Friday Notes, June 17, 2022
Dear Friends,
At last weekend’s double-commencement festivities, I heard the university president hand out degrees to a total of 16 groups of undergraduate and graduate students. To each group, he conferred the degree with “all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities appertaining thereto.”
And that got me thinking — while sitting on the bleachers in the hot sun, hearing the same words 16 times — about what that phrase really means. What are the “rights, privileges, and responsibilities” that go along with a college degree in the United States?
It doesn’t seem to me that there are many rights to list off, and nor should there be. Maybe the right to list your alma mater on job and school applications. Some schools hand out lifetime .edu email addresses, so I guess you could have a right to that. And there’s the right to be hounded for alumni donations. But otherwise, it’s slim pickings on the rights front.
In contrast, the privileges are many. The most obvious is in job opportunities and income. A 2021 study, summarized here, found that
a bachelor’s degree holder earns a median of $2.8 million — 75% more than if they had only a high school diploma — although when broken down by gender, women with a BA have median lifetime earnings of $2.4 million, compared to $3.3 million for men. Those with a master’s degree earn a median of $3.2 million over their lifetimes, while doctoral degree holders earn $4 million and professional degree holders earn $4.7 million.
That differential is markedly greater for students graduating from the proverbial “top tier” colleges, in part because employers free-ride on the highly selective admissions process at places like MIT and Harvard. The theory goes that if you got in — and got out with a diploma in hand — you’re probably a good bet to hire. (I am not a fan of this theory.)
In health, the differentials are equally sharp, and not explained fully by confounding factors like how wealthy or poor your family of origin was, or how much you earn after you graduate. A 2017 study of the “college effect” using a 14,000-person survey found that:
Overall, those with a college degree have healthier behaviors than those who do not have this degree. More than twice as many young adults without a college degree currently smoke compared to those with a degree. College graduates are far less likely to be obese, compared to those with less education. Degree holders exhibit significantly more physical activity, drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages, and eat fast food less often than those with lower educational attainment.
The study explored whether these differences were largely due to the baseline characteristics of the students who completed their undergraduate degrees, or to some type of transformation that people undergo within a college environment. The conclusion: it’s a mix, but there is strong evidence that some share of the difference is due to behavioral changes that are prompted by what students learn and do in college, regardless of their background.
And then there’s just plain happiness. In a 2011 paper, researchers reviewed the literature, crunched the numbers, and concluded:
Gains from school occur from being in a job that not only pays more but also offers more opportunities for self-accomplishment, social interaction, and independence. Schooling generates occupational prestige. It reduces the chance of ending up on welfare or unemployed. It improves success in the labor market and the marriage market. Better decision-making skills learned in school also lead to better health, happier marriages, and more successful children. Schooling also encourages patience and long-term thinking.
That is a heck of a lot of lifelong privileges after four short years, a good portion of which are probably spent carousing and/or oversleeping. Privileges, often, for the privileged.
And then we come to the responsibilities. Precious few words were said at the commencement ceremony I attended about the obligations college graduates have to others. But surely this is the most important.
At a bare minimum, the responsibility to contribute to the social good stems from the public dollars that flow to higher education. Most colleges and universities are exempt from a whole set of taxes, on the assumption that they are contributing to the public good. (It bears remembering that every dollar not collected from a non-profit institution is a dollar that everyone else has to pay.) At many universities, some additional tax dollars are dedicated to research and training programs. And we’re on the verge of forgiving federal student loans.
Beyond that, people who benefit from everything a college education offers have to bring their intellectual and other assets to bear on solving big problems. Working toward fair immigration policy, affordable housing, violence prevention, access to justice, good global citizenship, and more is by no means the exclusive domain of college-educated people. But as graduates enjoy a whole set of opportunities from an early age, we need them to apply their book-learning to make a better world.
Here are some un-fun facts about bias in performance reviews in employment settings, from an analysis of 25,000 reviews:
Compared to men, women are 7x more likely to report being described as “opinionated,” and 11x more likely to report being described as “abrasive.”
Men are 3x more likely to report being described as “confident,” and 3.7x more likely to report being described as “ambitious.”
Women receive 22% more feedback about their personality than men do. Women also receive 30% more exaggerated feedback than men.
Compared to younger white men, women over 40 receive more than 4x the amount of feedback that’s not actionable.
People under 40 report being described as “ambitious” 2.5x as often as people who are 40 and older.
People over 40 are far more likely to be called “responsible” and “unselfish” than younger workers.
Asian people get more feedback than people of any other race—25% more than white people—and Black men get the least feedback of all.
Compared to their Asian and white counterparts, Black and Latinx people report being described as “passionate” (frequently a euphemism for “can’t get along with others”) 2.1x as often.
Black and Latinx people receive 2.4x more feedback that’s not actionable compared to white and Asian people.
Black men receive 1/3 less feedback than white women on average, as measured by word count.
Black women receive nearly 9x as much feedback that’s not actionable compared to white men under 40.
White men under 40 get the word “brilliant” in performance feedback 8.7x more than women over 40.
If you like this picture, you will loved this piece on Pakistani truck art. And if you love that, you might want to get your very own.
I think we can all agree that things have gone too far with the concept of pro-social “nudges”: the Swedish city of Malmo is trying to reduce littering with dirty-talking garbage cans. Here’s Trevor Noah’s take:
Have a good weekend, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities appertaining thereto.
-Ruth