Volume 30, Number 1 (Winter) 1995
Kane, Thomas J., and Cecelia Elena Rouse. 1995. "Comment on W. Norton Grubb: ' The Varied Economic Returns to Postsecondary Education: New Evidence from the Class of 1972.'" Journal of Human Resources 30(1):205-221.
In "The Varied Economic Returns to Postsecondary Education: New Evidence from the Class of 1972," and article recently published in the Journal of Human Resources (Volume 28, no. 2) Norton Grubb reaches two main conclusions: (1) students who enroll in two-year colleges without completing degrees earn no more than comparable high school graduates; and (2) degrees from two-year colleges and vocational and technical institutes only indirectly lead to higher earnings by providing students with access to jobs in which they can accumulate experience and on-the-job training. In this comment we show that several of the variables used in Grubb's paper are severely mismeasured and that, when they are corrected with reasonable alternatives, his conclusions no longer receive empirical support. On the contrary, even those who enter but fail to complete degrees at community colleges do seem to earn significantly more than similar high school graduates. Controlling for work experience has little effect on the estimated returns.
Thomas J. Kane is an assistant professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Cecilia Elena Rouse is an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. They thank Norton Grubb for providing his data and Mark Lopez for excellent research assistance. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning in July 1995 through July 1998 from Thomas J. Kane, Jon F. Kennedy School of Government, 79 Jon F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
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