US college costs are up 169% since 1980. But pay for young people has failed to keep pace

One of seven trends holding young Americans back from economic independence identified by researchers

Researchers at Georgetown University have identified seven trends that are holding young Americans back from achieving economic independence on the path from education to the workforce.

One of the most startling is the vast increase in the cost of college versus pay over the same period since 1980. This, along with other factors, appears to have severely curtailed social mobility – leaving many behind.

“The evidence of our failure to help all youth make the long journey from early childhood to adult economic independence is plain,” the authors write. “In the trajectory from kindergarten to a good job, the most talented disadvantaged youth do not fare nearly as well as the least talented advantaged youth.”

The current education-to-workforce pipeline is also fraught with racial as well as class inequalities, they write: “It is far better to be born rich and white than smart and poor in America.”

In the report, If Not Now, When?: The Urgent Need for an All-One-System Approach to Youth Policy, the authors argue that the disjointed approach to youth policy means people are falling through the cracks as they transition to adulthood.

“An all-one-system approach, preschools, elementary and secondary schools, community colleges, four-year universities, employers, and governments would all follow an integrated playbook, helping to smooth out young people’s progress from pre-K–12 to college and work,” the report says.

One of the biggest barriers is the cost of higher education.

According to CollegeBoard’s latest data, the average estimated budgets (tuition and fees, room and board, and allowances for books and supplies, transportation, and other personal expenses) for full-time undergraduate students range from $18,830 for public two-year in-district students and $27,330 for public four-year in-state students to $44,150 for public four-year out-of-state students and $55,800 for private nonprofit four-year students.

While these figures can be brought down by various scholarships and grants, they have still increased massively over the past 40 years, with the Georgetown research showing a 169 per cent increase in the average cost of college since 1980, versus a 19 per cent increase in average earnings of 22-27-year-olds.

In addition to college affordability, the authors also identify that the majority of young people used to attain good jobs by their mid-20s. Now, because two-thirds of jobs require some post-secondary education, work experience, or training, it takes many young people until their 30s to latch onto a good job and career.

In the 1970s three-quarters of jobs required just a high school diploma — as more and more jobs required further education, it also became increasingly expensive and out of reach for many people.

Similarly, many jobs once offered training schemes and youth employment in medium to high-skilled manual roles. These have largely become the victims of automation and globalisation, which has made it harder for young people to gain work experience outside of food and personal services, and sales and administrative support.

K-12 education has also become more slanted towards college preparation rather than workforce preparation which has been deferred to post-secondary education. Those who cannot afford it have therefore been left even further behind with fewer options.

The fragmentation of policy and funding means a siloed system of K-12, secondary, and labour policy, which in turn are all siloed internally. This makes it harder to navigate or support people as they make their way through the system. In turn, federal investment has not kept up with needs.

The report by Anthony P Carnevale, Artem Gulish, and Kathryn Peltier Campbell of the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center on Education and the Workforce, hails the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act as a major inflection point to address many of the issues raised.