Education gives you tools for lifelong learning.

• You not only learn facts while in school, but also how to think -- an ability that will always be useful.

Education improves your quality of life.

• The Digest of Education Statistics 1996 reports that income levels rise as educational levels rise.

Education expands your self-concept.

• As your abilities grow, so do opportunities to learn.  As you rise to the challenges of education, you will discover that your capacity for knowledge and personal growth is greater than you imagined.

Education enlarges your possibilities.

• First, through different courses of study, it introduces you to more choices of career and life goals.  Second, through the training you receive, it gives you more power to achieve the goals you choose.

Education improves your employability and earning potential.

• Many studies have shown that education increases not only a person's employability and earning potential but also their self-esteem.   

Education makes you a well-rounded person.

• As it widens your understanding about what is possible in the world, education increases your awareness and appreciation of areas that affect and enrich human lives.

Education affects both community involvement and personal health.

• Education helps to 1) prepare individuals for community activism by helping them understand political, economic and social conditions, and 2) increase knowledge about health behaviors and preventive care.

In Keys to Success:  How to Achieve your Goals, by Carter, Bishop and Kravits, the authors write:

Education is more than the process of going to school and earning a degree or certificate.  It is a choice to improve your mind and your skills.  Education is what you make of it.  If you make the most of your mind, your time, and your educational opportunities, you will realize your potential.

Mean Annual Earnings of Employed 

College Graduates and High School Graduates 

Aged 20 to 29, 1970 to 2000

"The college investment is one of the most important choices that young adults and their families will make in their lives for two reasons.  First, the expense of college is among the costliest that individuals will make.  And second, the college investment decision has a lifelong impact not only on the level of economic well-being that individuals experience, but also on their psychological well-being and social status."  This statement starts Fogg, Harrington, and Harrington's book, The College Majors Handbook:  The Actual Job, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of 60 College Majors.

For various reasons, young adults are entering post-secondary educational institutions in large numbers.  More than two-thirds of seniors who graduated in the spring of 1997 enrolled in post-secondary educational programs.

The authors describe college as a journey, "...but as with all journeys, it has meaning only when a destination is reached."  As the chart above shows, the average rate of economic return on a bachelor's degree is high, and gaining through the years.

Higher Education is an investment.  Webster's definition of invest is 1: to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return, 2: to make use of for future benefits or advantages.  Since the end of the 1970s, the difference in earnings between high school graduates and college graduates has significantly increased.  In 1990, a young person with a college degree earned 52% more per year than a young person with only a high school degree.  

The choice of which field of study and which type of educational institution play a major role in determining future long-term earning potential.  This decision should not be made without a great deal of research into the career choice, personal preferences, and educational opportunities.