I was reading an article about manufacturing in the US and it made the point that the majority of Americans do not have a bachelor’s degree. In fact, only 22% of the people in the US have a bachelor’s degree, although almost 90% have a High School diploma.
Canada now leads the world. We were once number one. Now we are number 12 out of 36 developed countries. The Russian Federation is now ahead of us.
There are huge benefits for having a degree and American competitiveness requires that we try to move up against our competitors. Instead we continue to drop.
Every year we become less capable fo competing in world markets compared to other nations.
Even though there are huge individual and societal benefits for higher education.
Men with only a High School education have a median income of about $29,000. A bachelor’s degree raises this to over $50,000.
People with higher degrees have lower unemployment rates. They also provide much greater tax revenues than those without degrees. In fact, society as a whole benefits, not just the individuals. Every individual who attains a bachelor’s degree has a net benefit to the rest of us of $89,000.
For every graduate of a college, the United States has almost $90,000 to spend that it would not have if they only had a High School degree.
Public colleges have an average tuition and fees of about $7600 a year or a little over $30,000 for four. If tuition at public schools were all paid by the government, society would still see a net benefit of almost $60,000 while the individual would see over $20,000 more a year.
Any state could accomplish this by putting $1000 a year for 18 years in an account earning only 5% a year for every person born in the state. If the individual attended a public school as an in-state resident, the money would pay for them.
It will never happen.
