The Case For Degrees

Formal college degree requirements are being somewhat rolled back in government hiring and H.R. Departments, but revealed preferences in hiring, and the economic edge associated with having a degree has soared, and far more people have them than did two decades ago (48.3% of Americans age 25 years or older, with women more likely to earn degrees than men). Even the last decade has made a difference in educational attainment:

• From 2011 to 2021, the percentage of adults age 25 and older who had completed high school increased for all race and Hispanic origin groups. During this period, high school completion increased from 92.4% to 95.1% for the non-Hispanic White population; from 84.5% to 90.3% for the Black population; from 88.6% to 92.9% for the Asian population; and from 64.3% to 74.2% for the Hispanic population.
• From 2011 to 2021, the percentage of adults age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 34.0% to 41.9% for the non-Hispanic White population; from 19.9% to 28.1% for the Black population; from 50.3% to 61.0% for the Asian population; and from 14.1% to 20.6% for the Hispanic population.

In 1910, high school diplomas were more scarce than graduate degrees are today. In 1970, 55.2% of people age 25 years and older had high school diplomas, just a little more than the percentage of people that age who have college degrees today. When I graduate from high school, 76.9% of people 25 years of age or older were high school graduates.

The economic premium associated with having a college degree has increases steadily since 1972 (the chart below uses the hourly wage v. salaried and business income distinction, but the two track each other):

The economic advantage of getting a college degree remains at just about an all-time high when compared with the average earnings of Americans with only a high-school diploma. In recent years, a typical college graduate earned a median wage premium of more than $30,000, or almost 75 percent more than those who had completed just high school, a 2019 New York Fed analysis found. . . .

We often hear that the strong preference for degrees isn’t fair to the majority of Americans who didn’t go to college. But that majority is falling fast, and the percentage of college-educated American adults is pushing 50 percent when associate degrees are included. And while the percentage of Black and Latino college graduates is significantly lower, it is far higher than a few decades earlier. In fact, in 1960, only 41 percent of Americans had completed high school. It might have been plausible then to argue that plenty of dropouts had great talents and were unfairly penalized by high school diploma requirements. But it would have been badly misguided to oppose efforts to vastly improve high school graduation rates, which stand at 91 percent today.

From a New York Times op-ed column.