Dramatically Lower Wages for Recession-Era Graduates

April 13, 2010 by  
Filed under College Newswire

In recent articles in the Wall Street Journal and Atlantic Monthly, you may have seen reference to a disturbing study of the wages of college graduates by Yale Economist Lisa Kahn.  In Kahn’s study of the wages for college graduates who entered the labor market during recessions, she found drastically lower wages for recession-era college grads when compared to college grads who entered the job market during good times.  In year one, those students who graduated during recessions earned 15-30 percent less than those who graduated during non-recessions.  But most shockingly, those low wages lingered for 15 or more years.  In fact, recession-era graduates’ wages never caught up to the wages of good times grads over the course of a lifetime of work.

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