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Learn more, earn more, census says
07/18/02
Dave Davis
Plain Dealer Reporter

What's a four-year college degree worth? Income-wise, $21,800 a year more than a high school diploma.

A U.S. Census Bureau report being released today shows that the longer you stay in school, the larger your annual earnings will be.

For the first time, the bureau places actual dollar figures on what people will earn over a 40-year career based on their education level.

The figures range from a low of $23,400 annually for full-time workers who didn't graduate from high school to a high of $109,600 for those holding professional degrees.

"There's almost a $1 million difference between what a high school graduate will make in a lifetime and what someone with a bachelor's degree will make," said Jennifer C. Day, co-author of the report.

"So it really does pay to go to school."

Yes, but not equally well.

On average, women earned less than men with the same education for all eight levels that were tracked, Day found.

For example, women with a professional degree will earn about $1.9 million less than men during their career. That's a difference of $47,500 yearly.

The earnings gap by race was less pronounced but still present at all education levels. Whites with a bachelor's degree will earn about $2.2 million in 40 years, compared to $1.8 million for Asians and $1.7 million each for blacks and Latinos. Kenneth Roberts, vice president of the Cleveland-area group Blacks in Management, said a lack of access to top-notch schools partly explains why blacks and Latinos earn less than whites with the same education level.

"I would say the worth of a Harvard degree is going to be different than the worth of others," Roberts said. "Where people [go] to college really starts to dictate their circles and their circles of influence. That then would put them in a situation where you are going to be a low-level manager to an executive manager."

Today's Census report was based on a national survey of 150,000 households over three years ending in 2000. Households from all 50 states and the District of Columbia were included. The report was good news for Northeast Ohio, which has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of people without a high school diploma, going from nearly 24 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2000, according to Census 2000 figures.

At the same time, our seven-county area has seen a more modest but steady improvement in its share of residents who receive a college degree.

But some education experts feel that the region needs to focus more on associate's degree programs, which they believe will help displaced industrial workers find well-paying jobs.

Fred Hobson, a 54-year-old Rocky River resident, enrolled in an 18-week job transformation program at Lorain County Community College after losing his job at LTV just before Thanksgiving. The program, which started in the mid-1990s to help laid-off manufacturing workers, has graduated more than 320 students and boasts a job placement rate of 96 percent.

Workers spend 18 weeks - five days a week, eight hours a day - in the program. If they wish, they can continue and get an associate's degree.

Hobson, who is married with three school-age children, said he had no desire to go back to school until he lost his job.

Then it came time to look for work. "I have very good machinist skills, but there aren't many jobs right now where people are looking for someone with manual machinist skills," Hobson said.

Now he's learning to apply computer skills to do the machinery work he previously did manually.

Sandra Everett, who runs the Job Transformations program, says there's a demand for such work, with starting wages in the $10- to $17-per-hour range.

"Jobs are definitely still out there," Everett said. "We get calls pretty much on a weekly basis. Even when the economy is down, industry is still struggling to get skilled workers."

Plain Dealer reporter Rich Exner contributed to this story.