Risk-adjusted returns to education?

Here's an economix blog post with a fun graphic comparing the returns to various investments including education, based on this post over at Brookings. As the Brookings post points out, they haven't risk-adjusted the returns, but they say the risks are greater for workers with low education, and presumably they're talking about unemployment risks. The fact that the rate of return for the associate's degree is so high really points something out: these are the rates of return for successfully acquiring the asset in question, and for some the acquisition of an associate's or bachelor's degree is far from certain. You can pay to go to college, but there's no guarantee you'll get the degree. Untangling this might make for an interesting dissertation paper for an enterprising Ph.D. student.

Much a Dew about nothing?

Today the New York City Health Department voted 8-0 with one abstention to pass the mayor's ban on portions of sugar sweetened beverages larger than 16 oz.  Economists typically prefer taxes to outright bans on unhealthy behavior for a variety of reasons.  Will we see bootlegged 32 oz. containers at Citi Field or Yankee Stadium?  Or just more lines at 7-Elevens, which are apparently exempt from this new regulation!

CUNY's new community college model

A recent article in the Times discusses CUNY's "New Community College," the tentative name for a new institution using new strategies aimed at increasing graduation rates. The article is interesting because it details challenges (a) in prospective students' lives, (b) in their courses of study, and (c) in constructing curricula to meet their needs. The most ominous note sounds around the last page, where it's revealed that 4 of 7 faculty have left or been forced out, seemingly over the plan to include both remediation and new material all at once. That certainly sounds daunting to me.

More on online learning

The Times produces another article about online learning ventures laying out some of the directions in this field and critiques. One reader posted in a comment a link to an interesting article in Science showing variation in learning outcomes across in-person teaching methods.

Changing retirement ages in the Euro zone

The Washington Post reports on rising public sector retirement ages in Italy and also presents a nifty graphic comparing them across a number of OECD countries. The first article describes the hopelessness felt by older individuals when these changes are announced without much lead time. Say what one will about the ability of OECD governments in general to tackle the fiscal challenges of population aging head-on, but at least such changes have been legislated in some countries well in advance of their taking effect. The 1983 Social Security Amendments scheduled a gradual rise in the normal retirement age starting in 2000, a full seventeen years later.

Anna J. Schwartz, 1915-2012

The New York Times has reported the death of the great monetary economist Anna J. Schwartz at 96. I'll never forget attending a seminar conducted by her and Hugo Kaufmann in the basement of the CUNY Graduate Center on Tuesday, December 2, 2008. My best memory of what she said that day was that she felt Bernanke was "fighting the last war" with monetary policy, or using the wrong tools for the current job. That point reappears toward the end of her Times op-ed published the next summer.

George Will on higher ed costs

Dripping with signature wit and sarcasm, George Will's latest concerns the cost of higher education. I'm not sure about how factually based such points are, but he cites "academic administrators outnumber[ing] faculty"in the UC system, hearkening back to a recent post of mine on the topic.