Universities and Colleges as Economic Drivers

6. The Convergence of Postsecondary Education and the Labor Market

163 6 THE CONVERGENCE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION AND THE LABOR MARKET anTHony P. caRnEvaLE anD sTEPHEn J. RosE aBstraCt over the past century, education became a primary means for achieving economic success in the United States. As more individuals pursued a postsecondary education, the country also benefited from enhanced economic competitiveness relative to other nations. However, America’s comparative advantage of having a better -educated workforce has waned in the past two decades, slipping behind other nations such as Canada, Japan, Norway, and South Korea. This chapter analyzes how education influences a range of current public policy concerns from economic competitiveness to the rising income inequality. The authors also illustrate how the investment in a postsecondary education remains valuable, despite the rising cost of college. But they argue that as education’s economic value increases, college and universities need to find a way to balance their intrinsic and extrinsic benefits. INtroDuCtIoN Since colonial times, Americans have relied on education to ward off false prophets, as well as to reconcile democratic citizenship with diversity and class differences. In the United States, education has 164 CarNEvaLE aND rosE also gradually become a reliable path to economic success, especially since the closing of the frontier at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing with the rush of industrialization and urbanization thereafter. The twentieth century ushered in the call for “high school for all,” a goal that still frustrates us more than a century later. Yet, while high school degrees are still not universal, they were commonplace by the 1950s. And in the post–World War II era, a college degree became the preferred, if not the only, route to good professional and managerial jobs. It is not news that in the post–World War II era postsecondary education became the preferred route to the best managerial and professional jobs. What is news is that since the 1980s postsecondary education and training has become recognized as the most reliable and most well-traveled pathway to middle-class earnings and status. As we elaborate below, the share of jobs that offer postsecondary wage advantages has increased from roughly one-third to two-thirds since the seventies. The growing popularity of postsecondary education is driven by both economic and cultural factors. The popular acceptance of education as a legitimate arbiter of opportunity is deeply embedded in the United States’ individualistic cultural and political biases. In theory, using education to mediate opportunity allows us to expand merit-based success without surrendering individual responsibility. After all, we each have to do our own homework to make the grades and ace the tests that get us into college and in line for good jobs. Using education this way also complements our other key preferences for a self-reliant citizenry, an open economy, and a limited government . Arguably, access to postsecondary education ought to give us each the earning power necessary to ward off public dependency and curb the expansion of the welfare state. Public support for education , especially access to college, thus provides the middle course in American politics. The slogan “College for all” and the more humble country cousin “postsecondary education and training for all” certainly make good politics. While elected officials cannot promise to pay for college for all, they can promise to make college “affordable” for all who are qualified. This centrist consensus on postsecondary access and affordability is part of what remains of the common ground between the entrenched reds (Republicans) and the blues (Democrats). It has The Convergence of Postsecondary Education 165 become the acceptable bipartisan political response to the risks and rewards in the global economy and the primary prescription for narrowing the family-income gap threatening the middle class. Education thus offers the middle course between the runaway free market always on offer from those located right of the political center and the directly redistributive “nanny state” alternative on offer from those on the left. Promoting postsecondary access and success has other virtues: it unifies aspirations among a significant share of the populace. It creates common cause between the aspiring middle class and those who have already arrived but dread downward mobility for themselves and their children. Postsecondary opportunity also works as a public narrative, in part, because the public widely regards high school and vocational education as second-best. A great many people also believe high school students are not prepared to choose a career at such a...