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Young people without college degrees have been dropping out of the workforce for decades. But even though wages have remained roughly the same for decades, those who are working now earn more than they did a decade ago.
On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released the following report: report Let’s take a closer look at whether a college degree is worth it. The report compares the economic outcomes of young people with and without a college degree.
According to the report, a survey of 5,203 U.S. adults conducted from November to December 2023 found that only 22% of adults believe that taking on student loans is worth the cost of college. .
And while graduates of four-year degree programs are more likely to report that their higher education was very or extremely helpful in giving them the skills they needed for their careers, young men ages 25 to 34 without a college degree have seen their finances improve over the past decade, even as their wages have not kept up in the long term.
For example, the report found that median income for young people with a high school education or some college education who work full time has “increased modestly” over the past decade, and inflation-adjusted median household income for young people is now $75,200 for those with a high school education, up from $63,800 in 2014.
With today’s tight labor market and low unemployment rates, some employers are having a hard time getting employees interested in open positions, said Richard Fry, senior fellow at Pew Research Center. “Employers must pay higher wages,” the company told Business Insider in a statement. To attract and retain workers, including those with low levels of education. ”
“The labor market was tight in the late 1990s,” Frye said, “and that led to higher wages for young men who didn’t have a college education.”
Although young people who work full-time year-round and whose highest educational attainment is a high school diploma are higher in real terms than they were in 2014, they still do not earn as much as those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Median earnings for young men with at least a bachelor’s degree rose from $67,500 in 2014 to $77,000 in 2023, a 14% increase over 10 years, according to Pew Research. Meanwhile, the median income for those whose highest education was a high school diploma will rise from $39,300 in 2014 to $45,000 in 2023, based on data shared with Business Insider. This was an increase of 14.6%.
The report comes amid a changing climate in higher education. More and more young people are opting to take a break from college because they don’t feel rewarded for taking on student loans, and some states are moving to eliminate college degree requirements to secure more jobs. . As a result, your degree may not bring you the same benefits or prestige it once did. The unemployment rate for Americans over 25 with only a high school diploma is 4.0% As of April 2024, it is down from 6.2% in April 2014.
But despite gains in earnings and household incomes for young people without a degree over the past decade, the economic picture is still far from perfect: One reason some men dropped out of the workforce over the past few decades was the difficulty of finding high-paying jobs without a college degree.
In April 1950, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job or were actively looking for work. Bureau of Labor StatisticsAs of April 2024, that number has dropped to approximately 89%. As of April, 62.9% The percentage of American men age 25 and older with a high school diploma has declined from more than 72% in 2000. An ageing population may explain part of this decline.
According to a Pew Research Center analysis, the share of young men who completed high school and are working or looking for work will decline from 98% in 1970 to about 87% in 2023. are doing. This percentage is up from 84% in 2021.
Frye said in a statement that falling wages could be one reason for the long-term decline in the percentage of this particular group of men looking for work or actually working, “but there is debate as to whether that alone is enough to explain the decline,” he added.
Mr Fry added that the “increasing proportion of young men with criminal records” could also be a reason for their difficulty finding work. “More recently, the rise in opioid addiction may be contributing to lower labor force participation rates among young men,” Fry said.
These challenges continue for some men, who now make up less than half of college enrollees, even as more companies have begun hiring people without degrees and wages for some low-income workers have risen over the past few years. The Pew analysis found that while inflation-adjusted median earnings for young Americans without a degree have risen over the past decade, they are still lower than they were in 1970.
In contrast, a graph in the new report notes that “the labor force participation rate for young women without a college degree has been rising since 2014.” The report states that “as of 2023, 69 percent of young women with a high school education were in the labor force, and 78 percent of young women with some college education were also in the labor force.” Still, this level is slightly lower than in 2000, which could be due to a lack of paid federal leave and family leave benefits that force some women to leave the workforce when they have children.
Deciding whether college is worth the cost of college is an increasingly difficult question for young Americans. According to a recent Deloitte study, one-third of Gen Z and Millennials do not pursue higher education due to financial barriers, personal circumstances, or seeking a career that does not require a college degree. I am choosing. This shows that schools can quickly lose their importance if they do not adapt to young people’s changing values.