“For physical labor or general labor, education doesn’t really play a part,” he said. “But if I did have a better education, I could have better job offers and probably compete a little bit more for jobs.”

Higher education has become an issue in the presidential campaign. Democratic contender Hillary Clinton has proposed eliminating public in-state tuition for students whose families make less than $125,000 annually. Donald Trump has called student debt a “tremendous problem" and indicated that he wants to raise the quality of education.


In economic theory, the lure of a salary premium should attract an ever increasing number of young people to go to college, with the promise of careers that pay generously. That’s largely what happened over the past 50 years, and the retirement of less-educated older workers and the entry of more-educated youngsters into the job market had the effect of upgrading the workforce skills.

Economists including Harvard University’s Dale Jorgenson are starting to explore the recent shifting landscape of higher education. The economics professor predicts that the average level of education for U.S. workers -- the most important determinant of labor quality -- will no longer continue to rise in the U.S. “Educational attainment will gradually disappear as a source of economic growth,” he wrote in July in a National Bureau of Economic Research paper with two co-authors.

To be sure, the U.S. still has one of the most highly educated workforces in the developed world even as university study isn’t an option for everyone. Many students attend two-year programs or vocational training, drop out before completing degrees or end up with jobs that don’t require a college education. Only 60 percent of college students in the U.S. completed a four-year degrees within the six-years through 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“People have very diverse experiences” and the decisions not to attend or to drop out may be “absolutely rational,” said Yongseok Shin, a professor at Washington University and a research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

But for many college students, their focus is on the economic payoff. Melisa Menkovic, who is a senior at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said her education has given her a leg-up in the labor market already. She’s accepted a job in her field of study in accountancy and finance after graduation next May.

“We are seeing job postings everywhere,” said Menkovic, 21. “There are lots of opportunities.”

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
 

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