Earnings Gap Narrows, but College Education Still Pays, Report Says – Students – The Chronicle of Higher Education

• Earnings Gap Narrows, but College Education Still Pays, Report Says – Students – The Chronicle of Higher Education

  College degrees matter when it comes to earnings however it depends on degree and career selection.

  tags: education learning student debts unemployment underemployment college higher education

  • The earnings gap between young college graduates and their peers with only high-school diplomas has narrowed slightly in recent years, but adults with bachelor’s degrees still make significantly more over their careers,

  • "Education Pays 2013: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society," examines the value of college in both financial and nonfinancial terms.

  • society as a whole benefit from increased levels of education,"

  • Debate over the return on investment of higher education—and whether such a tally is the right way to determine its value—has intensified as tuition has risen faster than family income

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  • "Putting it into the longer-term context is important," she said. In 1991, male and female bachelor’s-degree holders ages 25 to 34 made 56 percent more than their counterparts with only high-school diplomas.

  • Beyond early adulthood, the report shows that, in most cases, it does pay to attend college.

  • 65 percent higher than those of high-school graduates.

  • Still, higher education isn’t a guaranteed ticket to higher earnings,

  • Most students borrow reasonably, she said. Of students who first enrolled in college in 2003-4, more than four in 10 did not borrow at all, according to the supplemental report.

  • Among those borrowing the most, 85 percent went on to finish a bachelor’s degree within six years. Of students who dropped out and didn’t come back, 57 percent had some debt, the report says, most less than $10,000.

  • The report also shows that the more education an individual attains, the less likely he or she is to be unemployed.

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  • Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies and a professor of economics at Northeastern University, said the report should have focused on an important trend among today’s new college graduates: mal-employment.

  • More than 36 percent of recent college graduates are mal-employed, according to Mr. Sum’s research.

  • The authors also cite the income gap between college graduates and holders of only high-school diplomas, and how it widens with age thanks to a steeper earnings path for those with college degrees.

  • But degree attainment is not the deciding factor for income, said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. This report, he said, "seems to respect that hierarchy a bit too much."

  • A bachelor’s degree alone does not tell the whole story, he said.

  • But among secretaries and administrative assistants, those with bachelor’s degrees earned just 15 percent more than those who held only a high-school diploma.

  • Low-income students are overrepresented at for-profit and two-year colleges, according to the findings, while students from higher-income families dominate enrollment at four-year public and private institutions.

  • The American higher-education system is very averse to risk and favors students who demonstrate the most ability to pay, said Mr. Carnevale. "We’re now a country that produces intergenerational racial and class advantage."

  • The amount of time spent exercising per week, meanwhile, increases across all age groups as the level of education goes up.

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