Autor said, the best evidence shows that a college degree leads to a lifetime earnings increase of $250,000 to $300,000, even after subtracting the cost of higher education. Those returns, Autor noted, apply to graduates regardless of their undergraduate majors: Humanities students benefit just as science, engineering or business students do.
And all evidence suggests education remains a key to social mobility in America, noted Janice Eberly... Moreover, Eberly said, “These benefits accrue not only to individuals but society more broadly,”...
Claudia Goldin, author of a previous ASET book club selection - The Race Between Education and Technology responses
Yet excellence in higher education requires a solid foundation of secondary education, observed Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard University. And while high school graduation rates in the United States soared in the first half of the 20th century, they have been virtually stagnant since about 1970.
“College completion just cannot advance much when high school completion does not,” Goldin said.
For those who do go to college, the amount of student-loan debt they accrue has increased, as Autor acknowledged: At graduation, today’s public-university graduates hold $32,000 in student debt, on average, while graduates of private, nonprofit schools owe $46,000, on average. Going into debt always entails risk, Autor said, while asserting that the worst-case scenarios, of students with massive debt and low income, attract disproportionate media attention.
In reality, virtually all college students, Autor said, will emerge with useful work-force skills. ... http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/02/whats-the-cost-and-financial-value-of-college.html
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