
Education pays ... - robg
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
======
gjm11
Education pays. Or being clever gets you more education, and also pays. Or
being willing to work hard does those things. Or coming from a family with
more money, or with a particular kind of attitude (curiosity? go-getting?
...), does those things. Or there's a lot of prejudice out there (on the basis
of sex, skin colour, or whatever) that affects both how a person's education
goes and how their later career does. Or any combination of those. Or any
number of other possibilities.

All together, now: Correlation is not the same thing as causation.

~~~
feralchimp
It's much worse than that. The linked article is about the 'median wage' at
each of those education levels. I can't imagine a metric less interesting to
HN than 'median performance.'

Show me the top 10% of earners, then give me the breakdown of how much
traditional education those people consumed. Hustlers aren't getting by on
their credentials.

~~~
dredmorbius
What's wrong with using median in this instance?

Other than knocking off a few obvious outliers: Mssrs. Gates, Jobs, Ellison,
and Zuckerberg, I believe.

~~~
bad_user
It's wrong because average people are more likely to do average things in
their life, like pursuing a college degree because that's the common thing to
do.

Outliers on the other hand sometimes choose their own path. Sometimes they
drop out of college because of financial problems, but still attend courses
that interest them. Sometimes they choose to learn on the job, by making
mistakes and fixing them, by screwing around disassembling stuff, by learning
from mentors they admire, by trying out new things and so on and so forth.

Saying that Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg are college dropouts really ignores that
these people are/were more educated than the hordes of people coming out with
master degrees. And this I think is the biggest problem with our educational
system, the fact that these alternate paths aren't properly recognized.

Disclaimer: I'm also a college dropout, I regret it and intend to finish
college, on the other hand I have a monthly revenue at least 3 times bigger
than the software industry's medium salary in my city for senior developers.

~~~
dredmorbius
Um, you're not OP.

What are you suggesting as a preferred measure of central tendency if not
median? The usual suspects include arithmetic mean (strong outlier bias,
especially for incomes), or mode (which has other problems).

Or are you suggesting that measures of central tendency are inappropriate for
this sort of analysis altogether? In which case, what population/sampling
moments would you use instead?

I'd suggest that 2 is false. For a policy analysis, you're interested in
either total (mean) or typical (median) outcomes. Probably median. You might
toss in some floor/ceiling limits as well (if a particular course of action
has a highly bi-modal tendency, with one mode being particularly low, it's not
so hot).

As to my own feelings on the matter: a good college education is really
valuable. I've certainly met people who are brilliant and/or successful who
haven't finished, or even in some cases attended college. One of the biggest
problems (and it ultimately does become a problem) with the latter is what I
call the "chip on the shoulder" issue: it's an awareness that the person has
that they _haven't_ been to college and a mix of compensation and confidence
issues resulting.

Much of what you learn in college comes from the context: who you're exposed
to, what you're exposed to, library access (much less significant today than
20 years ago, given the Internet and its resources, but there are still huge
amounts of information _not_ readily available online). You absolutely can
experience much of this outside the academic environment, but you've got to
work at it.

At the same time, there are many schools (and student bodies) which are
uninspired, and programs which do a poor job of preparing students for the
outside world. There were holes in my education. There was much that I learned
in college which was self-directed, or incidental.

One of the bigger lessons was the degree to which you might want to discount
some random professor/researcher's claim of something ;-)

------
mhartl
All such studies suffer from the same debilitating flaw—there are almost
certainly confounding variables at work. To reach any firm conclusion, you
would need to compare degree recipients with a cohort of statistically
equivalent people who could have earned degree _X_ but did something else
instead. All these "education pays" charts show is that people who earn
advanced degrees earn more money. But such people are also probably smarter
and more determined than average. You don't need a Ph.D. to know that
correlation doesn't imply causation.

P.S. This is not sour grapes. I have degrees in physics from Harvard (A.B.)
and Caltech (M.S., Ph.D.), and I make well more than the median earnings for
Ph.D.s.

