[JamesBarney]

The average college graduate still makes more than your average plumber.

The issue is at the margin there are a lot of kids going to college who are wasting their time. But still most of the kids in college are making a good financial decision even if all of the aren't.

[randomdata]

> But still most of the kids in college are making a good financial decision even if all of the aren't.

Not likely. The data continues to show that incomes are stagnant. If there was a financial benefit, not just filtering, incomes should be rising alongside the rise of college attainment.

The filtering effect is real. Colleges put a lot of effort into rejecting people who aren't "born successful" to maintain an aura of prestige. Colleges pumping out graduates with severe mental disabilities that hinder learning, for example, would not serve the brand well. The model only works if you limit the possibility of graduation to those considered the "best of the best". The same people who are more likely to do well in their careers. There being an income spectrum, with some making a lot of money, and some making very little, predates the existence of college.

The decline in college attainment among males no doubt comes on the back of colleges recognizing that males are now less valuable in society (i.e. they are less likely to be among the best of the best) and apply the appropriate filters in response, not the other way around.

[JamesBarney]

> Not likely. The data continues to show that incomes are stagnant. If there was a financial benefit, not just filtering, incomes should be rising alongside the rise of college attainment.

This is a good argument college isn't making workers more valuable. But that doesn't mean college won't increase your personal income. Just imagine a world where all the jobs stay the same but employers preferentially pick college grabs because they believe they're smarter and harder working.

This value the degree holder gets is called signalling theory. And it'll make the degree holder richer without making the economy richer.

[randomdata]

> Just imagine a world where all the jobs stay the same but employers preferentially pick college grabs because they believe they're smarter and harder working.

If that hypothetical world existed the smarter and harder working people would be the only ones capable of graduating from college, and so the economic order would remain unchanged, leaving no economic benefit for anyone.

Furthermore, the smart and hard working people going to college would realize a net loss in their economic potential as, given that employee value did not rise, their income would not increase to offset the larger expense of going to college. Smart people aren't going to accept lesser economic potential without anything else in return. They are smart enough to know what they bring to the workplace.

And, so, if that hypothetical world existed the smart and hard working people would quickly stop going to college, pushing colleges to crush academic standards so that anyone could pass in order to maintain some kind of student base. But soon employers would catch on that college graduates are actually the dumb and lazy and any signal potential that existed for a brief moment in time would be lost.

When I was a kid, many decades ago, there were always rumours of what you describe being the reality at some point in history, but it hasn't been a thing since I've been an adult. If it was ever the reality it quickly succumbed to the unstable nature of such an arrangement. I strongly suspect it never happened, though. The whole idea has the markings of it being an advertising campaign.

Indeed, the data does show that the smart and hard working are more likely to have a higher income within the same cohort over those who aren't as smart or hard working. Colleges also try to attract the same kind of person. This develops an undeniable correlation. But the smart and hard working would still have the higher incomes even if college magically disappeared, just as they did before college was a thing. It is not a causal relationship.

[JamesBarney]

Do you really think if you took 200 22 year olds and gave 100 of them 4.0 GPA degrees from Harvard that those two cohorts would make the exact same income over the next 10 years?

[randomdata]

Compared to themselves in a parallel universe where no degrees were awarded, yes. A 4.0 GPA from Harvard isn't making the kid with Down syndrome any more hireable than they already were. If the cure for Down syndrome, or any other condition that impacts one's potential, was as simple as handing them a degree from Harvard on a silver platter, we'd be helping a lot more people than we do.

Where did you come up with this idea that a degree is a medical cure?

[JamesBarney]

You keep thinking im arguing that a degree makes society better off, I'm not arguing that. Im arguing the degree makes the holder better off.

But it sounds like we can agree the degree makes the individual better off in this world. Even if it doesn't compared to another world.

[notfromhere]

That's only if you assume no college degree actually offers skills. Plenty of fields where you can't be productive without the education.

[ModernMech]

It's an interesting theory, but how do you explain associates degree holders having higher lifetime earnings than high school diploma holders? Surely community colleges can't be found guilty of being prestige factories that filter out poor performing students.

[randomdata]

> Surely community colleges can't be found guilty of being prestige factories that filter out poor performing students.

No? Back in my day community colleges still had relatively stringent entrance requirements and would not see you graduate if you did not meet a certain level of academic excellence during the course of being there, not to mention the imposition of a financial barrier to have the economically disadvantaged think twice. The expectations weren't as high as college. They certainly were not gunning for the same calibre of people as Harvard. But they weren't fawning over people with Down syndrome either.

Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack. Those who did reasonably well at things, but were not the stars, with admissions expectations to match. What you tell us about income mirrors the social expectations. Those who can make it through college are higher on the "born to do well" spectrum than those who could only make it through high school.

Let's face it, a lot of people out there could never make it through college, or even community college, even if they wanted nothing more in life. It can be hard, and when things are hard, some will fail. They just weren't born with the "right stuff". And it turns out that "right stuff" can also impact one's career in significant ways. The aforementioned people with Down syndrome aren't CEOs at a Fortune 500s just because they didn't go to college.

[ModernMech]

> Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack.

I think things have indeed changed. The role you describe is filled by state schools now. These days the biggest admissions barrier to community college is the residency requirement. Fulfill that and you’re pretty much guaranteed a spot. (Source: attended community college for some time)

[cpwright]

At the local community college where I grew up ago they had open enrollment 25 years ago. Anyone in the county could attend. That doesn't mean they didn't have standards for you to pass the courses necessary to graduate.

[randomdata]

Suggesting that incomes should start to normalize as the kids with down syndrome start graduating form community college more and more? That's quite reasonable, if what you say is true.

Last time I saw the numbers only ~40% of Americans had reached some kind of post-secondary achievement, so even semi-recently it has still be fairly abnormal to graduate from college, including community college.

Incomes are stagnant, so as more and a wider set of the population attain such scholastic achievement in community college the averages on this level will mathematically have to show a decline, which will narrow the gap spoken of before relative to today's high school.

[sokoloff]

When I look back to my high-school graduating class, in general terms, the community college attendees were the “middle students”, so the poorest performing students did not (perhaps naturally did not) attend any college.

[somenameforme]

Median income of somebody with a bachelor's degree is $60,585 [1].

Median income of a plumber is $59,880 [2].

The big gaps you'll find rely on either average income (where an uncapped high + hard capped low = inflated numbers) or household income. There are numerous biases that deserve mentioning, but the simple component of college debt vs earn while you lean means plumbers are probably already better off on "average".

[1] - https://dqydj.com/income-by-education/

[2] - https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm

[JamesBarney]

That's a good point I was using average and not median.

But I think my argument that >50% of college grads are better off having gone to college than plumbing school is true.

If you broke it into quartiles i bet the top quartile college graduate does much better than the top quartile plumber. The second quartile grad does moderately better than plumbers. The 3rd quartile about the same and the 4th significantly worse.

I see the quartile data for plumbers trying to find it for bachelor grads.

[randomdata]

> If you broke it into quartiles i bet the top quartile college graduate does much better than the top quartile plumber.

Yes, as long as college here means that one has a professional degree (MD, JD, etc.), where access is granted to a career with an artificially constrained labour supply, thereby producing artificially high incomes. Of course, it's the supply management that boosts incomes, not some mystical power of the degree itself.

Interestingly, having only a bachelor degree seems to put you in a worse position than without, based on what we see in the makeup of high income earners. Which probably isn't too surprising. Graduating from college, save striving for a professional degree to gain access to an artificial market, is where you end up if you weren't already found to be useful in the economy. It's a sign of someone failing economically.