It’s difficult to talk about “college degrees” in the abstract, and the problem only gets worse when you turn that into an international comparison. But I think conversations about whether or not college is “worth it” or whether we’re having a “bubble” in higher ed benefit from some information on international comparisons. Fortunately, the Yglesias Blog has a new intern this week, Matt Cameron, who helped me find this report from the College Board (PDF) which has a lot of interesting charts.
For starters, if you look at older workers America nearly leads the world in college degrees:
But among the youngest cohort, that’s not the case:
And if you look at the racial and ethnic breakdown, it looks like one factor in the stagnation is the fact that the Hispanic share of the population has grown over time but Hispanic college attainment hasn’t:
No huge policy insight from me for now, but it’s a reminder that more high-skill immigration would be in our interest.
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