A male graduate in the US can expect to earn $367,000 more during his lifetime than someone who merely completed high school – the greatest premium in the rich world, according to research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Andreas Schleicher, the report's author, credited the huge earnings boost for US university graduates to the country's “flexible labour market”. “If you have good skills, the market will reward you,” Mr Schleicher said. In the US, “people are more willing to change jobs” until they find work that pays them what their qualifications are worth, he said.
But Paul Ashworth, US economist at Capital Economics, suggested the wide US gap was due partly to low rates of unionisation compared with many European countries. Collective bargaining by unions tended to push up wages for non-graduates – reducing the differential between them and university graduates. He also said US culture was more tolerant of wide gaps in earnings between different people within the same company.