Real Benefits to Earning Your Higher Education

Do you ever wonder if these four years of college are ever going to be worth all the study/all-nighters/expense/lack of a social life/work/every other bad thing you can think of about college? Is it really worth getting up at 6:00am to make that 7:00am chemistry lab? What about the rising cost of tuition? There are many things that could discourage you from pursuing a higher education. Is it worth it? Experts say yes.
According to a new study by the College Board, “workers with a college degree earned much more and were much less likely to be unemployed than those with only a high school diploma.”
In 2008, this study found that the median earnings of workers with a bachelor’s degree were $55,700. Workers who had only earned their high school diploma made $21,900 on average. Women who have earned their bachelor’s degree earn 79 percent more than those who only have their high school diploma; for men, it was 74 percent more.
Another benefit of pursuing a higher education is job security. In 2009, college graduates ages 25 and older had an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent. For high school graduates, this percent was more than twice as high at 9.7 percent.
“Consistently over time, unemployment rates are about half for college graduates,” said Sandy Baum, one of the authors of the report. “And jobs began recovering for college graduates about a year and half ago. While it’s easy to find a college grad who’s unemployed, you’re statistically much less likely to be in that circumstance if you have a higher level of education.”
In addition to these monetary and occupational benefits, people who have earned a higher level of education are more like to experience social and health benefits: they are more likely to volunteer, vote, have health insurance, and exercise. They are less like to be obese, smoke, or have babies with low-birth-weights.
So, the next time that you are beating your head against your textbook, wondering why you need to keep studying, remember that the long-term effects of a college education will be helping you lead a more successful life, long after your all-nighter is over.
Via The New York Times