This volume of essays reflects some ways higher education influences marriage patterns, family size, consumption, savings, and a cluster of social and political attitudes. Topics cover: mental ability and higher educational attainment in the 20th century; education, experience, and the distribution of earnings and employment; education as an investment and a screening device; ability and schooling as determinants of lifetime earnings; the returns to investment in higher education; education and the allocation of women's time; measuring the obsolescence of knowledge, education, and consumption; the relation between schooling and savings behavior; education, the price of time, and life-cycle consumption; the relation between education and crime; education and fertility; the influence of education and ability on salary and attitudes. Statistical data are presented. (MJM)