Growing up I knew that I would go to college, even though I didn’t know anyone else that had gone. I just knew that I was a “smart” kid who loved to learn. And I believed that higher education was my ticket to a new world. A world full of possibilities, unfamiliar things, new places, ideas, and freedom from economic hardship. I didn’t know what college really entailed or how it would get me to this place. But that idea drove me.
Decades later, I understand that the dream of higher education isn’t perfect. There are no guarantees and it doesn’t absolve you from economic hardship. But, I do know that my matriculation to college did indeed open up that world that I dreamed of so long ago. Which is why I find it hard to hear people dismiss college as worthless.
The heart of this statement is economics. People go to college so that they can get good jobs, so that they can make good money. They often think that a college area of study should directly translate to a job. But this has rarely been the case (unless you wanted to go into academia). It’s always been about the ability to think critically, which unfortunately I don’t think many people value.
We are in a time when the nature of work is changing so much due to technology. The job market is challenging. And so the lack of a direct path towards financial security has raised the question, “is college worth it?” My gut tells me that it is. Certainly I’m not saying that college is for everyone. Nor am I saying that it’s the only path. But I’ve never questioned if college was worth it. I believe it yields real value for people in our society. I decided to go to the data to understand if that is true.
College’s Worth to Me
When I arrived at Vassar College in the mid-2000s, I felt like I had stepped into a new world. The campus was beautiful. I met students who came from across the country and around the globe. Subjects I’d never encountered before filled the course catalog. It was exciting, but also overwhelming. I was far from home and the first person in my family to go away to college, so I had little guidance on how to navigate it all. I didn’t know what I should study, much less how a major might translate into a career. So I followed my curiosity, enrolling in whatever sparked my interest and trusting that, eventually, a path would reveal itself.
In my time at Vassar, I took a wide range of classes and had amazing experiences. I took sociology, political science, a class on Black comedy, the history of jazz, piano lessons, a drawing class, and plenty of economics classes (which ended up becoming my major). I went to London for a semester and learned about philosophy and law.
Thanks to Vassar, I spent a summer in Peru learning Spanish, and a spring break in the Lesser Antilles learning about the African diaspora (and how to dutty wine, lol). I made lifelong friends who have given me tons of laughs, love, and support. The experiences I had and the things I learned at Vassar were the stepping stone for me to break a cycle of unrealized opportunities and economic distress in my family.
I endorse my college experience even with the knowledge of how hard it was for me to get my first job after graduation. Scared and frustrated, I thought that college opened up doors. But it took a year for me to land something. In the interim, because I had learned how to think, look for synergies, and consider the angles, I volunteered at a free legal aid office in Chicago. I believe that that decision was key in eventually helping me get my first job.
The point is that there was no clean, direct path from college to my first role. No one subject that I studied in school that led to a career or even equipped me with the expertise to work in a particular field. But there are a lot of things that I learned in school that I carry with me in my work and how I live my life. How to pick apart and analyze information. How to ask questions. I learned how to write. How to try new things, navigate new spaces, explore new ideas, and reconsider old ones. How everything is connected.
These things are not worthless. They can’t be quantified in dollars and cents, but I will say that they’ve served me well in earning mine. And since that’s what everyone is really concerned about – does higher education positively affect our bottom line – let’s take a look at the data and see.
Who Attains Higher Education in the U.S.
In 2024 36% of Americans age 25 and over had attained at least a bachelor’s degree. We tend to consider college as a given–just the next step that people take after they graduate high school. But the numbers indicate that is not true and has never been. In 1980 only 8% of Americans had a bachelors or above. This makes sense, as more people have been granted access to college, more people go back and attain degrees as adults, and we’ve largely shifted to a knowledge-based economy.
We see stark differences in who holds a Bachelor’s degree across different demographic groups. About 57% of Asians age 25 or older have attained degrees, while just 26% of Black Americans have. About 37% of women have attained higher ed degrees, while approximately 34% of men have.
