Volume 10, Number 3 (Summer) 1975
Carnoy, Martin, and Dieter Marenbach. 1975. "The Return to Schooling in the United States, 1939-69." Journal of Human Resources 10(3):312-331.
Rates of return to investment in schooling unadjusted for nonschooling factors are estimated in four Census years by sex and race. In general, social rates to whites' high school investment declined in the 30-year period, while the payoff to college remained stable and the payoff for graduate training rose sharply in 1959-69. This pattern of rate change apparently is not the result of differences in overall unemployment in Census years. Rather, in some sense the aggregate demand for the college-educated probably increased more rapidly than for those with secondary and primary schooling. Differences in ability and social class between primary and high school graduates also may have declined.
Carnoy is Associate Professor in the Stanford International Development Committee (SIDEC), School of Education, Stanford University. Marenbach was formerly with the Syntex Corporation. The authors would like to thank the Spencer Foundation for the grant which made this research possible. We would also like to thank Richard Meredith and Luis Reyes Valencia for their invaluable assistance in preparing the 1969 data used in the paper. Henry Levin made helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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