| > Education powerfully influences lifetime earnings Based on what? There is positive correlation between educational attainment and lifetime earnings, but that does not imply that education is an influencer. One reasonable explanation for that correlation is that one who has qualities and habits that allow them to do well in the education system are also qualities and habits that do well in the economy. Certainly, those with crippling disabilities or other life challenges that sees them do poorly in school are also understood to have no economic future due to those same disabilities/life challenges, so it seems we have an intuitive understanding of that to some degree. To find influence we can't just pick a top economic performer at random and compare him to a poor economic performer. We need to find the same person with and without an education. Luckily we can essentially do that, to a close enough approximation, by looking at an average person in the past when people didn't seek education and an average person after seeking education became commonplace. Unluckily, primary school rose in prominence before we had good record keeping. But, luckily, post-secondary education rose during the time where we started having great record keeping. Here's the thing: Incomes held stagnant during that time. Lifetime earnings did not increase for the individual after gaining a (post secondary) education. They made just as much when they didn't go to college. Those with high earnings were more likely to go to college by this time, sure, but that's not the same thing. Despite the record keeping being poor, we do know that incomes did rise during the rise of primary and secondary education. So while a post-secondary education clearly has no impact on lifetime earnings, even if someone destined to have high lifetime earnings is likely to attend a post-secondary school, the effects of primary and secondary education remains less clear. However, during that time incomes continued to rise even when there was no meaningful change in the education received, so the correlation in that case is most likely just coincidence. There was a lot of economic change happening at that time that provides a much more reasonable explanation for why incomes were rising. |
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| ▲ | tptacek 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You're making the mistake I called out but on a grander scale. Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Labor markets, demographics, taxes, unionization, labor force participation, even technology; you name it. I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. I think this argument feels intuitively true to you, and maybe it could be, but maybe any argument is true. | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Virtually everything about the cohorts you're comparing are different! Not meaningfully so. Life doesn't move that fast. There is only one year between when the average person didn't go to college and when the average person did go to college. More ideal would be to put the exact same person into parallel universes on those different tracks, but let me know when you figure out how to do that. In the real world, that is the closest approximation we can get. And what we were able to plainly observe is that there was no change in earnings. Which is interesting as it pertains to your point as it is unlikely in a vacuum that two random average people would ever have the same earnings, so the fact that they landed in the very same spot does suggest that our approximation is much closer than it seems you want to believe. > I have no idea whether there's an innate structure in people that's causally determinative of lifetime income. Nobody does. There are plausible explanations, but we have no scientific evidence of what the "secret sauce" is. Which, with your recognizing that, makes your earlier claim of education influencing lifetime earnings even more ridiculous. > I don't think this kind of faux-axiomatic reasoning can get you to the kind of certainty you have here. You must have misread something as the only certainty I offered was that college hasn't lead to higher lifetime earnings for individuals, which we know is the case as we have comprehensive income data to prove it. You cannot both earn more and earn the same. Someone with high lifetime earnings, statistically, also having a college education is not the same thing. There is one caveat here. We can see in the data around the top 1% of earners that the majority of them have access to a restricted market (think doctor, lawyer, etc.) which most people legally are not allowed to participate in. As you know from Econ 101, an artificially restricted supply artificially increases prices, so that offers a pretty good explanation for how they are able to earn so much more than everyone else. Here's where things get messy: Access to those markets is often granted through the colleges. That might be where you got the idea that education influences lifetime earnings, but we find the same economic benefits where access to restricted markets is given outside of colleges as well. There is little evidence that college is signifiant there—only the access part. But I can understand your confusion if that is what you had in mind, conflating it because colleges also try to offer education. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 2 days ago | parent [-] | | We're probably talking past each other then because I read you the other way. Either way: in 2026 there is still a striking college income premium, statistically (it's over 50%). It's presumably much lower than it was before (more people go to college and also the labor market changed; it will change even more sharply in the coming years due to automation). If we're both arguing that economic outcomes are messily related to lots of different causes, we're saying the same thing. | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg a day ago | parent [-] | | > in 2026 there is still a striking college income premium, statistically (it's over 50%). We can make this real simple: 64% of the population have a degree. The median income is unchanged since before <50% of the population had a degree. If individuals gained a premium, we'd have to have seen an increase in the median income after >50% of the population attained a degree. That is a mathematical necessity. But it didn't happen... There is no college premium, plain and simple. While incomes are stagnant for nearly all individuals, college degree or not, I suspect what you are trying to point out is that the so-called top 1% has seen a dramatic rise in income and that most in the top 1% have a degree. Therefore, the combined income of all degree holders has risen at a rate faster than the remainder of the population, even if most degree holders have seen no change. That is definitely true, but a long way from your claim that education influences lifetime earnings. Given that only a small subset of all degree holders have found what could be called a premium, it is unlikely that the premium is influenced by college; at least not in a consistent or reproducible way to make it a useful claim. