So do older workers. Charts 2 and 3 show the average earnings of men and women in 1997 by levels of education and age, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. The 65 percent earnings increase that men age 45-54 accrued for their four years of college education amounted to a 13 percent compounded average rate of return. . Besides education, earnings also tend to increase with age. But this reflected the reduction in the percentage of people working full-time.
Women earn less than men do, but otherwise the pattern holds.
For women age 45-54, college graduates earned 68 percent more than high school graduates. Not everyone agrees that education causes earnings to increase. They observe that simple correlation between education and earnings does not prove that education causes higher earnings. People attending college tend to be more motivated and talented. They learned more in high school.