Attainment varies a bunch across different Hispanic groups as well. Mexicans make up 56% of the Hispanic population, yet they are the Hispanic group with the lowest percent of higher education attainment. Only 43% of Hispanic degree holders are Mexican.
These numbers are important because they give a baseline of which communities are and are not tapping into higher ed. And this has implications in the larger scheme of the country.
College and Earnings
When people say that college is worthless, what they’re really saying is that getting a college degree doesn’t help them get ahead in regards to their potential earnings/financial situation. The data clearly show that that is not true. The median income for degree holders is $27K more than those without.
For every group of people in this country, the median income is greater for those who have a degree than those in their demographic that do not have one. But, the power of that differential varies by group. The data show that different races have very different income distributions, with Asians topping the list as high earners. We saw that over half of Asian adults attain higher ed. The data indicates that not only is this true, but that those with degrees have a higher boost in earnings compared to other racial groups. Because of this racial fact, it becomes necessary for us to look at smaller demographic groups rather than all Americans, so that we get a better view of what higher ed does for a person’s particular life situation.
Income Distributions by Race and Education Attainment
We’ve talked a lot about median income, but I think it’s important to understand the actual distribution of incomes. It’s easy to dismiss these numbers because the medians aren’t in line with what we think people earn. For example, you may be saying “I know plenty of people without a college degree that earn $60K plus”. Showing the distributions in the manner below shows us that yes, this is definitely a reality. But statistically speaking, it is reality for a smaller proportion of the population, especially for some demographic groups.
When we look at how much more the median income of a group is for people who have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to those who do not, we begin to see how much relative advantage higher education has for some people. For example, the gap in median earnings for Asian degree holders is ~$57K. White people have the second highest income for degree holders, yet their earning gap is just $33K. This is because they have the highest median income for people without degrees. This seems to say that regardless of higher education, white people in general manage to earn decent wages.
The same earning patterns follow for different Hispanic groups as well. Hispanics with degrees generally have higher income than those who don’t. The gap between the medians across groups is between $26K-$29K.
We see across the board that people without a college degree do break into the six figure earnings range. But notice that it is the top line, not the actual box that breaks this point. Which means that only those in the 75th percentile (probably higher) and above earn at this level. Also notice that the upper range is highest for white people. We also see that for most demographics, excluding white and Asian, people with a bachelors degree in the 25th percentile of earners don’t even hit $50K in income. This means that for most groups, people with incomes in the lowest 25% earn less than $50K, despite having a college degree.
Below we see a chart that quantifies the income premium that comes from having a college degree by age group and race, for each sex. It can be interpreted as the earning power of each group for those who have a least a bachelor’s degree compared to those who don’t. So Black women with a degree, age 36-40, have a median income 1.84 times more than of those who don’t. And white men with a degree in that same age bracket have a median income 1.75 time more than those who don’t.
In short, the income and education numbers suggest a few things. One, people with a college degree tend to have higher incomes. Two, certain groups get less bang for their buck for having a degree (they earn less than other groups who also have a degree). Three, non-degree holders can break into the upper middle class (we’ll define as $70K+), but they have to be above the top 25% of incomes for their racial demographic.
Occupations and Education
Of course, the elephant in the room when talking about income and education is occupation. It is true that the nature of work is changing very rapidly due to technology. And because of this, some people believe even more that higher education will be less important because people will forge alternative paths for earning money. And college won’t be necessary to walk those paths. Perhaps that is true. But this remains to be seen.
What is clear is that after people climb out of the 21-24 age bracket, there is no occupation where people without at least a bachelor’s degree have a higher median income than those with. And this is across all kinds of jobs. Below you can change the dropdown in the upper right hand corner to see median income comparisons by age group. Hover on the chart to see income details.
Below we can see a breakout of jobs according to their high level category labels, and the median income for those jobs for people with and without a higher education degree. The thickness of the sections give an idea of how many people work in those roles. Hover on the chart to see more detailed information. Use the dropdown to see occupation distribution and median incomes by race.
