Gregg Easterbrook, working from a study of post-collegiate incomes, argues that the value of going to the most selective schools is overrated; Matt Yglesias comments that having the resume that gets admissions officers at those schools interested does matter. What the discussion leaves me wondering is how much having a college diploma matters.

Easterbrook understands that you can’t just compare the average wage of graduates of very selective schools to the average wage of graduates of less selective ones. You have to control for student aptitudes to figure out how much of the apparent wage premium from going to selective schools is a function of their having more academically capable students. But when it comes to the premium from going to college at all, he makes no such adjustment. (“Research does find an unmistakable advantage to getting a bachelor’s degree. In 2002, according to Census Bureau figures, the mean income of college graduates was almost double that of those holding only high school diplomas.”) Yet presumably part of what we think of as a reward to college diplomas is really a reward to high IQs–but those letters don’t get a mention in Easterbrook’s piece.