P.P.S. I know the real reason these sorts of studies proliferate, but this
comment is too small to contain it.

~~~
fdschoeneman
Stories like this pop up frequently on HN. But I'm intrigued by your post post
script. What do you think is the reason for the proliferation of these
studies, and why do they so often ignore the correlation-does-not-prove-
causation fallacy?

In this case, I see two possibilities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics author
is too dumb to understand the fallacy. The second is that she does understand
the fallacy, but thinks that at least some Americans won't. If the latter,
what purpose would that serve?

Interesting.

~~~
roel_v
I think it's because not because these numbers are imperfect, or because many
things can be read into them that shouldn't, that they are completely useless.
In the end you need some data that is intuitive to understand, even if there
are many ifs and buts involved.

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ivankirigin
It is irresponsible to show these graphs that average different degrees
together. The top 5 majors earn 2X the bottom 5:

<http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp>

~~~
suivix
Perhaps it's too much data for just a few graphs but it would also be
interesting to see race, gender, and so on.

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meterplech
This topic reaches the frontpage on HN at least once a week. Can we avoid
rehashing the same arguments? Maybe just vote these up when something original
comes up.

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justin_vanw
So, does education make you better at your job? My experience says that there
is very little correlation between having a MS vs a BS vs no degree in the
quality of work people get done, at least as a professional coder. In fact, to
me, a Masters is a red flag, it causes me to give a person additional
scrutiny, because of the huge glut of awful coders with Masters that I have
run into.

So, in my experience, having a more advanced degree could only lead to higher
income because of big companies with big HR departments, the government, and
other clueless employers giving a pay differential.

I would love to see the numbers comparing someone with a PHD from Shit State,
compared to a person with a BS from Princeton, compared to a person with a
genius level IQ who dropped out of Berkley. Or a PHD in History vs a BS in
Math.

I'm always suspicious of PHD's in industry. You don't get a PHD to go work for
GE, you go work for GE when you have a piece of paper with PHD on it but can't
get an academic position.

So, what I'm saying is, while education level may be correlated with income,
it's not a cause, except where employers are clueless.

~~~
_dps
I occasionally run into this "I'm suspicious of Ph.D.s in industry" phenomenon
and frankly it's baffling. (disclosure: I am obviously biased by having a
Ph.D. and no longer being an academic)

Ph.Ds. in industry create lots of amazing things: UNIX, 747s, airbags,
wireless protocols, manufacturing robots, search engines, and logistics
optimization systems are just a few that almost everyone depends on every
single day (indirectly in some cases). These are not systems that can be
designed without a large amount of focused domain knowledge, which is
precisely what the Ph.D. entails.

Sure, there are some people with Ph.D.s who are impractical and unsuited for
front-line "get things done" work. I can assure you that is an intrinsic
personality trait and not something created by intensely focused study on
interesting ideas, which is the defining characteristic of the doctorate.

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blackhole
There is a big, big, big problem when comparing degrees: People with PhD's are
older and therefore have more experience. Everything in this entire chart
could theoretically be attributed entirely to experience and not education. Of
course, it could also all be education, but as they say, Correlation does not
imply Causation.

------
dereg
This is a specious argument by the bls. The question isn't whether education
pays or not; the real question is whether or not education increases a
person's productivity.

I'd argue not. It all depends on the degree. College is a form of job training
for people like engineers, in which case it has a high return on investment.
However, many [if not most] degrees have no relevance to their college
degrees.

As many as 63% of college graduates occupy jobs that don't require a college
degree! (Uncited, lazy, sorry.)

So does college "pay"? Sure. Does it increase one's skills and productivity?
Factoring the opportunity costs, it's hard to tell. I'm in the camp of people
who argue that the returns to higher education are due to what's called a
"sheepskin", or "signalling", effect in economics.

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cmagahern
Interesting that doctoral degrees do not pay more on average than professional
ones! Perhaps it is because most PhD's enter the field of research as opposed
to industry? I haven't met that many PhD's in industry but there are a few.

~~~
alttag
It doesn't say "PhDs", it says "Doctoral degrees", which may mean (it isn't
clear), that EdD (Doctor of Education, a common degree for public school
administrators), DBA (Doctor of Business Administration, usually from
Harvard), EDB (Executive Doctor of Business, typically offered to already
successful business people) and other similar specialized but not necessarily
"professional" degrees (which I interpret to mean MD, JD, DDS, chiropractic,
etc.) would be in this group.

------
Maven911
Does either an engineering degree or mba or CS degree count as a professional
degree for BLS ?

