A bunch of my former students are graduating today from Armstrong Atlantic State University. Many are already working somewhere or have jobs waiting. Others are headed off for more school.
Whatever their professional goals, those new graduates are much more likely to find jobs than they would be without the degree.
The statistics are stark. We have data going back to 1992 that show the unemployment rate for various levels of educational attainment. Americans with more education are consistently less likely to be unemployed. High school grads do better than dropouts; those with some college do better than high school grads; those with college degrees do even better; virtually all Americans with graduate degrees find work.
Two important qualifications:
- The numbers here say nothing about salary or about the nature of the work. There are any number of people with solid educations who are underemployed and making far less than they expected.
- It might be that people who pursue higher education levels are simply people with more drive, in general. Many of them might be finding jobs more because of personal initiative than their education.
But take a look at this graph from Calculated Risk:
In the recent recession, the unemployment rate for those with college degrees climbed about three points from around 2 percent to roughly 5 percent. But if the unemployment rate were 5 percent across the board, we’d be screaming with joy.
The NYT has an article today talking about some of these trends: College Graduates Fare Well in Jobs Market, Even Through Recession. From that piece, with emphasis added regarding the total number of employed people in America at various levels of educational attainment:
The unemployment rate for college graduates in April was a mere 3.9 percent, compared with 7.5 percent for the work force as a whole, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. Even when the jobless rate for college graduates was at its very worst in this business cycle, in November 2010, it was still just 5.1 percent. That is close to the jobless rate the rest of the work force experiences when the economy is good.
Among all segments of workers sorted by educational attainment, college graduates are the only group that has more people employed today than when the recession started.
The number of college-educated workers with jobs has risen by 9.1 percent since the beginning of the recession. Those with a high school diploma and no further education are practically a mirror image, with employment down 9 percent on net. For workers without even a high school diploma, employment levels have fallen 14.1 percent.
College may not be for everyone, but the numbers should put an end to the debate over whether college is on average “worth it.”