Quality of Life
General
The Changing Value of Education (April 2007), Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
"...even when the increased cost of college tuition has been taken into account, a four-year college degree is worth at least $300,000 more than a high school diploma over an average working lifetime in net present value terms. However, as with many investments, today's performance is no guarantee of future performance."Mind the Gap: Reducing Disparities to Improve Regional Competitiveness in the Twin Cities (2005), The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program
"Luckily, the Twin Cities region has many assets to build upon... In a region where household income is among the highest in the nation, black household income is among the lowest. In a region that has the highest share of adults with a high school diploma in the country, it only ranks 40th among the 100 largest metro areas for Latinos with a completed high school education. In short, the overall health of the region masks stark disparities. And such disparities matter to economic competitiveness."The Investment Payoff: A 50-State Analysis of the Public and Private Benefits of Higher Education (February 2005), The Institute for Higher Education Policy
"...studies have consistently shown that going to college has broad and quantifiable national impacts, from higher salaries to improved health to increased volunteerism to a reduced reliance on welfare and other social support programs. In addition, these impacts occur over and above the effects of mediating factors such as income and age. This report builds on the work of these ongoing efforts by articulating the benefits of higher education on a 50-state basis."
Income
Education Pays Update 2007, College Board (click on PDF in right sidebar)
"In 2005, the typical full-time year-round worker in the United States with a four-year college degree earned $50,900, 62 percent more than a worker with only a high school diploma. Furthermore, workers with lower education levels earn more if others in the same metropolitan area are more educated — a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of the population holding a four-year college degree leads to a 1.6 percent increase in the wages of high school graduates."Wage Premium by Education Level in Minnesota by Race 2000 PDF 54 KB, (2006), Minnesota Private College Research Foundation
The typical full-time year round worker in Minnesota with a four-year college degree earned $46,900 – 73 percent more than the $27,100 earned by a worker with only a high school diploma. Minnesota’s minority students have the most to gain from staying in school and going to college. Minority workers with a bachelor’s degree earned more than twice the salary of minority workers with no high school diploma. Gains were especially significant for Black non-Hispanic and Native American workers who earned 178 percent and 216 percent more as compared to their peers with no high school diploma. By comparison White non-Hispanic workers with a bachelor’s degree earned 79 percent more than white workers with no high school diploma.Income of U.S. Workforce Projected to Decline IF Education Doesn’t Improve PDF 385 KB, (2006), National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
“Given the changing demographics of the nation’s workforce over the next two decades, the current educational disparities among racial/ethnic groups are projected to lead to a decline in the educational level of the U.S. workforce as a whole. This drop in the levels of education completed would in turn result in a decrease in personal income per capita among Americans.”Education and Training Pay PDF 142 KB, (2006), Postsecondary Education Opportunity
Wealth and Savings
Personal Savings & Disposable Income, U.S. 1966-2006, PDF 49 KB, (2006), Bureau of Economic Analysis, Minnesota Private College Research Foundation
Even as costs rise, families are saving less money than in the past, and thus may have fewer resources available to pay for college. In 2004, Americans saved just 1.2% of their disposable personal income, the lowest level of personal savings in any year since the Great Depression. In 2006, they saved negative 1%.Tax Revenue
Education Pays Update 2007, College Board (click on PDF in right sidebar)
"Those who hold professional degrees paid over $19,000 more in total taxes in 2005 than high school graduates."Social Programs
Digest of Education Statistics 2007, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
Unemployment Rates for the population 25 years of age and older decline with each degree level attained. Adults failing to complete their high school diploma have an average unemployment rate of 7.6 percent in 2005 as compared to adults who completed a bachelor’s degree (2.3 percent unemployment rate).Working poor and education in 2004 (June 21, 2006), Monthly Labor Review: The Editor's Desk
Individuals with higher levels of education have greater access to higher paying jobs....In 2004, the working poor rate for college graduates was 1.7 percent, the lowest by education level. Persons with less than a high school diploma were the most likely to be among the working poor (15.2 percent).Poverty Table 29. Years of School Completed by Poverty Status, Sex, Age, Nativity and Citizenship (2007), Poverty 2006, U.S. Census Bureau
In 2006, 94 percent of persons earning less than the poverty line had not completed a four-year college degree.Health
Education Pays Update 2007, College Board (click on PDF in right sidebar)
"Among entry-level private sector employees working at least 20 hours per week, 67 percent of four-year college graduates were covered by health insurance in 2005. Among high school graduates, only 51 percent of entry level workers had employer-provided health insurance coverage. At every age and income level, higher levels of education are correlated with better health."Social and Cultural Outcomes Education and Health Indicator 12 (2004), National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
In 2001, the better educated a person was, the more likely that person was to report being in “excellent” or “very good” health. Among adults age 25 and above, 78 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported being in excellent or very good health, compared with 66 percent of those with some education beyond high school, 56 percent of high school completers, and 39 percent of those with less than a high school education.Adult Literacy
Adult Literacy Trends in Adult Literary Reading Habits (2005), National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
“the more education a person has, the more likely that person is to report having read literature [novels, short stories, plays or poems] in the past 12 months. For example, in 2002, 19 percent of adults age 25 or older with less than a high school diploma reported that they had read literature, compared with 67 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher (see supplemental table 15-2). Other factors such as family income, sex, and race/ethnicity are also related to literary reading. The positive relationship between educational attainment and literary reading persists even when one considers differences in reading rates associated with sex, family income, or race/ethnicity.”Civic Engagement
Volunteering in the United States, 2007 (2008), Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor
Among persons age 25 and over, more than 4 in 10 college graduates volunteered during the year ending in September 2007. In comparison, fewer than 2 in 10 high school graduates and almost 1 in 10 of those with less than a high school diploma volunteered in that period.Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004 PDF 588 KB, (2006), Current Population Reports p20-556, U.S. Census Bureau
The voting rate of citizens who had a bachelor’s degree (78 percent) was about twice as high as that of citizens who had not completed high school (40 percent). Younger adults overall had low voting rates; however, some subgroups of this population had relatively high voting rates. As shown in Figure 2, young adults with at least a bachelor’s degree had a higher voting rate (67 percent) than young adults with lower levels of educational attainment (25 percent to 57 percent).Incarceration
Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey (May 2007), National Center for Education Statistics
Forty-three percent of prison inmates had obtained a high school diploma or a high school equivalency certificate before the start of their current incarceration. An additional 19 percent of prison inmates had earned their high school equivalency certificate during their current incarceration, and 5 percent were enrolled in academic classes that might eventually lead to a high school equivalency certificate..gif)
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