Dive Brief:
- In spite of the rising price tag of a college degree and the falling earnings of graduates, the benefits of holding an associate’s or bachelor’s degree still outweigh the costs, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
- The bank analyzed data back to the 1970s and found that the return on investment for a college degree climbed “impressively” from 1980 to 2000, and for more than a decade it has held steady at 15%.
- Over the last four decades, grads with bachelor’s degrees earned 56% more than high school graduates, and associate’s degree grads have earned 21% more.
Dive Insight:
The data analysis is impressive in this report. Written by Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group, the analysis also shows that the average wages of college grads have been falling for a decade, accelerating downward after the Great Recession, but the wages of non-graduates have also been falling. Return on investment in college varies according to the field. Students who majored in engineering, math, computers and other technical fields, or fields in growing areas of the economy, such as health care, tended to earn a high return on their investment in college. Graduates with degrees in leisure and hospitality, agriculture, architecture, or the liberal arts fared worse — especially those who found themselves chronically unemployed.