College Degree Statistics Don't Lie

A college degree means more than merely a four year experience. It’s more than football games and term papers and all nighters, a college degree now represents an increasingly necessary step on the way to a stable future. The piece of paper students walk away with after their years of devoted study is becoming more common, more necessary, and sadly, more pricey.

Between 1987 and 1997 there was a 14 percent increase in college enrollment. Between 1997 and 2007 there was a 26 percent increase. In that time, full time student enrollment increased by 34 percent. Between 1976 and 2007 the total minority population enrolled in college courses has more than doubled, from 15 percent to 32 percent. All of these college degree statistics have been closely monitored by the National Center for Education Statistics, a part of the U.S. Department of Education and the primary federal organization devoted to education analysis.

The general trend of education across the planet is that more people are being educated at higher levels. As of 2003, the U.S. population contained more than 40,000,000 college graduates, according to the National Science Foundation. These trends are not only evident in student enrollment and graduation rates, but also employment and pay rates for those students following graduation.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for those with a Bachelors degree or higher is 4.9 percent as of April 2010, while the unemployment rate for those with less than a high school education is at 14.7 percent. Earning potential also makes the point of how a college degree important, currently those with a Bachelors degree earn an average annual salary of $51,206, while those with only a high school diploma average $27,915 annually, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Individuals who possess an advanced degree average $74,602 annually. That means that a Masters degree graduate will earn $1.3 million dollars more over their lifetime than their high school diploma counterpart, according to the Census Bureau report The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings.

These statistics are very telling, but are merely a numeric representation of how a college degree important. College degree important because education enriches life, it expands understandings and unites us all through information. College degree statistics expose the trend of education clearly, we are all drawn to learning and we seek it out and pursue it regardless of the obstacles. The Internet is only enabling further education to growing numbers of people. Become part of the trend to educate yourself, become part of the movement to expand our base of knowledge.