Understanding the market value of a college degree

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For generations, college degrees have always been linked to career success. It seems that graduating from college can easily mean getting a good job with a good salary. But in a real-world sense, it may not always be the case.

Not all college degrees have the same value in the job market. This is something that relies on three things, according to Forbes:

1. Academic performance
Just because a person holds a college degree like the rest of his classmates does not mean he will get the same job opportunities as them. Naturally, graduates with higher grades will be considered first for decent positions. Of course, decent positions also naturally come with good pay.


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2. Majors
There are jobs that are in demand, and there are those that are not. Depending on how sought-after a job is in the market, the general salary increases or decreases. When there are only few graduates qualified for much-needed positions, salaries being offered hit the roof.

3. Reputation of the college
According to Forbes, students who graduated from top colleges earn 20 percent more than students coming from lower ranking schools. This just proves that enrolling in a reputable college can be a valuable investment. Of course, graduates must also prove that they don’t rely solely on the name of their school. They must prove to their employers that they are ready to utilize the skills and knowledge they have accumulated in their escalation in the educational ladder.


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As part of College Capture, David Charlow helps families save up for college education. Visit this website for more information.

REPOST: Benefits of College Degree in Recession Are Outlined

In times of recession, a college degree becomes more instrumental in landing a job. A study reveals that unemployment was at its worse in the workforce bracket that lacks a college degree. This New York Times article, written by Richard Perez-Pena, explains the study further.

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Young adults have long faced a rough job market, but in the last recession and its aftermath, college graduates did not lose nearly as much ground as their less-educated peers, according to a new study.

The study, published on Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts, shows that among Americans age 21 to 24, the drop in employment and income was much steeper among people who lacked a college degree.

The findings come as many published articles and books have told the stories of young college graduates unable to find work, and questioned the conventional wisdom that a college education is a worthwhile investment and the key to opportunity and social mobility. The study did not take into account the cost of going to college.

“This shows that any amount of post-secondary education does improve the labor market outcomes for those recent graduates,” said Diana Elliott, the research manager for Pew’s Economic Mobility Project. “This is not necessarily to discredit those individual stories.”

In fact, the study documents a serious decline in the job picture for young people.

Using data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, Pew looked at employment, either full time or part time, among 21- to 24-year-olds, in the roughly two and a half years before the 2007-2009 recession, during it, and in the two and a half years after it.

Among those whose highest degree was a high school diploma, only 55 percent had jobs even before the downturn, and that fell to 47 percent after it. For young people with an associate’s degree, the employment rate fell from 64 percent to 57 percent.

But those with a bachelor’s degree started off in the strongest position and weathered the downturn best, with employment slipping from 69 percent to 65 percent. (The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a similar decline, about four percentage points, among all people over 20, at any education level.)

Similarly, in all three groups of young adults, wages fell for those who had work, but the decline was spread unevenly.

People with four-year college degrees saw a 5 percent drop in wages, compared with a 12 percent decrease for their peers with associate’s degrees, and a 10 percent decline for high school graduates.

One surprise in the data, Ms. Elliott said, had to do with “the prevailing speculation that people who couldn’t find work were returning to school, enhancing their training.” In fact, college enrollment over all rose sharply for several years, driven primarily by older students, before leveling off in 2011.

But Pew’s study found that among people age 21 to 24, the rate of college enrollment actually declined slightly, during and after the recession.

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