How do wage rates compare?
While both groups received substantial average hourly wages, wage rates for applied programs graduates were about 6% higher for both men and women (Chart A). 2 Since the sample was restricted to individuals whose highest educational attainment was at the bachelor’s level, the wage difference cannot be attributed to medical professionals in the applied programs group. However, a simple comparison of means may be misleading. With significant variation in wages across individuals, many humanities and social sciences graduates earned a wage rate higher than the mean in the applied programs group. The wage advantage enjoyed by the applied programs graduates declined with age and actually reversed for those 45 and older, a pattern also found by Allen (1998) in his analysis of annual earnings. This is consistent with the hypothesis that skills acquired in humanities and social sciences programs allow a relatively greater accumulation of human capital after formal schooling. It may also be tha
