College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment.

Fiona Sydney

2018-04-29 13:44:00 Sun ET

College education offers a hefty 8.8% pay premium for each marginal increase in the number of years of intellectual attainment in contrast to the 5.6%-6% long-run average U.S. equity premium.

World Bank economists George Psacharopoulos and Harry Patrinos investigate 1,120 studies across 139 countries to derive an average annual rate of return on each marginal increase in the basic level of educational attainment. This 8.8% pay premium far exceeds the U.S. stock market return about 5.6%-6% per annum over the past 5 decades. The pay premium excludes social gains such as positive social interactions and low mortality rates in close association with better education. Also, the pay premium is higher for girls and college graduates (in direct comparison to postgraduates). This premium is higher in low-income countries primarily as these countries recruit a smaller share of international citizens with higher education.

In accordance with the law of lower marginal value, this pay premium dwindles for each extra year of educational attainment. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos posit a current race between education and technology. This race suggests that high-tech advances accelerate to favor high-skill workers to the detriment of low-skill workers. The normative implication for public policy is that the government should subsidize college education or even graduate school attendance. This subsidization serves as a worthy socioeconomic investment in human capital.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment.

Becky Berkman

2024-10-14 11:33:00 Monday ET

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment.

Stock Synopsis: Video games continue to take both screen time and monetization from many other forms of entertainment. We are broadly positive about the

+See More

The global market for GLP-1 weight-loss medications can grow substantially to benefit more than 1 billion people worldwide by 2030.

Monica McNeil

2025-10-31 12:26:00 Friday ET

The global market for GLP-1 weight-loss medications can grow substantially to benefit more than 1 billion people worldwide by 2030.

With respect to wider weight loss treatment and obesity treatment, the global market for GLP-1 medications now grows substantially to benefit more than 1 bi

+See More

Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius proposes designing a new Financial Conditions Index (FCI).

Chanel Holden

2018-07-19 18:38:00 Thursday ET

Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius proposes designing a new Financial Conditions Index (FCI).

Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius proposes designing a new Financial Conditions Index (FCI) to be a weighted-average of interest rates, exchange rat

+See More

Ben Horowitz shares many hard truths, setbacks, failures, obstacles, difficulties, and disappointments through his rare unique entrepreneurial journey at LoudCloud.

Laura Hermes

2025-05-29 08:25:28 Thursday ET

Ben Horowitz shares many hard truths, setbacks, failures, obstacles, difficulties, and disappointments through his rare unique entrepreneurial journey at LoudCloud.

Serial venture capitalist Ben Horowitz describes many hard truths, lessons, and insights from his entrepreneurial journey of running LoudCloud from a Silico

+See More

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy.

Dan Rochefort

2019-01-02 06:28:00 Wednesday ET

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy.

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy. The Federal Reserve can respond to

+See More

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company.

Jonah Whanau

2019-06-01 10:33:00 Saturday ET

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company.

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company. HuaWei can

+See More