[abecedarius]

People with a degree tend to make more money than people without, even after adjusting for ability and conscientiousness. This is why most students are there at most colleges. It's very hard to teach people things they aren't willingly there for, so that they really get it.

[mulmen]

Ok but why do people with college degrees generally make more money?

[abecedarius]

Bryan Caplan argues it's mostly signaling: employers think (reasonably) that degree-holders tend to be more valuable employees than dropouts and people who didn't go to college, even though the education didn't add much to their productivity. They can't easily tell the able/conscientious/conformist dropouts from the others. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11225.html