IDEAS // THE NEW MATH: COLLEGE DEBT DOESN'T ADD UP

The Great Rewiring

We need more tradespeople and less college debt

by Lauren Earline Leonard

EXCERPT //

Dancer, teacher, Penn State Nittany Lion, firefighter, nurse, and actor are all things I wanted to be before ultimately graduating in 2004 with a B.A. in theatre from Temple University. I am a second-generation college grad who just started graduate school. After several decades of work experience, I am also a person who does a lot of thinking on the topic of career, concluding often that entering the trades, such as those I work with daily as a construction manager, may be a better choice. For many, work in the trades carries on their family tradition of doing hands-on, often hard, sometimes dirty work that provides the same kind of good life—accessible healthcare, homeownership, a car, a vacation here and there, socking away a little something for the future—collegiate-minded families aspire to.

The return on investment of a four-year college degree compared with a high school diploma was, until recently, measured using the “college wage premium.” In 2019, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis introduced some new math: the college wealth premium. The premium measures not just projected income, but also debt, making it, at least on paper, a more sound way to weigh the investment.

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