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Bachelor's Degree Share
About This Indicator
What Is This?
The share of Americans ages 25 to 29 with at least a bachelor's degree, from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, yearly since 1964. Before 1992 the survey asked years of school, so until then it counts four or more years of college.
Why Does It Matter?
It shows how many in the generation just starting careers finished college. A degree is one of the strongest predictors of pay, of keeping a job through a recession, and even of living years longer, on average, so this share hints at how the next generation of workers will fare.
Can Politics Influence It?
Through federal student aid, from Pell Grants to loans, and through state funding of public colleges and universities. Because it covers only people in their late twenties, it reflects schooling finished within the past decade, so choices made in one administration can reach it within the next.
Key Idea
The share of all adults with a degree climbs almost on its own, as older generations who went to college less give way to younger ones. Looking only at people in their late twenties strips out that drift and asks a harder question: is each new generation getting further than the one before it?
Scored: A Rise Ranks Better
Source: Census Bureau. Current Population Survey Historical Table A-2 (taba-2), people 25 to 29; CPS ASEC public-use microdata (api.census.gov) for years after the table's last row.
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