Folks,
Over the last few years, as I’ve worked on a book about the emergence of a new American elite, I’ve taken to asking friends a question: What percentage of people in America have a four-year college degree? (Yes, I’m lots of fun to hang out with!)
My friends — most of whom have bachelor’s degrees, if not graduate or professional ones — have typically responded within a range: 60 percent?...65 percent?...70 percent?
The correct answer is 38 percent. Well less than half of all Americans.
Why are perceptions about this, at least in my unscientific survey, so skewed? In part it reflects the socio-economic bubbles in which we increasingly live. Since 1970, the number of families who reside in neighborhoods that are either predominately affluent or predominately poor has roughly doubled, while the percentage of people living in middle-class neighborhoods has shrunk by about 40 percent.
More and more we live among people “just like us,” which means that if all the just like us’s on your block have fancy letters after their names, you start to think that’s the norm, not the exception.
Media plays a role in our perceptions, too. Of the 10 most-streamed TV series last year, only one, Heartland, a decade-old show about a Canadian ranch family, centers on characters who didn’t necessarily go to college. As for TV news, the relentless coverage of things like campus protests can make you think every young person is in college, and every one of them is protesting. (Not true and … not true.)
So here’s a question: Do such misperceptions among the professional classes matter?
I’d argue they do, because I think they prevent many of us from understanding the reality about our country.
Over the last 40 years, America has systematically built an economy that, generally speaking, works pretty well for people with a college degree, but hardly works at all for people who never went past high school.
Which is to say, a big chunk of the country.
This wasn’t always the case. In the 1950s and 1960s, America saw a massive expansion of its middle class in part, yes, because more people started going to college. But an even bigger factor was that we had good-paying jobs — often in manufacturing — for people who didn’t go to college. Indeed, what’s most notable about that period is not just that incomes grew, but that they grew equally at every income scale — top, middle and bottom. All boats were rising together.
Alas, that kind of cohesion began to change significantly in the 1980s, and it’s only accelerated since then. In recent decades, we’ve shipped millions of middle-class manufacturing jobs overseas, replacing them with service sector jobs that pay significantly less. Meanwhile, we’ve basically stopped raising the federal minimum wage (the last time it was adjusted was 15 years ago), and we’ve shifted more and more of the burden of healthcare and retirement onto workers.
The result of all this is that the wage gap between college-educated and non-college-educated workers has grown significantly over the last several decades. In 2023, recent high school graduates made an average of $36,000, while recent college graduates made $60,000.
Our response to this widening divide has been to try to send as many people as possible to college. That sounds laudable, except for two things:
1) I’m not sure every young person wants to go to college. Their talents and skills may not align with what college offers.
2) Even if college-for-everyone were the magical solution, we’re doing a pretty lousy job of making that happen. Last year roughly six in 10 high school graduates went on to a two- or four-year college. Which leaves 4 in 10 young Americans basically shut out of the economy we’ve built.
I find this, as a practical matter, asinine. Not only is our economic and educational divide the main cause, I believe, of our current political instability, but there’s plenty of evidence that giving the vast majority of economic spoils to the folks at the top has impeded our overall economic growth.
There are some signs of hope here. The Biden administration’s efforts (through the infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act) to spur more manufacturing in the U.S. is a step in the right direction, as is the push by some companies (IBM is the most notable) to do away with college degree requirements for positions that don’t really require a college degree.
But we need to do more. Raise the federal minimum wage. Bolster non-college career pathways. Make it easier to form a union. Elect more politicians who are actually from the working class.
America is a terrific country. Wouldn’t it be swell if we actually had an economy that worked for every American?
Come and See Me at the Free Library of Philadelphia!
I’m thrilled to share the news that I’ll be talking about my new book, Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation, at the Free Library of Philadelphia on June 25th. I’m honored that Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch will be the moderator for the evening.
The event is free, but it’s helpful to pre-register. Click here for more details. I hope you can join us.
I enlisted in the military after I earned my BA so I also would’ve said about a third to 40 percent of Americans. The enlisted military will give you a nice cross section of the lower classes. I had lived in the US for 7-8 years before joining and learned more about American society in the 2 years I spent in the Navy than I did in all the time before or since.
Working in public education will enlighten you as well. Big fan of people getting out of their socioeconomic bubbles!
Tom, if you had asked me, I would have probably said about 1/3. While not correct, it is an underestimation. That is because, I think, while I hold an advanced degree, I served in the US Army (enlisted) before I went to college and I went to public school (through high school); which has allowed me observe that a fair number of the fellow enlistees I served with were either not interested in college or would likely not be successful in college, and I observed at my high school reunions that less than half of the people who have attended over the years ever attended or finished college. It really depends on your circles. Certainly, now most of the people around me (colleagues, friends, family, etc.) have college degrees, but I have not let that supplant my other and earlier life experiences and observations. I am looking forward to reading your book and I hope to make the signing event!