"One Market Under God, and Heaven Help Us All"

[Andrew English]

A lot depends on what you major in, and when you graduate.
Right now the job market is tight for everybody, meaning that today's grads
have a better deal than a decade ago when college grads were abundant
and jobs were relatively scarce.

-Andy English

-----Original Message-----
From: kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>;
lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Date: Thursday, July 27, 2000 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: "One Market Under God, and Heaven Help Us All"


>At 07:22 PM 7/27/00 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote:
>>Doug, certainly the averages have increased, but have degrees from lower
>>ranking colleges seen much of an increase in value.  Many of our graduates
>>are doing jobs that high school students might have done a few decades
>>ago.
>>
>>Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> > Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>> >
>> > >economic value of college degrees (despite college premiums relative
>> > >to high-school diplomas) hasn't improved (see excerpts from "Recent
>> > >Trends in Wages, Incomes, and Wealth in the United States" by John
>> > >Schmitt, Lawrence Mishel, and Jared Bernstein I posted)
>> >
>> > How can you say the economic value of a bachelor's degree hasn't
>> > improved when the college premium has expanded over the last 20 years?
>> >
>> > Doug
>
>
>haven't read this stuff since i did some benchmarking community research on
>education and job training about 5 years ago.  but, as i recall, the issue
>is that the wages of those with a high school degree have dropped
>dramatically because of deunionization.  the college premium is relative to
>what you would earn without it, with only a highschool or less than
>highschool degree.  the college premium looks greater but it is being
>compared to wages of non college degreed that have been steadily declining.
>
>same deal with women's wage gains:  much of the gain is explained by the
>fact that men's wages decreased (also attributed to the decline in
>unionized jobs that paid fairly well)
>
>in other words, it's not like women are getting paid more per se (tho
>disagregating the data tells a better story than i'm doing here).  it's
>that men's wages have decreased over all.  being a white man gets you less
>than it used to.   similarly, it's not like the college premium is
>necessarily buying higher wages for all college educated.  rather, it's
>that a high school degree is buying less than it did.
>
>>--
>>Michael Perelman
>>Economics Department
>>California State University
>>Chico, CA 95929
>>
>>Tel. 530-898-5321
>>E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
>