Why do people go to college? To some, it is to learn. To academics and philosophers, it is more than just learning to enrich intellectual and social capital in individuals. But to many, a college education prepares them to get a job.
And there is nothing wrong with that thought – there is a strong positive correlation between jobs and education. Here is data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
| Degree | Median Salary (USD) | Unemployment Rate (%) |
| Doctoral | 1909 | 1.5 |
| Professional | 1924 | 1.8 |
| Master’s | 1574 | 2.6 |
| Bachlor’s | 1334 | 3.5 |
| Associate’s | 963 | 4.6 |
| College, no degree | 899 | 5.5 |
| High School | 809 | 6.2 |
| Less than High School | 626 | 8.3 |
Note: Data are for persons aged 25 and over. Earnings are for full-time wage and salary workers.
Source: Current Population Survey, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
But only until you encounter the superheroes – the Gates, the Dells and the Jobs – the college dropouts! The countless stories and speeches reinforce the theme that dropouts counterbalance their short-coming in education through their determination, superior intelligence and perseverance.
There can be a lot of factors behind the observation of successful dropouts. Foremost among them is randomness: out of the millions that have a chance but fail to complete their college, a negligible few happen to become millionaires. And they get more airtime in public. In that respect, the dropout fallacy is a survivorship bias.
The second invisible factor is related to the confounding effect of the social and cultural capital of the prosperous – such as access to a network of successful people, easy access to financing their ventures etc.
References
Unemployment Rates and Earnings by educational attainment, 2021: U.S. BLS
The Myth of the Successful College Dropout: The Atlantic
