"Why College Isn't for Everyone"

But for many, attending college is unequivocally not the right decision on purely economic grounds.

Thus, at least a portion of the earnings premium associated with college has nothing to do with college per se, but rather with other traits.

While college students sometimes still gain marketable skills from partial attendance, others end up taking jobs that are often given to high school graduates, making a little more money but having college debts and some lost earnings accrued while unsuccessfully pursuing a degree.

Earnings vary considerably between the graduates of different schools, and within schools, earnings differ a great deal between majors.

Fourth, the number of new college graduates far exceeds the growth in the number of technical, managerial, and professional jobs where graduates traditionally have gravitated.

As a consequence, we have a new phenomenon: underemployed college graduates doing jobs historically performed by those with much less education.

First of all, college is more than training for a career, and many might benefit from the social and non-purely academic aspects of advanced schooling, even if the rate of return on college as a financial investment is low.

Second, high school students with certain attributes are far less likely to drop out of school, and are likely to equal or excel the average statistics.

As a general rule, I would say graduates in the top quarter of their class at a high-quality high school should go on to a four-year degree program, while those in the bottom quarter of their class at a high school with a mediocre educational reputation should not (opting instead for alternative methods of credentialing and training).

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but it is important for us to keep in mind that college is not for everyone.