Tech · Fortune Technology
Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found in September 2025 that the college wage premium remains
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The World Economic Forum found earlier this year that AI skills now command a 23% wage premium versus only 8% for a bachelor’s degree in isolation.
Key facts
- And even as AI threatens to overtake law and business jobs, law degree and MBA holders still make 41% and 13% in cost-adjusted returns, respectively—solid returns, though still a far cry
- Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found in September 2025 that the college wage premium remains, but has barely moved since 2000, while the San Francisco Fed attributed
- The percentage of Americans with a graduate degree grew from 31% in 1993 to 42% in 2022, according to the U.S
- The World Economic Forum found earlier this year that AI skills now command a 23% wage premium versus only 8% for a bachelor’s degree in isolation
Summary
There’s a boom in the economy: economics papers on the souring prospects of the recent college graduate in the AI-era economy of the 2020s. Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found in September 2025 that the college wage premium remains, but has barely moved since 2000, while the San Francisco Fed attributed that stagnation primarily to less demand for those workers, in a working paper shortly afterward. But what about the college grads that intentionally got degrees in supposedly “AI-proof” disciplines, like psychology or education? A new report released by the Postsecondary Education and Economic Research Center maps out the estimated payoff of a graduate degree. The report also found that clinical psychology—a specialized branch of psychology—offers -5% cost-adjusted returns. “If you’re thinking about graduate school, you want to get some information about what the earnings potential is coming out of the degree as well as the kinds of occupations and jobs it leads to,” Joseph G.