The degree is worth it!

US News reports.

Seriously, Go to College

Earnings differences between education levels are higher than in previous generations.

The value of higher education has never been greater, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Senior economist Guillaume Vandenbroucke calculated the ratios between lifetime incomes for workers with different levels of education. For white men who were 30 years old in 1940 – referred to in the graph below as the 1940 cohort – those with a college education earned 37 percent more over their lifetimes than those with only a high school diploma. High school-educated men earned 28 percent more over a lifetime than men without a high school education.

For the 1980 cohort – or those who would be 30 in 1980 – college-educated men will earn 52 percent more over a lifetime than men with only a high school education.