Education is never a waste of time! please people, next thing you know, you'll be calling for the heads of the educated a la Pol Pot....but, then, you might not know who that is. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

They needed a multi-year study / project to determine the benefits of education? Seems like the the group requesting the project need a revisit to university.

Tell this to all the recent grads who can't find work in their field.

Did that title say get your kids ahead? Yeah, a head up the a$$

Perhaps if your parents have degrees, it matters. These days, having a degree means nothing. The only values to higher learning are A) the connections you make (if any) which is the only thing that'll lead to work, B) personal growth & learning (irrelevant on the job market), and C) debilitating debt (to ensure complete life failure before you start).

The caveats are terminal degrees (you can't practice medicine without a medical doctorate) and certain science degrees. Everything else is pointless, other than arbitrary job requirements to wean out the pool of applicants (hence why a degree is required, but no major is ever specified).

So if you’re lucky and go for a school that puts in contact with the children of the upper classes that you can then network with, it’s a pointless endeavor unless you’re genuinely interested in the major for purely personal reasons, and to satisfy a meaningless job requirement. Incidentally, because it seems just about everyone has a degree these days (as a result of the for-profit banking influence in the college loan market and inability to ever get out from under the debt), the arbitrary job requirement is now increasing a Masters degree (though still the major is never mentioned, thus proving it’s a weaning requirement, rather than a skill requirement).

This piece of journalism is nothing but a paid info-commercial by the college education industry (CEI). If the CEI have their way, every American would be required to have a college degree. In earlier news, the CEI claimed that a college degree is worth $1million dollar more than just a HS diploma. In this article, the CEI is telling and selling future parents the consequence of having a college degree upon their children's success. The CEI unfairly plays on every parent's wish and aspiration that their children will be successful in life.

The CEI will never admit that the issuance of college degrees is a mass production assembly-line process that has benefited mainly the CEI, not the graduate students who are often saddled with over $150k before find an entry job. At a typical four-year college the entering freshman is placed on a tread-mill curriculum that forces his borrowing and spending nearly $40k per year for the next four years on meaningless classes such as: film history, Latino Study, Women Study, Black history, early childhood development, photography, modern dance, blues, jazz, rap music, ceramic and pottery, nature study, and the list goes on. The value of the four-year college degree is over sold, mainly by the CEI, while the monetary rewards of a vocational-technical certificate are under sold. After four years of vocational on-the-job training, a journeyman electrician, plumber, carpenter, HVAC, or Webmaster will have earned at least $150k while the college grad has $150k in debt.

When a conclusion is based on correlation, even a very strong correlation, its validity is highly suspect. Just because there is a correlation between parents with college degrees and their successful children does not automatically means the college degrees make parents produce successful children. Since the sun rise and set during the entire time the college degreed parents raised their successful children, the correlation argument would conclude that the sun is the source of the children's success, rather than the parents' degree. That is the absurd conclusion reached by a correlation argument without a control environment just as in the absurd conclusion involving parents with college degree and their children.

The CEI would stretch any logic and correlation to sell the notion that everyone needs a college degree. That notion is not only self-serving, but a blatant fraud upon the consumer. In that sense the CEI is no different than the NAR which sold the notion that every American should own a house as that is the meaning of the American Dream, and having a house is also the gateway to be a millionaire. By substituting 'a degree' for 'a house,' and 'success' for 'American Dream,' it is obvious that the CEI is like the NAR, scam-ing naive people.

And who will pay for all this "education"??

Parents who are college educated know the importance of the degree. They also know the importance of finding a career path that will paY them a comfortable salary. They may not be rich. but comfortable. Going to college on loans and govt handouts produces a culture of entitled youth saddled with debt and liberal degrees that don't produce anything. Learn math and science and work hard in school.

This article made my blood boil. The statement, "parents’ education levels because people with more education tend to make more money and have other advantages" is a fallacy in itself. I know of many parents (myself included), who do not have a four-year college degree, yet both of my children are very successful. One is a succesful lawyer and the other is a successful civil engineer. In addition to what this article would consider “uneducated, disadvantaged children”; both of them succeeded from a divorced home. Where do these people gather their data?

The answer is parenting. My 4 siblings and I were taught that to be successful you had to work hard and having an education would help you. My father had a high school degree and was a retail manager. My mother was a chemist. My Parents didn't make enough to put all of us through college so they put none of through college. We started saving in high school and lived at home the first 2 years and worked while we went. All 5 us us are successful. 1 Phd , 1 attorney, one Vp at a fortune 50 company. NO student loans. I will teach my child the same thing. When you go to school work hard and choose something that will put a roof over your head.

