Not having a degree is costing you financial wealth/freedom

Author: vicque fassinger
Category: The Daily Blog

The only people who don’t believe you need to have a college degree in your back pocket in order to truly attain personal, financial, and professional freedom and success in life are the people who don’t have one; and, if you spend any amount of time with those folks, you’ll quickly discover that they, too, secretly regret not having gone on to earn a degree themselves.  If that’s you, you can easily do something about that. If you’re still vacillating between investing the time and money into a degree or not, here’s a look at how not having a degree is costing you financial wealth/freedom.

College graduates earn more money than non-college graduates.

In a Pew Research survey conducted in October 2013 of 2,002 adults age 18 and older, it was found that college graduates between the ages of 25 to 32 (from the Millennial generation) were earning as much as $17,500 more per year than an individual from that same generation who held only a high school diploma.

College graduates hold more full-time jobs than non-college graduates.

With a college degree, you are more likely to hold a full-time job (with all its benefits and perks) than an individual who does not have that academic credential. The 2013 Pew Research survey found that 89% of college graduates held full-time positions.

College graduates hold more jobs than non-college graduates.

In addition to being employed full-time, more adults with college degrees are working than those with only a high school diploma. In fact, the Pew Research survey found that unemployment for the high school graduate is as high as 12.2%, as compared to the 3.8% of college graduates between the ages of 25-34 that are unemployed.

College graduates feel they are on a career path; high school graduates feel that they are at a standstill.

Job satisfaction contributes to personal happiness. If you are miserable at work, chances are you will be miserable in other areas of your life. College graduates from the Millennial generation responded to the Pew Research survey by sharing that they feel they are moving forward in their careers and have other professional goals yet to accomplish.  The response from the research participants with just a high school diploma, however, had a profoundly different perspective. Just 57% of the young adults felt their current job was a launching pad for other opportunities. Further, 42% of high school grads felt that their job was simply a paycheck to help them get by, while only 14% of college grads looked at their current jobs that way.

College graduates have no regrets; high school diploma-holders do.

Although the investment of both time and money is significant in order to earn a college degree, 72% of young adults who have completed that academic goal shared that it has already paid off.  If you have a college degree, no employer can ever use the reason why you are not being offered a position or a promotion is because you lack that formal academic accomplishment. With high school graduates however, that is often the feeling. In fact, those who hold just a high school diploma don’t feel they have a chance at getting hired for some positions or don’t bother to apply for a better or different role within their company because they lack the degree.

While securing a full-time job, being offered a promotion, and having a great salary are significant benefits of that coveted college degree, it’s the personal satisfaction of simply having a degree in your back pocket that will bring the most joy, success, and freedom to your life.