Gary Becker was an intellectual giant. No one had a greater impact on broadening economics and making its impact felt throughout the social sciences thanBecker. Indeed,MiltonFriedmanoncedescribedGaryBecker as the most important social scientist of the second half of the twentieth century. For those of us who knew him, he was themost creative thinker we ever encountered. It was his astounding imagination that made many of his early critics think of him as a heretic. They were correct: he was a heretic much like Luther, Copernicus, and Galileo, who transformed their worlds, just ashe transformedeconomics.Hebrought a rigorous and insightful approach to issues that were viewed as inherently noneconomic. Eventually, he won over the economics profession, detractors and all, who eventually became converts. Becker was a scientist in the true sense of the word.He believed that economics was useful only if it explained andhelped to improve theworld.He practiced what he preached and carefully analyzed all of the social problems he addressed. He was innovative yet rigorous, open to new thought yet disciplined in sticking to the established rules of analysis. Most importantly, he extended the boundaries of economics tomuch of social science.

This paper estimates returns to education using a dynamic model of educational choice that synthesizes approaches in the structural dynamic discrete choice literature with approaches used in the reduced form treatment effect literature. It is an empirically robust middle ground between the two approaches which estimates economically interpretable and policy-relevant dynamic treatment effects that account for heterogeneity in cognitive and non-cognitive skills and the continuation values of educational choices. Graduating college is not a wise choice for all. Ability bias is a major component of observed educational differentials. For some, there are substantial causal effects of education at all stages of schooling.