College is a big investment, and due to cuts in school funding and the outlook of the economy, some might think it’s too much of a risk. However, in a recent study, researchers found graduates holding a bachelor’s degree make 84% more than high school graduates over their lifetime. Those holding a doctoral degree will earn $3.3 million in a lifetime, compared to a college grad with $2.3 million and those holding a high school diploma with $1.3 million.
Piper Perry, my intern last semester, had worked since she started cleaning Super 8 hotels at 16. A lackluster student in high school, she went to Montana State University at Bozeman to please her mother. But , like a lot of students, she spent more time partying than studying, and she dropped out.
During tough times, people go back to school. By many estimates, the depression America is experiencing right now hasn’t been this bad since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time in office. His ingenuity in the Works Progress Act and many other programs which put people to work when jobs were scarce is the hallmark of his presidency. Obama, who clearly understands that the number one thing we can do to improve our economy is educate young people in America, also needs to look at how people over twenty-five can increase their earning power, save for retirement and, hopefully, find ways to give back to society in both money and time.
While our nation is at-risk for financial and real-estate debacles, we are also at-risk for our economy of the future in underprepared college graduates who are swelling our Higher Educational institutions in numbers two-thirds strong in community colleges and almost one-third strong in four year schools as the article below indicates.