I’ve personally always felt that the greatest value of a university education wasn’t so much in the careers that would become available to you as a result, but rather the network of friends that you develop, the expansion of your horizons, and the renewed perspective that can be gained with a proper education. There’s nothing wrong with going in trades or earning some other certification, but the enlightening experience at university simply cannot be matched.
They’ve said for a while now that university graduates earn significantly more than their non-university counterparts, but I think that this data could be largely skewed by the mega-earners in the bunch, like those who go on to become high-powered lawyers, doctors, and accountants. This might be the case, but the numbers are certainly convincing.
Granted, this data is from a 2001 Canada census, so it’s not the freshest information, but it gives you some perspective:
* Less than high school graduation certificate $21.230
* High school graduation certificate and/or some postsecondary $25,477
* Trades certificate or diploma $32,743
* College certificate or diploma $32,736
* University certificate, diploma or degree $48,648
Look at that jump! Comparing a college certificate or a trades diploma against a university degree, you find that the average annual earnings of the latter is 150% of the former. Surely, there are folks without university degrees that earn lots of money (John Chow, for example), but they are the exception, rather than the rule.
The take home message — and this is appropriate given that it’s the first week of September — is stay in school!
Johan Cyprich
September 4, 2007 6:34 pm
I have to question stats like this. I don’t think that someone who gets a liberal arts degree will be making good money, unless they really start paying well at McDonalds. :)
Robert Kiyosaki teaches that you shouldn’t study hard to get a good job, you should study hard to get a good business. Its not what you know that makes you rich, its what you do.
Rhetorical
September 5, 2007 10:04 am
Like I said in the post, obviously doctors and such will bump the “university educated” bracket in an upward direction, but don’t discount liberal arts students either. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Psychology Major, English Literature Minor. I’m not rich by any means, but I feel that I am better off than if I had not gone to university.
Derek
September 6, 2007 8:31 am
I agree that a college/university education is very important to obtain for most people. One thing that I would encourage though is for people to be prudent about their choice of school.
I’ve written on my finance site how I now regret selecting the small private university that I attended because the costs were much more and I graduated with a substantial amount of student loan debt. In the end, I really don’t think an education at the local state university would have hurt me in my career and I would have started off without the large debt hanging over me.