IIRC Alfie Kohn's book What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated has a couple studies on it. I believe he says that GPA accounts for about 3% of future income potential.
Many firms have done their own internal studies though. IIRC Google undertook a big study and found no correlation between gpa and job performance. I'm sure financial firms have probably looked at the link between gpa and alpha, if only because it's so easy to measure.
A more interesting thought experiment is to ask yourself the opposite question: For students who have jobs before going to college or grad school, would you expect those who made more money to later get a higher GPA?
I'd be interested to see the analysis or references to this analysis, if anybody has any links.
I'd be even more interested to see how GPA correlates with people actually getting an interview and getting a position there.
It wasn't too long ago that Google required you to have above a 3.8 GPA to be a serious candidate. I can accept that there isn't too much difference between people in the 3.8~4.0 GPA range, but I'd expect that there would be a significant difference between someone getting a 3.8 and a 3.3 from the same school.
"Unfortunately, most of the academic research suggests that the factors Google has put the most weight on — grades and interviews — are not an especially reliable way of hiring good people. [...] Dr. Carlisle set about analyzing the two million data points the survey collected. Among the first results was confirmation that Google’s obsession with academic performance was not always correlated with success at the company."
I seem to remember there being another better article than this one that went into more detail, but I can't find it right now. If you want the real story you'd probably have to ask a high ranking ex-googler...
Are you talking Major GPA or over all? Someone who is getting C's in art appreciation is probably just a bit wiser about how they spend their time than someone who gets all A's.
Many firms have done their own internal studies though. IIRC Google undertook a big study and found no correlation between gpa and job performance. I'm sure financial firms have probably looked at the link between gpa and alpha, if only because it's so easy to measure.
A more interesting thought experiment is to ask yourself the opposite question: For students who have jobs before going to college or grad school, would you expect those who made more money to later get a higher GPA?