If You’re Less Likely To Graduate From College, You’re More Likely To Reap The Benefit

Students who are less likely to graduate from college are more likely to reap the benefit through higher wages over their lifetimes.

Those with an average likelihood of graduating, in contrast, receive only modest returns in terms of salary, while among those most likely to graduate it is men who benefit the most.

Some colleges and students assume that the most advantaged students benefit the most from a college degree, even though they may put less store on an economic boost.

For those from advantaged backgrounds, there is often an expectation that they will go to college, with less emphasis on economic benefit, while for students from less advantaged backgrounds economic considerations are more likely to be to the fore.

To try to see how far these assumptions matched up with reality, a team led by researchers at New York University looked at the economic returns of a college education over a lifetime.

This was then broken down according to a number of measures of disadvantage, including how likely those from different socio-economic groups were to graduate from college.

The researchers found that students whose backgrounds suggested they were less likely to graduate from college received a large wage boost from a degree that lasted throughout their working lives, according to analysis published today in the journal Science Advances.

The premium for men was driven particularly by stagnant and falling wages among men without a college degree.

Men at the other end of the scale also received a significant boost to their wages in comparison to their peers who did not graduate from college, but for men with an average likelihood of graduating from college the economic benefits were much less pronounced.

This pattern – of large differences in wages among those who were the least and most likely to graduate from college, and smaller differences among those in the middle – became more significant at older ages.

“These findings indicate that a college degree brought longterm and cumulative economic returns to men who were least and most likely to complete college,” the researchers said.

“By age 50, a college degree helped the most disadvantaged individuals avoid bleak labor market prospects that they would have experienced without college; meanwhile, it boosted the economic gain of the most advantaged individuals by placing them on a steeper wage trajectory than their non-college counterparts.”

The picture was different for women, however. Although those least likely to go to college experienced a comparable wage boost to men at age 30, this did not increase with age, as men’s did.

While the wages of male graduates diverged with age from those of non-graduates, the wages of female graduates converged, although there was still a significant gap at age 50.

“This finding is consistent with previous research showing that women, particularly highly educated, high-skilled women, suffer a motherhood wage penalty relative to their non-mother peers,” the researchers said.

While graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds can still expect to lag behind their more advantaged peers, the research shows they are significantly better off than those from a similar background who do not complete college, the study suggests.

And although the economic benefit is modest at the beginning of their careers, for men it grows larger over the course of their working life, while for women it persists up to the age of 50.

“A college degree helps them circumvent the bleak wage trajectories they would have experienced without a college degree,” the researchers said.

“Students and colleges that assume that only the ‘top’ students benefit from college might rethink these assumptions in light of our results. College pays off across the whole spectrum of preparation.”