsaking of college that led to the low salary.)
Measuring these things and getting useful insights is tough. I'm pretty much in Jim Manzi's camp on this one.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Sally Cameron's of the 80s are more than we'ld like to admit. The recession of 1980-82 hit that generation hard, many grads PAYING for internships and entry level jobs. Many employers took the opportunity to permanently lower salaries for all entering the job market, and those salaries have remained lower comparable to any non-college grads before 1980.
We see the same thing happening to the current glut of college grads from 2008 on. So as the cost of higher ed has gone up 400% since 1980 and starting engineering salaries actually declined 12%, we must admit there is a serious market bubble in higher education costs vs. salaries. (Source: External Link
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That bubble will burst, and those who pay more than 1-3 year's salary for an education will spend their lives paying off that bubble debt. A good analysis would be to follow the children of the Sally Cameron's of the US. Just what are the Sallys telling their children?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKenneth Larson makes a relevant point in passing. If the value of college in the minds of the prospective employer is to show that an individual can see it through; there is no more relevant credential than an honorable discharge from the military.
He also lamented about the character of young people as demonstrated by their lack of manners and social graces. He would enjoy a trip to a U.S. Marine Corps base. I visit one quite often, and am constantly gratified to see the bright eyes making solid contact, the firm and courteous greeting, and the overall demeanor of those with whom I interact. Remember, I am referring to individuals who did not go to college out of high school; or in some cases did not finish high school.
I am not suggesting that all young people should serve in the military in lieu of college. I am suggesting that parents and school systems could, if they had the will, achieve similar results. The template has existed forever.
BTW, I have a grand daughter presently in college. From what I hear, her parents are literally pouring money down a rat hole. There is no serious teaching going on. Fortunately, I suspect that her school year part-time job, in a day care environment, along with her summer job as a boarding camp councilor, will stand her in good stead in her chosen field of Childhood Development. Kind of like apprenticeships.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo OldFlyerBob: You may be interested or already know of the military's attempt at situational ethics with new troops. It seems that the relativism that pervades our culture appears among young recruits. And it's acknowledged that thinking about whether you should be shooting back can mean the end of your and your buddy's life. So... they sit the platoons in a room and pose questions and lead them through the process of sorting out the right and the wrong.
Sort of ridiculous on one hand, except when you consider that many of these young people only had one parent around and likely didn't know a pastor.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm retired now, so perhaps my experience is a bit out of date. During my working career, I participated heavily or led the college recruiting efforts of three Fortune 500 Corporations. We selected Colleges/Universities where the admission requirements were highly selective, the curriculum was demanding and the graduation rates were relatively low. We only inverviewed Science or Engineering graduates or MBA's from solid schools after the candidate had several years of work experience. We paid a premium salary for selected hires, and profited from their intellect, flexibility and drive. While there can be personal value from other degrees (BA English, etc.) it did not have value to us, and therefore those candidates were not considered. We probably missed some potential stars, but the batting average of our approach was very good.
Averages can be very misleading, unless the recruiter is looking for average candidates. As a side line, we did not recruit at Ivy League schools, but concentrated heavily on the next tier - UT Austin, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Duke, Purdue, Carnegie, etc. Candidates were just as sharp, and more flexible.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCASE STUDY: Me
I graduated from the University of Vermont in 1977 (not too terribly different from 1980) with a fairly useless Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Carter was President then, and there weren't jobs for graduates who had good degrees, just like today. I ended up enlisting in the Army.
Ended up going to Officer Candidate School, which made me a great bargain for the Army at a time when they were shelling out a then-astronomical average of $45,000 in tuition for ROTC grads. They didn't care what my degree was in; just that I had one. Later, they paid for me to get a Masters in International Relations.
I was medically retired for disability in 1991, the same year I finished paying off my college student loans. Having no useful civilian skill, the Veterans Administration sent me back to school for two years so that I could get my teacher certification (I had my BA, and Masters, but I had to have the requisite "Theory of Education" courses, etc.).
I've taught in the public schools ever since, and will be able to take teacher retirement in 2016.
Was college worth it? I have to say yes. Just having that diploma opened lots of doors along the way -- many of them doors I never even considered back in 1973 when Nixon was president and I was a freshman.
And by the way, the Universy of Vermont was a Playboy Top Ten Party School evey year I was there, including two #2 rankings, and a National Championship my sophomore year!
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