Education: a growth industry

Given that I work in the industry, I often get smacked over the head (repeatedly, it's the only way to get a point through to me) with statistics showing the increase in lifetime earnings associated with having a 4-year college degree as opposed to just a high school diploma. Best current estimate: 90-95%, I think.

I have no qualm with this statistic, but I do quibble with how the statistic is used. The usual lesson drawn from this is that we simply need to make sure more young people go to college. I find that argument, in and of itself, ludicrous. In 2006, the average salary for a major league baseball player was $2.7 million. Instead of sending kids to college, shouldn't we just ship them directly to the major leagues? Of course that argument ignores the fact that not all kids can play baseball at the major league level. I'm fairly sure no one doubts that explanation, yet almost no one, it seems, wants to apply the same logic to the "more kids in college" issue.

Bryan Caplan has similar thoughts while trying to explain why college enrollments have not shot up more in response to the rising wage gap cited above. First, he tackles my point. While it's not a polite thing to say, not everyone is cut out for college.

Part of the explanation is that this "lifetime wage premium" blends the return to education with the return to ability. Clever counter-arguments notwithstanding, people who currently don't go to college wouldn't earn the "expected" return if they enrolled because they have less ability to begin with.

Second, he tackles a more novel aspect of the problem. Why even people who could "make it" in college might not go.

Why aren't more people going to college? The best explanation is one that educators - and above all college professors - find almost impossible to believe: Lots of people truly hate school. They find it insufferably boring, pointless, and pompous. Even a massive increase in the return to education isn't enough to make them willing to endure four more years of pointless, pompous boredom.

To sum up: I think no one should be denied the opportunity to go to college (or church or folk music concerts or gay bars or Klan rallies) but I don't think everyone should take that opportunity. In case you're wondering, I sometimes take advantage of 2 of the 4 parenthetical opportunities mentioned above, though I have been to one of the other two. I'll let y'all speculate.