Economist Michael Mandel, at Mandel on Innovation and Growth, posted these two figures showing that the real earnings of college graduates (full-time workers ages 25-34) have been declining since before the recession. According to Mandel:
- Real earnings for young male college grads are down 19% since their peak in 2000.
- Real earnings for young female college grads are down 16% since their peak in 2003.
Mandel poses the following questions:
…no one has given me a good explanation yet of why young American college grads should have been hit so hard. Is there increased competition with young college grads around the world? Are new college grads lower quality than their predecessors? Has information technology reduced the need for young grads? I really would like to know.
For more depressing news about the earnings of college graduates, see these posts on how the economic recession will depress the earnings of college grads for their entire lifetime and a look at the trend in college graduate earnings since 1979.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 37
Anonymous — November 12, 2011
It's because a bachelor's degree has become the new high school diploma.
Larrycharleswilson — November 12, 2011
The more individuals who obtain a college degree the more the value of that degree is lowered. It's known as supply and demand.
gasstationwithoutpumps — November 12, 2011
As the link to the plot since 1979 shows, using just the past 10 years as a comparison is highly misleading—2001 had the highest starting salaries in a 30-year period. Over a longer time base, current starting salaries are about in the middle of the range.
This plot does not show that "young American college grads have been hit so hard". That may or may not be true, but this plot doesn't show it.
Anonymous — November 12, 2011
As a 24-year-old male, I have a Master's degree, make $30,000, and live with my parents. American Dream!
Legolewdite — November 12, 2011
I'd hate to in any way add to what I see as an attack on the humanities in the past couple decades, but does Mandel add any data on the type of degrees being earned? It would be intersting to see whether the statistics there have changed in correlation to incomes. I've seen many comments in a variety of forums lately highly critical (/dismissive) of "all the art history degrees" handed out in the last decade, and I'm just curious to see if Mandel's work forwards their point.
As far as that goes, my own take on it is that colleges and universities exist for two reasons - both human and economic development. One makes you a better person while the other readies you for gainable employment. And in what I think a perverse twist, rather than regulating the job market to meet the demands of people, we educate our people to conform to the needs of the job market. Consequently your math and science departments have little trouble getting their budgets passed while our humanities departments struggle even to exist.
Charles Pye — November 12, 2011
The jobs that used to be given to people without college degrees, like factory work, have disappeared. This has forced more and more people to get a college degree to find any sort of work at all, which then inflates the supply of people with college degrees. At the same time, since it's expected now that everyone should get a college degree, it's become a requirement for even low-wage menial jobs. On the whole, that means there's millions of college graduates who are forced to compete for jobs in retail sales.
Jamie — November 12, 2011
Judging from my own and other recent grads' experiences, it's because when you have a bunch of older, equally educated but much more experienced people also thrown back in the job market, due to our lovely recession, employers hire them rather than young, unproven job-hunters. I mean, it makes fiscal sense - why gamble with people with unknown abilities, especially when they are a demographic who is usually believed to be spoiled, irresponsible, lazy, and uncommitted, when you could take on desperate, qualified, experienced people who need jobs to support families and mortgages?
Anonymous — November 12, 2011
I really wish they had put both lines on the same graph. As it is, if you don't look closely, you don't notice that the graph for young men starts at the spot where the graph for young women caps out. Even at the highest level of earning for women (2003, $56,000) it is still below the lowest level for young men (2010, %59,000). What the hell does that tell us!
Bri — November 12, 2011
As a college feshman, this is really not the news I wanted to see...
XX — November 12, 2011
Hmmmm, I am noticing that the 25-34 male college grad group has, in both peaks,earned more on average than I currently do. I am a science PhD who has been working almost non-stop since I was 17, and I am 54 now. I worked part time while in school and full time out, except for about half a year in the Reagan recession. My degrees are from a very intellectual school and an Ivy. I am, of course, female.
Missdisco — November 13, 2011
Well, here in the UK, the answer to all those questions is 'yes.'
More depressing though, and probably more so as things go on, is the constant push of how 'valuable' your degree will be in the job market. There's an increasingly fierce drive that university is only for getting a job. Everything is only about working. Work, work, work. People shouldn't do arts degrees, because they don't help you get a job. I'm guessing that a massive social divide is going to emerge in degrees, because arts subjects don't lead to a job. That, or English Literature will soon stop teaching literature and be constant lectures about 'transferable skills' and 'selling yourself on your CV' -- i hate both those expressions.
Ggilberto — November 13, 2011
I'm more horrified by the difference in male and female earning in every year to care about poorer salaries for both in a bad economy.
“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” « More or Less Bunk — November 14, 2011
[...] Via Sociological Images, here are the real earnings of recent male college grads over [...]
Derek_Tryder — November 17, 2011
The economy has as much of a part in this downward of income as the
government does. The graph mirrors the economic ups and downs while
government struggles to bring those downs up. So in other words, the
government tried fixing the economy by neglecting to create more jobs for those students with a college degree. I don't know what the government is thinking. The only way a nation can grow is through the young. At this point, the young known as the college students are useless.
ReadingPower1 11/19/2011 « READINGPOWER — November 19, 2011
[...] Decline in the Incomes of College Grads » Sociological Images [...]