Nothing wrong with a college education, just have to realize it has limitations. Its easier than ever in modern history to get marginalized in the current workforce, with or without BS. or BA. College is good for making connections, especially a higher level business or liberal arts school. Most people don't regret going to college that should tell you something. The US has the best system of higher education in the world, however students still understand economics if they wish to be long term employable. That means likely not majoring in "Golf Management", "Psychology" along with many other useless majors such as "Criminal Justice". Regardless, a college education won't make you dumber but it can make u erroneously feel entitled to a job. It is not so much what discipline(s) a person studies but their people skills, ability to adapt, ingenuity, and dedication to work that make the difference long term career-wise. A little luck never hurt anyone either.
That is actually not the case described by the National Inflation Association in the documentary below, "College Consipiracy:" <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VpZtX32sKVE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> What you're saying is that high school graduates earn less than college graduates, when it is really the case that dropouts who earn GEDs and other intellectually challenged individuals skew this statistic so much that the disparity between a high school graduate and a college graduate is completely overexaggerated. You can't combine GED students with a high school graduate, and the statistics show that that is what "common wisdom" does. While I know it is likely that college graduates will still earn more in their lifetimes than high school graduates, the high school graduates themselves are completely dilluted by GED earning students and that has to be recognized as the main impetus behind "College Conspiracy." It's true they earn more, but probably not $1 million more, because the average high school graduate is probably more well prepared for life than a GED/drop out.
I suppose it may require education beyond to GED to recognize crap when it is presented in a slick video. This is not a subject that interests me, but assuming it interests you, why don't you search the web for mean income of GED holders, say ten years after earning their GED, compared to High School diploma (non-GED) holders and get back to us? Since I know you to be one keenly interested in facts, even recognizing that facts have a decided liberal bias, you'll undoubtedly appreciate learning that the rate of increase in college tuition (5.15%) over the last five years quoted in the "Gee Whiz" video is right in line (maybe a tad lower) with overall inflation computed by the government's 1990 method and significantly lower than CPI inflation computed by the 1980 method. Colleges have done, it seems, a remarkably good job at holding the line on tuition increases! http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
I've already done the research in an original research paper I wrote called IQ and Income. I don't have it in front of me right now, but, indeed, the numbers were consistent with what you would expect, but for the GED/High School graduate the BLS put out a research study of about 12,000 individuals from the time they were born in late 50's and early 60's to the time data started to be collected around ages 11-14 in 1969 to ending period 2001 and found that IQ as measured by percentile ranking on asvab was worth $250-$265 per percentile in annual income, and the level of education from GED, and no ged/hs, to PhD, Legal, and Medical degrees all had various impacts on the level of income you will earn when you turn 40. The CPI estimate, revised, or old method, is probably still understating inflation by hedonics and geometric weighting and that will not ever stop if you go by core CPI. The 5.15% is surprisingly low, and all of the facts in College Conspiracy add up to another shoe to drop in American Hyperinflation. NIA is not liberal at all. In fact, they are of no identifiable political class because they are economists. Their views on economics have never been wrong in the ways they present their facts, and whenever I hear an economist make political arguments it is usually more likely to sound republican than liberal, unless you're Paul Krugman, and that is what the case is here. You confuse a spectrum of political thought with rock-solid economics and you ignore the fact that all of the evidence they presented is incontrovertible. Any time I hear the college graduates make more argument I always recognize that opportunity costs are lost on every politician and every countryman without enough knowledge of economics. The only thing slick about that video is that it is a video I would say will have an enormous impact on the direction America takes to tackle it's economic problems, which have largely been created by government bureacracy, greed, and corruption.
so I actually turned up a number without even trying, but it's highly suspect since it came from one of those high school diploma mill websites (Senford?? or some such nonsense) They are claiming about $1300 difference in annual income between GED people and High School diploma people. So that's insignificant in two ways: 1. the number of diploma people considerably outnumber the number of GED people so when you compute the weighted average it is not much reduced by the GED folks, and the difference is small to start with; 2. the lifetime earnings of college graduates (baccalaureate degree) is still about double what the high school folks earn regardless of whether you include the GED folks or not. Here is an exception to Gore Vidal's opinion that the common wisdom is almost always wrong, because in this case the common wisdom is dead on. I don't agree with Vidal anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the common wisdom is merely very often wrong! http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/a/edandearnings.htm P.S. I did not write that "NIA" whatever that is, is a liberal whatever. If they have a bias it is a nutso bias. I wrote that "facts" have a liberal bias. I wouldn't want to suggest that "NIA" has anything to do with facts. How would I know that anyway? I certainly can't tell from that crazy video.
Let me wip out my SAS file database, and I'll get back to you. That GED income is grossly understated most likely because it only counts those currently in the workforce or most of the workforce. There is a significant difference between High Schol and College and High School and Ged, but it's much larger than $1,300 probably because they only count employed GED's and undercount the number of unemployed out of the work force. Incidentally that's the problem with all of the BLS stats when U6 unemployment is still 15+%, roughly double the current unemployment rate and ignorance of the latest actual change shows a 150,000 absolute job loss, not a 23,000 weekly gain think that was first or second week of December.
I'm 24 and lived with 6 friends/roommates that all attended collage. 1 is using their degree successfully making 50k a year as an entry level accountant at a firm. The other 5 are in debt 30-60k and at ground level jobs you could get with a high school diploma. I never gotz my edumacation despite pressure from family/friends and I don't regret my actions one bit. Debt=slavery. Why pay $150 to read a college textbook and have a liberal professor "teach" when I can learn whatever I want on my own for a fraction of the cost. I can network and find an answer to any question I may have . With the internet this is simple. The economics book at my friends university was written by uncle Ben B. Not what I want to pay thousands to learn. I don't want to pay for 2 years of "generals" that have nothing to do with what I want to learn either . Scam.
Colleges in the US are atheistic and practice forced Paganism on the Campus. They are proving worthless even in an economic sense. Seems about right.