There has been so much talk about the cost of graduate studies and higher education in general. Much of it focused on the debt incurred and the return derived or the many years spent trying to pay it back!
I just want to shout out now :
COLLEGE IS WORTH IT. MY GRADUATE EDUCATION WILL PAY OFF !
Thanks to Catherine Rampell for this excellent article in the NYT Economics blog and this Georgetown university’s Center for Education and the Workforce report for calling this out with hard statistics! (Our economics tutors and our statistics tutors will be proud of your work too).
Here is the crux of it from Catherine:
Unemployment for new graduates is around 8.9 percent; the rate for workers with only a high school degree is nearly three times as high, at 22.9 percent.
So even new graduates are better off on average than those who have just a high school degree. As these graduates gain experience, their lot improves. Graduates do better both in terms of unemployment percentages (first graph below) and in earnings (second graph below).
This definitely should make you feel better about your decision to pursue higher education.
Unemployment rates by education level
Earnings of Graduates by subject
Thanks again to Catherine Rampell and the Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce report.