Reed, Ritchie H., and Herman P. Miller. 1970. "Some Determinants of the Variation in Earnings for College Men." Journal of Human Resources 5(2):177-190.

The influences of several factors on the earnings of men with college degrees were measured using multiple regression with dummy variables. Earnings were found to be positively related to the rank of the colleges where degrees were received. For the holders of bachelor's degrees, engineering, the physical sciences, and business and commerce offer the greatest monetary rewards. For those with higher degrees, health fields and law offer the greatest returns. After accounting for college quality, age, field of specialization, and level of degree, nonwhites were found to have significantly lower average earnings than whites. The difference at each degree level is over $2,400 per year. Other factors tend to reinforce the lower earnings attributable to being nonwhite. Several background factors were introduced into the analysis, but they did not appear to be very important in determining the earnings of college men.

Mr. Reed is an economist in the Population Division, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Miller is Chief of the Division. Some of the sample data used in this article were published by the Bureau of the Census in Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 180. More detailed tabulations of these data will be published shortly in another Current Population Report. The authors wish to thank George Heller of the Census Bureau and Steven H. Schwartz of the Department of Health Education, and Welfare for their invaluable guidance and help in computer processing of the data.

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