[vitus]

> This data isn’t a statistical sampling, BTW, the Fed has data on all US citizens.

Actually... that report leans very heavily on the Survey of Consumer Finances [0], which is absolutely a sampling (latest iteration was 6500 families out of the 120 million households in the US).

Per page 3 of the report: "We use the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which covers family heads born throughout the twentieth century, to determine whether the economic and financial benefits of obtaining a postsecondary degree have changed over time."

[0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/aboutscf.htm

[dahart]

Oh, thanks for the correction. I guess I got the incorrect idea that the Fed had access to IRS income data last time I looked at this paper a couple years ago. Hopefully the small sample size doesn’t do too much damage to the accuracy of the “income premium” of college education, and the basic point that people should be aware of the income premium before claiming that education is not worth the cost.