For decades, a growing pool of college graduates poured into the U.S. labor market, boosting productivity and shaping America’s status as the world’s dominant economic power.
That driver of growth is diminishing. Enrollment has declined every year since peaking in 2011, according to the Census Bureau and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The reasons include an aging population, rising tuition costs and a healthy rate of hiring that lessens the demand for learning.
Lamenting the end of the so-called productivity miracle are Federal Reserve officials and economists more broadly, who hailed its ability to allow faster growth without harmful inflation. Now, central bankers largely powerless to fix the schooling slump say something must be done to counter it to prevent a new era of weaker growth.
...Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last month at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, adding that it’s worth considering “improving our educational system and investing more in worker training.”
Among the most noticeable consequences of weaker college enrollment is lower wages. Higher education leads to better-paying jobs -- graduates, on average, earn about 90 percent more than non-graduates, but only about a third of Americans get degrees. ...
...The unemployment rate for those with a high-school diploma was 5.1 percent in August, compared with 2.7 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. For those with less than a high-school degree, the jobless rate was 7.2 percent.
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