~~~
yardie
I believe a professional degree is MD, DDS, etc.

A BSN is an undergraduate professional degree so I'm not sure where it falls
in that list.

Edit: Engineering and accounting are professional degress, computer science is
not.

~~~
arethuza
So they are "professional" because the are part of the standard career track
that eventually leads to someone getting a formal "professional"
qualification? That would suggest that an MBA is not a professional degree,
although it is a vocational degree, because MBA graduates don't typically go
on to become formally professionally qualified (e.g. unlike lawyers, medical
doctors, etc.).

[NB I'm in the UK and while I know plenty lawyers/chartered engineers etc.
I've never heard anyone talk about a "professional degree"].

~~~
yardie
No they are professional because they are required* as part of the license in
that profession. To be an RN you have have to have a Bachelors of Science in
Nursing. A CS major couldn't become an RN but an RN can become a software
developer. It is the same for accountants, doctors, surgeons, etc.

Professional degrees are very specific and single focused. An MBA is just an
MBA, no career requires it, but it is a nice to have. It is not considered a
professional degree although many professionals do have it.

[*] and when I say required it is a felony to work in that field without the
proper degree or license.

~~~
arethuza
I didn't think UK CAs have to have a degree in accounting, I'm also pretty
sure that you _can_ become a CEng without an engineering degree, it's just
very difficult.

I know that in law in Scotland you need two academic qualifications (a law
degree, and a postgrad diploma in legal practise) then two years training
before you qualify as a solicitor. However, if you want to go to the bar you
only need a law degree - but then you have to do a specialised training course
and then devil for a year before you can be called.

------
tryitnow
I still get a kick out of people who talk about how education pays but don't
the whole correlation/causation thing. Apparently, education for them does not
include basic stats.

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antimora
I hope this data is normalized and other contributing factors such age are
removed. It is better to see a regration model than pure stat graphs.

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epicureanideal
Looks like the benefits of a bachelors are shrinking

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lukeholder
yes, having education might mean you can get the job that pays more but this
does take into account the unemployed into the median.

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nobody314159265
That is current averages ie. historical data.

What it says is that somebody who got a medical/law degree 20-30 years ago,
did very well over the last 20-30 years.

It says nothing about whether somebody leaving school today will do better in
20-30 years having spent 10x as much as their parents generation on college -
rather than becoming a plumber or electrician or founding a startup

~~~
nobody314159265
And it's even worse than that - 20/30 years ago most of those none
law/medicine degrees would have got somebody a VP type job. Now a non-
professional degree gets you an entry level secretary job.

If you compare the lifetime earnings of a rare graduate 30years ago with those
of a new 'social studies' type grad today it will be a lot worse

------
suivix
Has anyone considered that maybe the types of people who become educated are
also more motivated?

People who floss their teeth have a 7 year higher life expectancy. Obviously,
flossing your teeth doesn't increase it.

~~~
georgemcbay
I agree with your primary point, but your follow-up example isn't the
greatest... Flossing your teeth can have a real impact on health -- gum
disease (which flossing is an excellent preventative agent against) can cause
all sorts of serious health problems like increased risk of heart attack and
stroke. People with periodontal disease have a 2x greater chance of coronary
artery disease than people without periodontal disease. That's a pretty big
deal.

~~~
roel_v
The first point (gum disease can cause health problems) is most likely true,
even if just intuitively, but they would have to be pretty serious to reduce
life expectancy by 7 years - even smoking reduces it by 'only' 14 years, and
I'd be hard pressed to believe that not flossing is half as dangerous as
smoking.

The second argument is a classical cause/effect thing. I can't imagine that
tooth diseases increase heart diseases by 100%, but I can very easily imagine
that people with certain habits (eating lots of cheap unhealthy food with much
fat and sugar) suffer from both.

Then again I don't know anything about this field, if there is any research
that confirms your arguments I'd be surprised but interested.

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naughtysriram
Education Pays.. right.. Who will pay for education??

~~~
rooshdi
...the educated?

~~~
naughtysriram
Or to call them the paid / rich?

~~~
rooshdi
How about the educated / rich?

