tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post5778537084775354610..comments2024-03-29T03:19:09.227-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: MORE NERDY STUFFRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-52685118949606740482015-11-30T15:18:27.432-05:002015-11-30T15:18:27.432-05:00I think my response is going to be way more nerdy ...I think my response is going to be way more nerdy than you would like but here goes. <br /><br />While I think as "a back of an envelope calculation" using educational attainment rates twenty years ago for those 25+ as a proxy for current educational attainment of 45+ I bristled when I read that. So, I used the CPS ASEC (March 2015) survey (this is the same data source as your linked data above) and looked at the educational attainment of those 45+ directly. The number is 30.1% so I think it is very different than the 23% of your approximation. This number is in line with other published numbers in recent years.<br /><br />While there are several factors that could make your method less accurate (net in-migration of college educated, lower mortality of college educated, etc.) the main issue is that there is a significant number of people completing degrees after 25. I am not immediately finding great data on this but this Gallup article gets at it somewhat: http://www.gallup.com/poll/179783/graduating-college-later-life-doesn-hamper-income.aspx<br /><br />I do not mean to quibble with the general point but college education is increasingly happening later in life and in "non-traditional" ways.<br />Jim Westrichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11523640492416820740noreply@blogger.com