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Returns to Education: Mincer Wage-Age Profile

Interactive 3D Mincer-equation simulator: choose extra years of schooling, the per-year return, tuition cost, and a discount rate, then watch age-earnings bars for two life paths grow apart and see the NPV, break-even age and internal rate of return update live.

Economics & Social Systems3DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 2D version

This simulator visualizes the economics of human-capital investment using the Mincer earnings function, the workhorse model economists use to estimate the return on schooling. Two career paths are rendered as animated 3D age-earnings bars across a working lifetime: a baseline path that starts earning at 18, and an extended-schooling path that spends extra years in education — paying tuition and forgoing wages — before starting work with permanently higher pay. Adjust the extra years of schooling, the estimated return per year, tuition cost and the discount rate, and watch the net present value, break-even age and approximate internal rate of return update live, exactly as a real cost-benefit analysis of a degree would.

⚙ Under the hood

An interactive 3D Mincer-equation simulator comparing a baseline career against an extended-schooling path, with live NPV, break-even age and IRR readouts as you adjust extra years of schooling, the return per year, tuition cost and the discount rate.

economicseducationhuman capitallabor economicsNPVMincer equation

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install