Lifetime earnings matter, not five years

Eric Crampton writes,

Students choosing majors may well worry about employment options after graduation. The NZ Ministry of Education has released some data on post-study outcomes by major. Read the whole thing here

Basically the ministry has looked at (ex)student earnings, and other outcomes, five years after graduation. But this is worthless since what matters is life-time earnings with the full opportunity cost of gaining a qualification taken into account. One wonders what such a calculation would look like. Given the opportunity costs of gaining higher qualifications it may not look good.