About 70% of the increase in overall college completion between 1990 and 2010 can be explained by an increasing share of individuals earning degrees after their mid-twenties. Black and female college graduates are more likely to be “late bloomers”; the rise in later-in-life college completion explains a substantial share of the reduction in college completion gaps between genders and races. When individuals graduate from college later in life, they have smaller wage returns; ignoring the existence of late graduates when estimating the returns to college education underestimates the value of graduating from college early by 27%.