Managerial and Professional careers have the highest incomes. Notice that many of the individual roles within this group don’t even have enough workers without at least a bachelor’s degree to register on the chart. Meaning, most people in these jobs have attained higher education. Precision Production, Craft, and Repair category careers (inner circle) – jobs like plumber, hvac, and mechanic – have a median income similar to those working in Technical, Sales, and Admin Support, and these jobs are non-degreed. But they’re also a small proportion of the pie of overall occupations.
If you toggle the plot to Asian or Pacific Islander, you see that it is heavily blue for Managerial & Professional careers, and also for software development in the Technical, Sales, & Admin Support category. The people in these roles overwhelmingly have college degrees. If you toggle to Black/African American, you see that the proportion of people in Managerial roles and software engineers is so much smaller than it is for Asians. And also that there is more of a mixture of non-degree holders in the managerial category for Blacks than there is for Asians.
The chart shows us that the career path a person takes heavily influences income. Some paths seem to require a college degree. And even if you get into that career without a degree, the incomes are lower. It’s also clear that there are other jobs that have good wages despite not being degree-oriented. Police and firemen have the highest incomes in the Service category. And Precision Production as we mentioned before make a decent median wage.
But, just like higher ed may not be for everyone, these jobs may not be either. They’re a small portion of the pie and require some very specific skills and lifestyle. The point is that saying that college is worthless, when it clearly holds comparative value for so many people, is false.
College Benefits Yes, But Unequal
So it’s clear that college holds economic value. But it’s also clear that the magnitude of that value depends on who you are in this country. Women will earn less than men with the same degree. Black people at any education level earn less than the rest of the population with that same education level. Below we see the education-wage differential between Blacks and the rest of the population. The ratios below can be interpreted as Black people with a Bachelor’s degree (group A) earn 89 cents on every dollar earned by non-Black people (group B), or 11% below parity. Notice though that the higher the level of education, the more that gap closes.
It’s interesting, then, when we think of the income differential between white people with less than a bachelor’s degree and all other groups. Is there an economic benefit of whiteness such that for most a degree doesn’t matter? The data says overall, no. The chart below shows that from 1980 to 2010 all groups with at least a bachelor’s degree continued to grow their income ratio compared to whites without a degree. But it’s worth noting that since 2010 the education differential has decreased for all groups. This could suggest that the income benefits of a higher education degree are decreasing for non-white people.
Why Income Alone Doesn’t Capture College’s Value
We’ve focused on education and its relation to income. In the data we’ve seen that middle earners with a bachelor’s degree or higher make more than middle earners without. The data show us that income levels vary greatly by racial groups. Some groups with the same level of education, just have lower incomes than other groups. And we’ve seen the ways in which income varies for those with higher education and those without in the same kinds of occupations.
These trends are enough to dismiss the idea that college is worthless. Getting a degree means you’re more likely to make more money than someone without. Even with this knowledge, it’s important to note that the income differential in the last decade or so has been shrinking. This suggests that the income benefit of going to college is on the decline. The very nature of work may be changing due to technology, and we don’t know what that will mean for incomes. But for now, college and high earners and high-earning occupations go hand in hand.
Of course, there are other things to consider when calibrating the value of college. How much it costs is a big factor, and may be a topic for another essay. But outside of the net monetary returns, I’m inclined to fall back on the things I mentioned earlier. The way of thinking, the exposure, the relationships – all things that enhance the quality of a life, but are hard to quantify. These cannot be discounted when we think of the value of college. Especially in a world that increasingly isolates us and encourages us to circumvent real thinking and problem solving.
College is not for everyone, and everyone need not attend in order to live a good life and make a good living. But we’d all do well to remember these things when we talk about the value of higher education. Outside of college, where else was a first generation Black girl from the lower class ever going to get access to these things? Decades later, I still don’t have an answer.
Sources
US Census and ACS Data. https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml
Great content! Keep up the good work!
Thank you!