The data shows that people who go to college make more money and find it easier to find a job in both good times and bad. That people with graduate degrees are more likely to find their work satisfying and interesting. The data show that people in their twenties just don't make much money, but that education makes a big difference in earnings for the majority of adults' working lives.
Recent data isn't showing that (see the links I've provided and the one that Austin provided), which is why reports like Academically Adrift are surfacing and why we're having a national conversation about the college bubble. '
Beckee is correct that college graduates earn more than non-graduates, but some fraction of the earnings differential results from the higher average intelligence and persistence the college grads had when they started college. Anthony Carnevale has recently documented what he terms "The College Payoff"
http://cew.georgetown.edu/collegepayoff/ , and Richard Vedder, an economist who is more skeptical of the value of college, has commented on the report:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/americans-over-or-under-educated/30007Americans: Over- or Under-Educated?
Chronicle of Higher Education
August 8, 2011
Carnevale's method is to look at the 2009 earnings by education level and to estimate career earnings from this.
