Rachel Hanson, Contributing Writer
It has long been the rule that college graduates earn more money than high school graduates or those who did not earn a high school diploma. While this has been the case for a long time, the gap between the earnings potential of each group is widening. Professionals with a master's or bachelor's degree are seeing larger salary increases than those with a high school diploma or incomplete high school. The Washington Post reported in 2007 that the rise in median earnings from 1998 until completion of the study was increasing by 20% for those with a bachelor's degree, increasing by 22% for those with a doctorate and only increasing by 14% for those with a high school diploma. High-school drop-outs fare even worse; the rise in median income for this working group was a stagnant 7.7%.
These numbers provide a clear picture of the financial advantages that are associated with earning higher degrees. A bachelor's degree takes four more years of full-time study than a high school diploma takes and the financial advantage of it is far greater than the time invested in it. A doctoral degree is usually five years of full-time study beyond the bachelor's degree (total of nine years of higher education), a significant amount of invested time; however, the rise in median earnings for those with a doctoral degree was only two percentage points higher than the average increase for those with a bachelor degree. For many people, it's this type of salary information that will heavily guide their decision-making process of when to go on to further education and when to enter the workforce for good.
The numbers above show salary increases over a period of almost ten years, but what are the cold, hard numbers? What is the average salary of someone with a bachelor's degree as compared to someone who dropped out of high school? Additionally, what is the financial difference between someone with a Master of Arts and a Master of Business Administration?
The median income of a person who did not receive a high school diploma is $13,000 per year; a high school degree means that the average salary moves up to the range of $21,000. This is considerably lower than the median salary for professionals who have earned a bachelor's degree: median salary of $40,000. Between these two groups falls the median salary for individuals with an Associate's degree: $31,000. At the high end of the spectrum, a Master's degree yields a median income of $51,500, and a doctoral degree yields a considerable $70,000 yearly salary. These cold, hard numbers tell a very clear story of the financial value of earning a higher education degree.
As for differences between different types of bachelor's and master's degrees, there are salary differences between these different types of degrees. Earners of Bachelor of Arts typically earn somewhere in the range of $33,000 to $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, earners of a Bachelor of Science often earn only the higher end of that 33-60K pay scale, and reach all the way up into the $90,000 salary range.
Various master's degrees also differ from one another in terms of salaried earnings upon obtaining the degree. Recipients of a Master of Arts typically earn between $35,000 and $68,000 a year. Those with a Master of Science can expect to earn somewhere in the range of $62,000 to $92,000 a year and earners of an MBA earn somewhere in the range of $60,000 to $120,000 per year. Again, these differences by degree are highly significant! While one must choose a college major and degree program that appeal to them, it's also an idea to consider salary differences according to degree level and degree type since they vary so widely.