We employ data from the March CPS for the period between 1964 and 2011 to compute the present discounted values of a college degree and high school diploma for different percentiles of income distributions in both education categories. We find that for a median income individual net value of a college degree is always positive. At the same time, we show that a sizable fraction of the population who acquired higher education would be better off by not getting a college degree. This fraction depends on the type of institution and opportunity costs of going to college. Our findings are consistent with the recent data on delinquency rates on student loans.

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When workers are myopic and the amount of financing provided by the government is sufficiently large, some workers acquire education even if they are better off without it. We show that government-provided loans generate a propagation mechanism that exacerbates inefficient college entry. Further, the extent of this inefficiency depends on the speed at which loans are provided, and not just on their amount. The extent of inefficient college entry also depends on the distribution of myopic workers in the population, and inefficiencies can arise even if not all workers are myopic. We extend the model to study the impact of the dropout rate and heterogeneous expectations as well the dynamic implications of inefficient college entry.

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