People who have Bachelor’s Degrees earn on average $26,000 more a year than those with just a high school diploma, according to numbers released by the Census Bureau last week. These numbers were for the year 2007 and were gathered from a survey on educational attainment in the United States.
The percent of people who have Bachelor’s degrees is also on the rise. Results showed that in 2008 29 percent of adults 25 and older have a Bachelor’s degree, this is compared to 24 percent in 1998.
What does this mean? It means that in order to remain marketable in today’s marketplace, higher education is essential. The recession has made it increasingly more difficult to find and keep a good job. Unemployment rates for those with higher education are much lower. Many people are realizing this and choosing to go back to school. This is illustrated by the fact that post-secondary enrollments are up, according to the Department of Education,
Higher Education = Higher Quality of Life
It also means that the value of a degree translates to more than a million dollars over a lifetime. In addition, there have been several studies that have found that higher education also equals a higher quality of life.
Higher education has been proven to correlate with better health. A 2004 report released by the College Board, a non-profit association, showed that those who have a bachelor’s degree were at least 20 percent more likely to consider themselves in good health than those who did not have a high school diploma.
The report also showed that those with a college degree had far smaller incarceration rates. And this was not the only positive affect on society that higher education has – individuals with a degree were also more likely to volunteer and to donate blood, according to the report.
Another study, published in Postsecondary Opportunity and written by Tom Mortenson, listed out activities that were associated with people who have Bachelor’s degrees and those that were not.
Those with a Bachelor’s were more likely to:
-
Vote
-
Have regular medical and dental checkups
-
More likely to use the Internet
-
Use computers
-
Attend art and cultural activities
-
Exercise
-
Buy and read books
-
Read newspapers and newsmagazines
-
Have knowledge about government
-
Be politically active
-
Have children with higher levels of education
And were less likely to:
-
Be overweight
-
Smoke
-
Be disabled
The statistical information published by the Census Bureau makes it clear the monetary rewards of an education. But reports also show that the value of an education is far greater than just economics. And this all translates to the fact that it pays to get a degree. Pick up your free pre-enrollment documents at Online Distance MBA, Online Executive MBA or Masters Degree Business.
Tags: classes, courses, DBA, Doctor o, Doctor of Dental Medicine, Doctor of Pharmacy, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Psychology, doctorate, economy, employment, Finance, jobs, Juris Doctor.business, M.D., online learning, Ph.D, Ph.D. in psychology, PharmD, Psy.D., school, tuition