By Annie Murphy Paul

“When you get to be our age, you all of a sudden realize that you are being ruled by people you went to high school with,” noted the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. “You all of a sudden catch on that life is nothing but high school.”

I thought of Vonnegut’s observation this week when I read a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research—titled, simply, “Popularity.” Individuals’ social status in high school has a “sizable effect” on their earnings as adults, reports lead author Gabriella Conti of the University of Chicago: “We estimate that moving from the 20th to 80th percentile of the high-school popularity distribution yields a 10% wage premium nearly 40 years later.”

via Does High School Determine the Rest of Your Life? | TIME.com.