The relationship between starting wage rates and level of education attained by young adults was studied, based on findings of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. According to 1972-1979 data, the greater the educational attainment of the young adults, the higher their starting wage rates. Although the wage rates of young women college graduates quickly caught up to and overtook those of their female high school classmates who did not attend college, the wage rates of young men who did not attend college remained higher than their college-educated classmates for at least 8 years after high school. However, within every educational level and age group, females earned less per hour than comparable males. While in school, young people worked for lower hourly pay than they could get were they not in school. The women studied showed a crossover point (when the wage rates of those with differing levels of educational attainment show only minimal differences) in wage rates in 1976, when most of them were 22 years old. In that year, the wage rate of women with no college was $4.27 per hour, of those with less than 2 years of college was $4.61 per hour, of those with 2 years of college or more or a two-year degree was $4.54, and of those with a bachelor's or advanced degree was $4.72 per hour. For men, the crossover point in earnings came in 1979, when most were 25 years old, when the median hourly wage rates of men were $7.06, $6.94, $6.50, and $6.88, respectively. Limitations of the data are considered. (SW)