Need a million dollars?
What would you do if you had an extra million dollars in your bank account? Travel Europe? Or maybe buy a house…on the beach…and a boat to go with it? No, we’re not selling lottery tickets, but there is another way to make your financial dreams come true: Get an education. Simply put, the more education you have, the more money you are likely to earn and the less likely you are to be standing in the unemployment line.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, increases in income and decreases in unemployment rates are proportional to education levels. Just the difference between earning a high school diploma and dropping out averages over $9,000 a year. For someone who works about 50 years in their lifetime, that difference is easily half a million dollars in lost income. The unemployment rate differences are significant, too, dropping from 7.1% to 4.4% for high school grads.
An associate’s degree can offer an even better payoff. Associate’s degrees take just two years to complete, and boost income levels over $3,000 per year from that of a high school graduate (and more than $12,000 a year for someone without the high school degree). The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) puts the median annual salary of an associate’s degree holder at $34,000 for adults ages 25-34. Over a lifetime, that’s at least $141,000 more than you’d earn with just a high school diploma. Considering that CollegeBoard.com puts the average cost of a two-year degree from a public college in 2006-07 at $4,544, your tuition expenses are totally worth it.
A bachelor’s degree is where you’ll see the biggest return. NCES calculates that annual earnings for four-year degree holders increase by an average of $9,500 over those of associate’s degree holders. A report by the U.S. Census finds that someone with a bachelor’s degree will earn an average of $2.1 million dollars in lifetime earnings, half a million more than someone with an associate’s degree, and a million more than someone who doesn’t finish high school. Are you noticing a trend here? More education means more money, so it should be a no-brainer to buckle down and study hard for a few years to get the bigger payoff.
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