Dynarski: "There's never been a worse time not to be a college graduate"

June 26, 2012

The median income of college graduates has not increased significantly in many years, but it still pays to go to college in spite of rising costs, Susan M. Dynarski told the Lansing State Journal for its article on college finances.

"The thing is earnings for everyone else have been taking a dive," Dynarski told the Journal, referring to workers who do not have a college degree. "One way to think about it is there's never been a worse time not to be a college graduate. We don't get to choose to be our fathers or our mothers. We can choose whether to get a college degree today or not, and if you don't get one, you can fall pretty far."

Dynarski's research focuses on charter schools, demand for private schooling, historical trends in inequality in educational attainment, and the optimal design of financial aid. Her previous research explored the impact of grants and loans on educational attainment and the distributional consequences of tax incentives for college saving.