In an opinion column for the New York Times, economists Tim Bartik and Brad Hershbein of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research contend that while college offers value to low-income students, “other policies” are needed to fix income inequality.
Bartik and Hershbein found that low-income college graduates earned 71 percent more over the course of their career than those who only completed high school. The average college graduate from a low-income background will make around $810,000 during their career, while one with just a high school diploma can expect to make a mere $475,000.
The two also found that college seemed to provide an even greater value to those from higher-income backgrounds, and concluded that increasing college attendance on its own won’t solve economic inequality, but that it’s part of the solution.
“We should also help lower-income Americans better access the highest-paying jobs, for example, through helping them attend more selective colleges,” said Bartik and Hershbein. “To reduce inequality, we should consider policies to help redistribute the extraordinary fortunes gained by those at the very top of the American income distribution.”
In other words, we should expand income-based affirmative action at prestigious colleges, taking opportunity from the rich in the name of social justice.
This argument is completely flawed.
Countless studies have shown that affirmative action does not work, and wealth redistribution policies will reduce the number of jobs available by stripping the incentive for employers to create more high-paying jobs.
College education may help graduates, but the sad truth is that about 40 percent of all who attend college drop out, and those students on average show just a marginal economic advantage over those with a high school education — about $3,120 more a year. That doesn’t account for the student debt and the loss of income incurred by not immediately entering the workforce.
In an opposing New York Times column, Ellen Ruppel Shell argued that “the college-degree premium may really be a no-college-degree penalty.” College graduates often have an advantage over those without a college degree in jobs that ultimately don’t require them.
Unfortunately, college has become more about status than actual job training.
As college costs continue to skyrocket, there’s a better solution to the wage gap issue than pushing high school students on the college track or playing Robin Hood with prospective job creators: apprenticeship programs.
Even the progressive Brookings Institution believes that “apprenticeships could and should be an alternative for the many young people who want a qualification but not a traditional academic degree.” In a surprisingly positive article, the nonprofit applauded President Trump’s expansion of industry-recognized apprenticeships, and noted that disadvantaged college students thrive in apprenticeships because they provide a link between classwork and the labor market.
Demand for skilled workers remains incredibly high. In the manufacturing industry alone, 600,000 jobs remain unfilled and employees can quickly earn up to six-figure salaries. Moreover, the Department of Labor estimates that apprentices earn an average starting wage of $60,000 per year.
Rigging the system to make college work for everyone is a fool’s errand. College degrees have their place, but if economic equality is the objective, apprenticeships and other job training programs that don’t require a degree are low-hanging fruit.
