The "literature" on returns to schooling

Some thoughts:
1) Until we do get experimental data, someone should look closely at the (small) group of very bright students who opted for low-cost higher education such as honors community colleges, instead of shelling out big bucks.

2) Do we know whether college helps you get a job that offers better non-monetary benefits? Some 50K jobs are fun, others stink.

3) Do the data on job remuneration include contribution toward health insurance and other perks?

I guess I'm just biased, but I find it hard to take David Card seriously. His minimum wage study was so absurdly and obviously flawed that one should question the underlying methodology of anything with his name on it.

But then again, he does have a John Bates Clark medal.

I fit Jack's #1 above. Having had the ability and opportunity to attend a "good" school, I instead chose to attend a very inexpensive local state college. I breezed through my classes and worked on the side, which taught me more actual marketable skills than all my classes put together. 7 years later, my career is on an above-average trajectory and my salary is more than satisfactory.

So I intuitively grasp the idea that the correlation we see between going to college (and also going to "better" colleges) is basically pure selection bias. We aren't educating ourselves in college, we are merely sorting ourselves apart from those who either cannot or choose not to jump through this hoop.

Posit a closed economy in which 40% of the jobs would be better done by a person with a degree and the remaining 60% can be done just as well by a person without a degree.

As the percentage of the population with a degree grows from, say, 10% towards 40% we can expect gains to accrue both to society and to individuals.

However, beyond the 40% mark I do not see further gains to society. If 60% of the population has a degree then 20% will feel frustrated whilst doing the job no better than a less qualified people could do.

The question thus becomes what percentage of US jobs really require a degree? Without that datapoint we are in the dark.

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