How having a college education can add a decade or more to your life expectancy

That there are gaps in the life expectancies between different groups is very well known – but what about the effect of education on how long people are expected to live? In new research, Isaac Sasson looks at the effects of having a college education on the life spans of different groups. He writes that white women with a college education can expect to live 9 years longer than those without a high-school degree, a difference that is nearly 12 years for white men, and almost 5 and nearly 9 for black women and men. He also finds that college-educated Americans have far less variation in their life spans compared to those with less education, who are more likely to die prematurely.