"American kids are much more likely to succeed if their parents are more educated." That's because poorly educated adults are not as aware of opportunities for their kids and also don't realize the importance of a college degree. When I became the first member of my father's side of the family to go to college, relatives at my high school graduation party actually asked my parents if I was too lazy to go to work - despite the fact I worked 25-48 hrs/week at a fast food place my last year of high school! When my sister and I began post-college work not making big bucks, a neighbor in our blue-collar neighborhood asked, "What good was college?" A decade later when sis and I made more than his three kids put together we answered that question! Additionally, educated people are more likely to find out about things like a music college's low-cost prep program for young kids, etc. They're aware of how kids who study music, do scouts, play organized sports, etc. tend to do better in school. And the kids of educated people grow up more often watching shows like Word Girl, Sid the Science Kid, NOVA, and Nature on PBS.

when polled, Americans say that hard work and ambition are the factors that get you ahead in life. They also believe things like parental background aren’t as important... “All of our data shows the opposite,” Currier said.

Ironic how as smart as we Americans are, we have a really hard time believing reality.

Spoken like a true, paid university lobbyist; or worse, private bank student loan marketeer.

I have 3 degrees spanning the 60s and 80s but I'm unemployed because I have too much education/experience. My son has both an BS and an MS in Environmental Science and has to work at Target because he doesn't have the checklist required 2 years experience for the job that the university career counselors claimed was a slam dunk after taking its exorbitant state tuition, fees and books money.

The universities and TV adds for online education are all selling a bill of goods to desperate people with limited resources. Maybe they should migrate to wall street where the lies and promises fit in.

This article leaves a lot to be desired. What was produced as "research" did not appear as such nor was it detailed enough to draw a conclusion one way or the other.

Here are some facts of life, however. Most college degrees in the US are not worth the paper they are written on! Any AA or BS degree are just that, BS. Many kids are going through college for entertainment and because they are too lazy to find work and take on responsibilities. This is evidenced by how many of them are living at home and have basically a non-sustainable income, if any. Besides, a large part of college students just do not belong there to begin with since their educational level from High School is dismal, at best.

Learn a trade and excel in that. With that you can get about anywhere you like to if you are ambitious. There are people that are absolute college material, but they are not groomed as this article suggests. A solid F for this not so good and incomplete information!

I think this article proves one thing. Educated parents (read: parents with higher incomes) give their kids a boost.

How in the heck our the poor kids who are in 90Gs of debt going to ever get out of it? The ones who are that much in debt were supposed to be our biggest earners and there is no work for none of them... My neighbor kids grew up to be teachers and niether have a job doing that.. A job that was mentioned over and over to them that was needed... Both are outstanding examples of good conservative kids and both are looking at 30Gs while mom and dad covered a crapload of expense and effort to get them this far... Clinton. your globalization failed.. Bush. your war failed and broke us... Obama. your banking reform and jobs bill and end of war and change failed... VOTERS... WE FAILED.. Not again though.. Ron Paul 2012

So in order to make lots of money, during a recession...is to get in debt by using high priced student loans, and live in a dumpster for the next 10 years in order to pay it all back?

Ok...you know. Sometimes it's up to the next generation to stop @!$%#ing around, get their own education, and work on getting somewhere in their lives WITHOUT their parents help? Some parents can't afford to put their kids through college, let alone themselves. And many were to stupid on choosing careers they hated, just because they thought it would earn them more money.

So now you have a bunch of idiots, working jobs they detest, just to earn what? An extra tax bracket, that allows them to give all that extra money they earn to the government? WTF!

Yes get a higher education, because that's how society prunes the bottom, just make sure u don't pay for those privates without a good scholarship because the government repayment will put u in debt for life with no guarantee for good jobs in this new era of global competition and easy outsourcing.

A liberal arts degree from college is worthless and puts you on the same footing as someone with a high school diploma. College will benefit only those with useful degrees.

A better title for this article would had been: "To Get Your Kids Ahead in Life, Get a Degree in Engineering, or Go to Med School". Almost everyone in my family have a degree (associates, BS/BA/BFA, MBA, JD, etc.) but the only ones that have actual success and aren't a bunch of lower middle class commoners (like myself and my hubs) are my mom's oldest brother (who's a chemist), and my dad's little sister (who's a doctor). Everyone else are cops, nurses, teachers, college professors, small business owners...and we're all lower middle class and went to college.