The Immediate Post-College Transition and its Role in Socioeconomic Earnings Gaps 33
A new study of roughly 80,000 bachelor's degree recipients from a large urban public college system finds that characteristics of a graduate's first job can explain nearly two-thirds of the otherwise-unexplained earnings gap between students from low-income and high-income families five years after graduation.
The research [PDF], published as an NBER working paper by economists at Columbia University, tracked graduates from 2010 to 2017 using administrative education data linked to state unemployment insurance records. Low-income students -- defined as those receiving Pell grants throughout their undergraduate enrollment -- earned about 12% less than their high-income peers at the five-year mark. A substantial gap of roughly $4,900 persisted even after the researchers controlled for GPA, college attended, major, and other pre-graduation characteristics. That residual gap fell to about $1,700 once first-job variables entered the equation.
Graduates from lower-income families tended to start at employers paying lower average wages and were less likely to have their first job secured before graduation. Just 34% of low-income graduates continued at a pre-graduation employer compared to 40% of their higher-income peers. The firms employing low-income graduates paid average wages that were 18% lower than those employing high-income graduates. The researchers say that while the study cannot establish causation, the patterns suggest that supporting low-income students during their transition from college to the labor market may be a fruitful area for policy intervention.
The research [PDF], published as an NBER working paper by economists at Columbia University, tracked graduates from 2010 to 2017 using administrative education data linked to state unemployment insurance records. Low-income students -- defined as those receiving Pell grants throughout their undergraduate enrollment -- earned about 12% less than their high-income peers at the five-year mark. A substantial gap of roughly $4,900 persisted even after the researchers controlled for GPA, college attended, major, and other pre-graduation characteristics. That residual gap fell to about $1,700 once first-job variables entered the equation.
Graduates from lower-income families tended to start at employers paying lower average wages and were less likely to have their first job secured before graduation. Just 34% of low-income graduates continued at a pre-graduation employer compared to 40% of their higher-income peers. The firms employing low-income graduates paid average wages that were 18% lower than those employing high-income graduates. The researchers say that while the study cannot establish causation, the patterns suggest that supporting low-income students during their transition from college to the labor market may be a fruitful area for policy intervention.
The premise of this is nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
All this study did was discover the phenomenon of generational wealth.
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That's another way of saying... It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know that matters.
Re:The premise of this is nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necessarily even that. Some friends tried to break into the movie business in London but pretty much everywhere required them to work for months as unpaid interns to have a chance of a paid job. Middle-class kids living with their parents could afford to do that, but poor kids couldn't afford to live in London that long without an income, and probably not even on the income they'd get from their first paid job if they held out that long.
It's another way that poor kids are kept out of certain lines of work.
One of the actresses for Disney's Asoka (Score:2)
Re: The premise of this is nonsense (Score:1)
Re: what you know about who you know (Score:2)
That sounds like a reference to Epstein.
He made a ton of money, and then?
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It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know that matters.
Not quite. It isn't what you know. Nor is it who you know. It is who you know who knows what you know that really matters.
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You don't need to look at everything through a lens of evil to find answers.
For example, what they did here was discover the phenomen
So I have those skills (Score:2)
The thing that makes my kid better off than their friends is that they don't have any student loan debt because I paid their way through college and I also gave them several thousand dollars to get them set up when they were entering the workforce.
So for example my kid had a couple of really shitty jobs at the start of their career that they were able to quit because they knew they could go without wo
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RTFS:
"even after the researchers controlled for GPA, college attended, major, and other pre-graduation characteristics."
Also, "supporting low-income students during their transition" could mean many things.
But hey, there's no need to let facts get in the way of a rant.
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That is, they need help preparing before the transition, not during. The author's conclusions are stupid.
Nepo babies (Score:2)
This just illustrates the way the rich get richer.
Going to a "good" school means that you make connections to get a good job and then it just keeps going from there on out.
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This just illustrates the way the rich get richer.
Going to a "good" school means that you make connections to get a good job and then it just keeps going from there on out.
Did you even RTFA?
"Our analysis takes advantage of administrative data from a large, urban, public college system "
The analysts are from Columbia, a private Ivy League school. Not the students. Since they're NYC based, the students they were studying were almost certainly from the public City University of New York system. Not at all hard to get into, and no need for "nepo baby" admissions.
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I guess in this case not "nepo babies"... just plain old discrimination.
The poor don't get the opportunities that richer folks do.
The importance of diversity in college (Score:4, Insightful)
If you just hang with friends from back home or from similar circumstances you'll fall into the trap of having few options. In college you need to diversify your friends and networks and get to know all sorts of folks. This will help you in career significantly.
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I reject the "it's who you know" line. That's advice for very sociable people who are lacking in other skills.
News @ 11, Group Think! (Score:2)
This is missing one important piece (Score:3)
Every graduate is not identical
Talent is real. Effort is real.
A talented student who works hard will do better that a not so talented student who slouches through college socializing, binge drinking and cheating on exams
The line "fruitful area for policy intervention" is especially troublesome, as it assumes that government can somehow make the inferior students succeed as well as the best
Re:This is missing one important piece (Score:4, Informative)
As the poor kid at graduation, what I learned as a poor kid was you can't make a mistake. And you don't have time to do the social thing nearly as much as the kid who isn't worried about if they can afford next semester. I watched other poor kids peel off as some issue or other came up. Health, a bad grade, lost scholarship, ... And I also watched well to do kids be on academic probation and stick around.
And I'll add those social networks reinforce the nepo thing that the upper crowd enjoys. As one example, a friend was well connected. He was a bit of a drunk in school, well maybe more than a bit, more like the lampshade guy at the party. Family got him a job at an uncle's company.
probably meaningless (Score:4)
12%, 4900, 1700. How am I supposed to compare those numbers? Sounds like some BS is being slung.
Too bad they did not control for IQ or SAT score.
This is apparently supposed to support the narrative that poor people are discriminated against, while "poor people are just as smart as white people" to quote our former Dear Leader.
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The $1700 was the last number which is about $32 a week. Yawn.
It's been said already but it's very obviously that it's not what you know but who you know. People from money have parents that know people that have money. This all translates to better opportunities.
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Wealthy, college graduate, parents provide considerable career counseling throughout their child's life. First generation graduates don't get that. But, for $32 a week, who cares? Not statistically significant!
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Your quote implies white people can't be poor. I got news for you. In absolute numbers, there are more poor white folks then any other single demographic. Absolute, not per capita. Go look at a couple of my recent posts for some links and numbers that support this.
Being poor is not a race issue.
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Daddy can't get you job if he's poor. (Score:2)
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As a long-time volunteer training urban youth in trade skills, what I observed is that daddy isn't around, at all. I personally drove some of them to businesses to apply for jobs, because their parents couldn't or wouldn't. Yeah, it's tough for these kids, but I have seen some work their way out of poverty, given a chance.
It's Not What You Know! (Score:2)
Supporting them further isn't going to change the dynamic of the outcome. They thought that simply getting these people through college was the "secret". Now they are out of college, and though certainly better off, they still under perform their wealthier academic peers.
The fixers and their studies refuse to "see" that the causation is connectedness. It's not simply because you have a BA. You succeed because you have a BA, or better, AND you've got connections to other people of wealth.
When you hit the str
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Unlike the others you mentioned, Bill Clinton succeeded on his own merit; which includes his social skills. He made his own connections and impressed them on his own. He is a bad example because very few people are as smart and charismatic as he is. He wouldn't have done better if he was born with connections.
Citing the 1 in a billion people who get to be US president is an extremely poor example for anything but to represent the quality of character of the majority of the voting public; which teeters on go