Nobody is claiming you can't make good money running a small plumbing company or finding a niche trade.
The claim is "on average, those with college degrees out-earn those without college degrees." The existence of skilled tradesmen who earn good incomes doesn't discredit the analysis. They just contribute to average.
More specifically, the path to making good money in the trades can be long and arduous (relative to college and a desk job). Years as an electrician's apprentice earning low wages. A journeyman electrician makes reasonable money, but it's not until you either strike out on your own (with the risk that entails) OR specialize in something in high demand (time to acquire that skill) that the income really goes up into the range most of us would consider high/good.
Welding is one trade I see mentioned a lot. Skilled welders (food-grade, off-shore, underwater) can make excelling money. But, the job is still pretty crap compared to many desk jobs. The food-grade jobs are hot, long-hours, on-call, and wages are only good, not great. The off-shore stuff is dangerous and requires weeks/months away from home.
The claim is "on average, those with college degrees out-earn those without college degrees."
No it's not: instead it's the prescriptive advice that high school graduates should go to college. But if you follow up one of the references:
"However, when we look at wages for the 25th percentile of college graduates, the picture is not quite so rosy. In fact, there is almost no difference in the wages for this percentile ranking of college graduates and the median wage for high school graduates throughout the entire period. This means that the wages for a sizable share of college graduates below the 25th percentile are actually less than the wages earned by a typical worker with a high school diploma."
Why do you think that? The claim in the article was clear: “According to repeated analyses by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a four-year degree generates an annual return of 14 percent over a 40-year career.”
There are many many other sources that back up this claim too. I linked to other Fed data above that shows an average ~2x income premium for grads. It’s actually true that college grads, statistically speaking, earn more than non-grads in the U.S.
> there is almost no difference in the wages for this [25th] percentile ranking of college graduates and the median wage for high school graduates throughout the entire period.
This quote ironically and hilariously supports the claim that college grads earn more. It’s comparing the 25th percentile of grads to the 50th percentile of non-grads. Hahaha!
Nobody is claiming you can't make good money running a small plumbing company or finding a niche trade.
The claim is "on average, those with college degrees out-earn those without college degrees." The existence of skilled tradesmen who earn good incomes doesn't discredit the analysis. They just contribute to average.
More specifically, the path to making good money in the trades can be long and arduous (relative to college and a desk job). Years as an electrician's apprentice earning low wages. A journeyman electrician makes reasonable money, but it's not until you either strike out on your own (with the risk that entails) OR specialize in something in high demand (time to acquire that skill) that the income really goes up into the range most of us would consider high/good.
Welding is one trade I see mentioned a lot. Skilled welders (food-grade, off-shore, underwater) can make excelling money. But, the job is still pretty crap compared to many desk jobs. The food-grade jobs are hot, long-hours, on-call, and wages are only good, not great. The off-shore stuff is dangerous and requires weeks/months away from home.