From a selfish point of view, the pay you miss while you’re in school and the raise you get once you’re out of school are symmetric. The pay you miss is all selfish cost. The raise you get is all selfish benefit. From a social point of view, however, what counts is productivity, not pay. The social cost of school is the stuff you fail to produce. The social benefit of school is the extra stuff you learn to produce. If education’s payoff is 80% signaling, and a year of education raises annual earnings by $5,000, only $1,000 is a true gain to society. The other $4,000 is your reward for
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