Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act would let the Education Department track students through college and into the workforce, creating a federal database of remediation and graduation rates, salaries by major and program and success rates for recipients of Pell Grants and veterans’ benefits. Policymakers and consumers want to know. Privacy advocates hate the idea and some colleges oppose it too.
Does college pay? It will for the Stanford engineering graduate, but not for the fine arts major from an unselective college — and even less for dropouts. “With unemployment among college graduates at historic highs and outstanding student-loan debt at $1 trillion, the question families should be asking is whether it’s worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for a degree from Podunk U. if it’s just a ticket to a barista’s job at Starbucks,” writes Jeffrey Selingo. Meanwhile, workers with community college degrees in technical fields are doing quite well in the workforce.
Most of the fastest-growing jobs don’t require a degree, but don’t pay well either. Personal care and home health aides average less than $21,000 a year and “helpers” in construction aides average less than $30,000.
Math skills at age seven (and reading and math for girls) predicted earnings at age 42 in a British study that followed subjects from birth to middle age, reports The Atlantic.
Researchers also analyzed socioeconomic class at birth, IQ at age 11, academic motivation at 16. Controlling for other factors, ”the association between basic math and reading skills and future socioeconomic status remained” and was significant.
As a next step, the researchers hope to assess the long-term impact of early education and interventions.
Texans who earn a technical certificate or associate degree often earn more than four-year graduates in their first year in the workforce, concludes a new study. Some workers with certificates in health-care fields start at more than $70,000 – $30,000 more than the median for graduates with bachelor’s degrees.
Community college graduates with technical degrees start work at higher wages than four-year graduates. While some bachelor’s degree graduates catch up after a few years, nearly 30 percent of “middle skill” workers earn more than the average four-year graduate. But only 10 percent of U.S. workers have vocational certificates and associate degrees compared to 24 percent of Canadians.
Teaching makes Salary.com’s list of 8 College Degrees with the Worst Return on Investment.
A day-care center teacher averages $27,910 per year. If she earned a bachelor’s at a public university — and received no grants or scholarships — she’d get a 43 percent return on investment. The ROI is 13 percent for a pay-your-own-way private college degree.
Of course, K-12 teachers do better. The median salary of a high school teacher is $54,473, according to Salary.com. That would generate an 85 percent return on investment for a public degree, 25 percent for a private degree.
Other low-return majors are sociology, psychology, communications, fine arts, religious studies, hospitality and nutrition. Generally, the “helping professions” pay badly.
8 degrees that will earn your money back are: math, information technology, human resources, econ, biology, engineering, marketing and English. English? Communications is a loser but English is a winner? (I majored in English and Creative Writing.)
Salary.com says English majors can end up as speech writers ($78,011 median pay) with a 122 percent public ROI. Communications manager ($88,498) earns a 139 percent ROI. Web content managers ($79,674) get to 125 percent. Nobody gets a positive return on investment for private college.
As student debt mounts, colleges and universities face pressure to disclose their graduates’ earnings.
Washington, Florida Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia have released wage information by major, degree and institutution. Colorado, Nevada and Texas will do so soon. A bill in Congress would publicize graduates’ wage data for every college and university.
Community colleges and employers are working to develop apprenticeship programs.
Associate degree graduates in technical fields earn more than the average four-year graduate in three states — and they paid a lot less for their education.
Going to college and choosing a technical major will increase your earnings — but not as much as you think, argue two American Enterprise Institute scholars. Confusing correlation and causation exaggerates the college payoff.
Health care pays the greatest “wage premium” for both associate and bachelor’s degrees.
The 16.5 million Spanish-speaking adults who aren’t proficient in English forego $37.7 billion a year in earnings, estimates the Lexington Institute. That’s about $3,000 a year in earnings per worker.
Up to 59 percent of California’s English Learners — students who don’t test proficient in English — have been enrolled in U.S. schools for six years or more, according to Californians Together. California is now focusing on “long-term English Learners.”
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