The common opinion for years has long been that holding a college degree is one of the most important things you can do for your career. That hasn’t changed, despite what some may want you to believe. Spending the four years it takes to earn your bachelor’s degree is still one of the best ways to enhance your employability, boost your potential salary, and ensure a long, successful career. There are plenty of reasons a bachelor’s degree is a worthwhile endeavor
- Studies have estimated the value of a four year degree to be at around 570,000 dollars. Compare that to the average cost of a four year education, 200,000 dollars, and you’ll see that the investment pays out big. That value is based on earning potential as well as other factors, but the bottom line is that your bachelor’s degree is something you shouldn’t ignore.
- Earning a bachelor’s makes it easy to earn more money than you would otherwise. Studies show that on average a person holding a bachelor’s earns around one thousand dollars per week. By comparison, those with an associate’s degree earn less than eight hundred dollars per week and those with no college training earn around six hundred dollars per week. National average salaries are just under eight hundred, which means your bachelor’s degree will net you more than the average salary.
- Unemployment rates in the country are still high, but a bachelor’s degree helps prevent you from becoming unemployed. Rates of unemployment for those with a bachelor’s degree are less than six percent. Those with associate’s degrees face unemployment rates of around seven percent while those with no college education actually come in at nearly ten percent unemployment in most cases.
It’s important to note that the value of your degree will vary depending on your specific field and the school you attended. For instance, earning a bachelor’s in teaching degree nets you an average of thirty thousand dollars per year. An engineer with a bachelor’s degree earns around eighty thousand. That’s a big difference, but the personal rewards for a teacher may be higher than those of an engineer. In short, consider what you’re going to school for if you want to ensure you get the most return on your educational investment.
In short, your salary and the overall worth of your degree will vary depending on field. Personal value aside, if you’re looking for top salaries then these are some of the best fields to earn a bachelor’s degree in:
- Science
- Medicine
- Engineering
- Computers
- Law
Other options exist, obviously, but those are the top five fields you can enter if you’re primarily concerned about your earnings.
Finally, it’s important that you understand your choice of school will influence your degree’s worth as well. Accreditation is one of the single most important things you can look for in a college. It’s the sign that your educational curriculum matches the standards expected by employers and major educational institutions. It only takes a few minutes to do some research and determine if a school is accredited or not, but be sure that you take the time to do so or else you run the very real risk of earning a degree from a school without it. That degree will be worth far, far less than you expect.
So long as you ensure that accreditation is present there is no reason to believe that your bachelor’s degree will be worthless. In fact, it will end up being one of the most valuable things that you ever own and will pay off tremendously for years to come.
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