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek a day ago | parent [-] | | Wait, what? I don't want to get pulled into an argument about college that I'm not invested in, but how is this even arithmetically true? I can bestow a lifetime increase on two people in the bottom half cohort without changing the median at all. Like, I'd need us to share premises about what the term "median" means before talking about anything else in this argument. | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg a day ago | parent [-] | | It's curious that you find it necessary for us to share what "median" means, but then not share, but I guess you must have accidentally pressed the "Reply" button before you were finished? We can do a simple thought experiment here. If 0% of the population have a degree, do you agree that the median income holder does not have a degree? If 100% of the population have a degree, do you agree that the median income holder does have a degree? So when the degree attainment rate crosses the 50% mark, do you agree that the median income holder must have a degree? My definition says yes. And since the degree brings a premium, how do you explain the median income not rising? Maybe the premium you are imagining is just hugs and kisses? I know, you think the median income has somehow always been filled by a degree holder, even when only a small segment of the population had a degree. But how is that possible when education influences lifetime earnings? Shouldn't those with education be making more than the median when those with education are a small segment of the population? | | |
| ▲ | defrost a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Not whom you questioned, but ... > We can do a simple thought experiment here. Yes, and Yes. > when the degree attainment rate crosses the 50% mark, do you agree that the median income holder must have a degree? No. I don't even agree that there is necessarily a single median income holder - there may well be a hundred, sixty with a degree and 40 without. Also possible that in a hypothetical population with 1,001 people that 1,000 people have a degree but the sole median income earner does not. | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg a day ago | parent [-] | | I don't question anyone in particular. This is a discussion forum, not a private one-on-one conversation. > there may well be a hundred, sixty with a degree and 40 without. So what you are suggesting is that attaining a degree lowers your earnings and then gives you back a commensurate premium, thus restoring you back to the same level as those without a degree? That's a take, I guess, but premium usually comes with certain connotations that isn't that. > Also possible that in a hypothetical population with 1,001 people that 1,000 people have a degree but the sole median income earner does not. Again, where is the premium? If the only person without a degree isn't the lowest earner then we know that the person with the least earnings has a degree, but it was asserted that the person with the least earnings is given a premium over those without a degree, so... Are your numbers omitting a space alien or fairy without a degree where we earlier considered them to be people? It's not clear how to resolve this discrepancy. |
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| ▲ | tptacek a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm so confused by what you think the "median" means here. Take the set "1 5 9". "1" goes to college and gets a 60% income improvement; generously, round that up to 2. What's the before/after median? | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You seem to be missing the part about assuming college graduates are given a premium above those who are not college graduates, which was seemingly what the discussion was about earlier. So what you are saying is that someone who is the lowest paid person can remain the lowest paid person by going to college? We'll take your word for it since that has never been considered interesting enough for anyone else to study — remaining the lowest paid person isn't usually a goal one strives for — but what's the significance of that to have mentioned it earlier? | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | You can make other arguments about the connection between college and lifetime income, certainly! But they aren't the mathematically closed argument you made early, the one you preceded with "We can make this real simple". It appears --- and I'm sorry to belabor this point --- that it was "real simple" because it was based on an unconventional definition of a central tendency statistic. I'm still curious about what that definition might have been? | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | Right, we made it simple and assumed that college brought a premium, as was earlier told was the case. Therefore, in the simple model, all college graduates occupy the top earning spots. So when >50% of the earning population are college graduates then the median earner must have a college degree. Now that you're saying that in reality college graduates don't see a premium over non-college graduates and actually occupy the lowest income class then obviously the simplified model breaks. Thems the breaks when you try to simplify. A simplified model will always be just that: a simplification. It remains unclear what non-standard definition of median you are thinking of? You said you needed to share it earlier but still haven't... | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I'm saying that you can take someone on either side of a median income statistic and increase their income without changing the median, contrary to your claim that median income statistics prove that lower-income people can't be getting income improvement from college degrees, which, I'll admit, I'm being snarky about pointing out to you, but... still obvious? The rest of it is not an argument worth having because I don't have strong opinions about the lifetime income premium for college attendence (or the human capital vs. signaling arguments behind it). I didn't attend; I went to work right after high school. Be as mean as you want to college! | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I'm saying that you can take someone on either side of a median income statistic and increase their income without changing the median That's true, but has little to do with our discussion. What is the purpose of this diversion? Realized that your non-standard definition you were concerned about earlier but were afraid to share isn't useful and now want to make it clear to me that you have come to understand what median normally means? It makes no difference to me. > I don't have strong opinions about the lifetime income premium for college attendence Was there some reason for us to think you did? Not sure what this is trying to add either. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | What diversion? You presented a mathematical argument against the college income premium that misconstrued how the median works. | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | So you keep implying but still haven't shown how that is the case except when you totally changed the preconditions arbitrarily. The assumptions made in the simplified model, based on the discussion before it, was that 62% of the population (with degrees) have incomes higher than the remaining 38% of the population (without degrees). If you really want to go back to your non-standard median definition, tell us how someone(s) in the bottom 38% can represent the median. |
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