WASHINGTON— As high school seniors send off college applications this fall, some are questioning the return on investment of higher education. The College Board attempted to provide an answer this week with a report that lists the advantages of having a college education while noting a slight drop in median earnings for college graduates entering the workforce.
“The return has never been guaranteed. There is always risk and uncertainty involved,” said George Washington University professor Sandy Baum, a research consultant to the College Board, who contributed to the report.
College Board, which administers the SAT tests, released its triennial report on the benefits of getting a college degree Monday. The report found that in 2011, people with four-year degrees earned a median annual income of $56,500, a $21,100 jump above people with high school degrees.
In 2008, the median earnings of full-time working college grads were $55,700 — $21,900 more than high school graduates.
However, the report also noted that the earnings gap between male high school graduates and college graduates, ages 25 to 34, narrowed from 74 percent in 2010 to 69 percent this year; for women the difference also narrowed from 79 percent to 70 percent.
“Be careful to infer too much from a recessionary period,” said Andrew Kelly, director of the Center on Higher Education Reform. “We’re starting to recover…but the youngest workers are going to feel the effects of it the most.”
Rasha Ali, 22, graduated with a degree in global studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012. Ali, along with thousands of other recent graduates, is still searching for a job in her field.
“When I first graduated I felt a false sense of entitlement…I thought getting a job at a think tank in D.C. or working for the United Nations was reasonable for someone with my degree,” Ali said.
A year later, Ali is still looking for that job.
According to a Pew Research Center study, the average in-state full-time undergraduate tuition and fees at state-assisted schools tripled from $2,119 in 1980-81 to $7,605 in 2010-11.
In the mid-2011 Pew survey, 75 percent of Americans said they did not consider college costs to be “affordable.”
“Doing what you love doesn’t always pay the bills,” Ali said. “If I could go back, I would have probably searched for careers while still in college or maybe even switched my major to something more marketable.”
But Baum said students need to think long term. “Your first job isn’t going to be representative of your career… It’s expensive to go to college but in the long run, it’s more expensive not to go,” Baum said.
“We’re in a tough economy clearly and that affects everybody,” said Barry Toiv, vice president for public affairs at the Association of American Universities. “The level of return varies per student but the impact of a college degree is seen in the long run.”