CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Sunday, June 07, 2009
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Previous Posts
- More on the Great Mancession of 2008-2009
- Jobless Claims as Percent of Labor Force Falls for...
- Larry Kudlow: The "Economic Man-Cession"
- Retail Clinics Expand: Almost Everybody is Happy
- Wal-Mart Exports Big-Box Concept to India, Russia
- Everyday Job Creator, Including 1,500 in Michigan
- Leaky Bucket Fiscal Policy
- Wal-Mart and Chicago's South Side Food Desert
- The Great Man-Cession of 2008-2009 Continues
- VW's Car Factory of the Future
21 Comments:
No quarrel with the benefit of higher education, just with the inefficient obsolete method of providing it.
mongander:" . . . inefficient obsolete method of providing [higher education].
amen. add "costly" to that.
time to walmart-ize higher education. start by replacing tenure with a college version of the walmart cheer.
No quarrel with the benefit of higher education, but those graphs don't show anything of the kind. It only shows that people who are capable of obtaining degrees are also likely to be successful.
Chart should read: "Education pays...to a point."
Getting that Phd hardly seem worth it, monetarily speaking.
Gee, do you suppose some people are after something other than money? They call it psychic income.
Sort of undercuts the "rational man' hypothesis. Which destroys the econ profession.
So, why did any econ prof not get an MBA and hightail it out of school?
No quarrel with the benefit of higher education
Same here, but our citizens would do well to not be penalized there. Subsidize all citizens before offering any slots to internationals; otherwise remove the degree(and related components) from consideration.
This comment has been removed by the author.
"Subsidize all citizens before offering any slots to internationals"...
Why? What part of the Constitution says the federal government should steal from productive citizens to subsidize uneducated citizens?
Is higher education attainment always a path to more and better employment compensations?
Don't free market forces work in this arena also?
If one's education speciality is in demand won't it be compensated for what its worth?
Thanks for this retrospective scoreboard that tells us once again how the wealthy have won connections that provide secure lucrative employment for their offspring not to mention enviable spot at expensive university for impressive degree. Although it fails to spell out for the poor that the opportunity cost of higher education and debt for same would be less when they concentrate on early start for child's mental development, Foster Grandparents can help the prospective parents through the local library to books on early education and child psychology that may land the child scholarship relief. Better yet help develop a self-made, self-educated entrepreneur.
Thanks for nothing
!
Well this partially explains the man-cession. As shown in a previous post, men graduate college far less often than women. If money should be spent, it should be spend on ensuring that the education system is more gender equitable.
I don't think anyone ever questioned whether education pays or not, but since we're all (with a few exceptions) economically minded why not ask the bigger question of whether it pays off. Does it really make economical sense to add 4-6 years of school beyond a bachelor degree and go $150k in debt? I haven't put together a comparative cash flow on the matter, but I'll bet it's a lot less appealing than the BLS numbers show.
misterjosh,
Aren't men just responding to incentives? If you can earn very good living in construction, why would you wish to spend thousands to get a degree?
The problem is that construction is very cyclical but downturns in the construction sector also affect those with professional degrees in engineering and architecture.
Bret made the point that those capable of getting higher degrees tend to be more successful. We tend to assume that the answer is to make education more accessible however, that seems to assume that students have the same abilities.
1)Correlation is not causation. Surely you know that, Mark...why do you implicitly assume that the higher income is caused by the education, rather than the education being simply a reflection of the same personal attributes that brought about the increased income?
2)A proper analysis would have to look at the direct cost of the education and also of the foregone income during the years the individual is i school.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Why? What part of the Constitution says the federal government should steal from productive citizens to subsidize uneducated citizens?
It would not be a problem if the whole thing didn't favor internationals.
I'd rather them be "merit-blind" beyond them currently passing secondary school and being a full US citizen.
Besides, the Constitution isn't meant as a end-all-be-all enumeration of rights as much as it is something that describes what can't be taken away. At least if that's what my understanding is of the strict adherents to the document.
Is higher education attainment always a path to more and better employment compensations?
It's not exactly a bad thing to have either way; it's the debt that is the concern.
Don't free market forces work in this arena also?
Not necessarily.
If one's education speciality is in demand won't it be compensated for what its worth?
Depends on if you have an H1-b lobby distorting the market. See NASSCOM and the effects they've had on the IT industry for example.
This shows the reason for the 'wage gap'. In 1975 only 10% of the adult population had college degrees; now, 25%.
So, with a larger proportion of the population now with college degrees and earning 65% more than the left behind high school grads (to say nothing of the 25% that don't even get high school degrees, with Hispanics and Blacks at 50%) it a force logic that we will have a larger gap as we have higher rates of higher educated people who make more money. No handwringing needed.
sethstorm says: "It would not be a problem if the whole thing didn't favor internationals"...
LOL! I can see you haven't read or at least comprehended the language of the Constitution...
"Besides, the Constitution isn't meant as a end-all-be-all enumeration of rights as much as it is something that describes what can't be taken away. At least if that's what my understanding is of the strict adherents to the document"...
I see that you've not read Article VI...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Besides Rush Limbaugh, you are the only person in a public forum that I have ever heard say that health care is not a right. (No doubt the radio station is picking up the tab for Rush's favorite little blue pills.)
"Besides Rush Limbaugh, you are the only person in a public forum that I have ever heard say that health care is not a right"...
Well you have something in common with these people, an ability to find something in the Constitution that isn't there...
Hey, maybe a glimmer of hope.
California schoolbooks going digital
http://www.physorg.com/news163768856.html
Incentives for education: Pay kids to perform.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06082009/news/regionalnews/learn__earn_plan_pays_off_173099.htm
Post a Comment
<< Home