# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Everyday Economics

Some newly minted college graduates struggle to find work. Others accept jobs for which they feel overqualified. Student debt, meanwhile, has topped $1 trillion.

It's enough to create a wave of questions about whether a college education is still worth it.

A new set of income statistics answers those questions quite clearly: Yes, college is worth it, and it's not even close. For all the struggles that many young college graduates face, a four-year degree has probably never been more valuable.

The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else reached a record high last year, according to the new data, which is based on an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree. That's up from 89 percent five years earlier, 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s.

Image

The singer Jill Scott, who was being given an honorary doctorate, at graduation ceremonies at Temple University in Philadelphia this month. The pay disparity between those with college degrees and those without continues to grow. Credit... David Swanson/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated Press

There is nothing inevitable about this trend. If there were more college graduates than the economy needed, the pay gap would shrink. The gap's recent growth is especially notable because it has come after a rise in the number of college graduates, partly because many people went back to school during the Great Recession. That the pay gap has nonetheless continued growing means that we're still not producing enough of them.

"We have too few college graduates," says David Autor, an M.I.T. economist, who was not involved in the Economic Policy Institute's analysis. "We also have too few people who are prepared for college."

It's important to emphasize these shortfalls because public discussion today - for which we in the news media deserve some responsibility - often focuses on the undeniable fact that a bachelor's degree does not guarantee success. But of course it doesn't. Nothing guarantees success, especially after 15 years of disappointing economic growth and rising inequality.

When experts and journalists spend so much time talking about the limitations of education, they almost certainly are discouraging some teenagers from going to college and some adults from going back to earn degrees. (Those same experts and journalists are sending their own children to college and often obsessing over which one.) The decision not to attend college for fear that it's a bad deal is among the most economically irrational decisions anybody could make in 2014.

The much-discussed cost of college doesn't change this fact. According to a paper by Mr. Autor published Thursday in the journal Science, the true cost of a college degree is about negative $500,000. That's right: Over the long run, college is cheaper than free. Not going to college will cost you about half a million dollars.

Mr. Autor's paper - building on work by the economists Christopher Avery and Sarah Turner - arrives at that figure first by calculating the very real cost of tuition and fees. This amount is then subtracted from the lifetime gap between the earnings of college graduates and high school graduates. After adjusting for inflation and the time value of money, the net cost of college is negative $500,000, roughly double what it was three decades ago.

This calculation is necessarily imprecise, because it can't control for any pre-existing differences between college graduates and nongraduates - differences that would exist regardless of schooling. Yet other research, comparing otherwise similar people who did and did not graduate from college, has also found that education brings a huge return.

In a similar vein, the new Economic Policy Institute numbers show that the benefits of college don't go just to graduates of elite colleges, who typically go on to to earn graduate degrees. The wage gap between people with only a bachelor's degree and people without such a degree has also kept rising.

Tellingly, though, the wage premium for people who have attended college without earning a bachelor's degree - a group that includes community-college graduates - has not been rising. The big economic returns go to people with four-year degrees. Those returns underscore the importance of efforts to reduce the college dropout rate, such as those at the University of Texas, which Paul Tough described in a recent Times Magazine article.

But what about all those alarming stories you hear about indebted, jobless college graduates?

The anecdotes may be real, yet the conventional wisdom often exaggerates the problem. Among four-year college graduates who took out loans, average debt is about $25,000, a sum that is a tiny fraction of the economic benefits of college. (My own student debt, as it happens, was almost identical to this figure, in inflation-adjusted terms.) And the unemployment rate in April for people between 25 and 34 years old with a bachelor's degree was a mere 3 percent.

I find the data from the Economic Policy Institute especially telling because the institute - a left-leaning research group - makes a point of arguing that education is not the solution to all of the economy's problems. That is important, too. College graduates, like almost everyone else, are suffering from the economy's weak growth and from the disproportionate share of this growth flowing to the very richest households.

The average hourly wage for college graduates has risen only 1 percent over the last decade, to about $32.60. The pay gap has grown mostly because the average wage for everyone else has fallen - 5 percent, to about $16.50. "To me, the picture is people in almost every kind of job not being able to see their wages grow," Lawrence Mishel, the institute's president, told me. "Wage growth essentially stopped in 2002."

From the country's perspective, education can be only part of the solution to our economic problems. We also need to find other means for lifting living standards - not to mention ways to provide good jobs for people without college degrees.

But from almost any individual's perspective, college is a no-brainer. It's the most reliable ticket to the middle class and beyond. Those who question the value of college tend to be those with the luxury of knowing their own children will be able to attend it.

Not so many decades ago, high school was considered the frontier of education. Some people even argued that it was a waste to encourage Americans from humble backgrounds to spend four years of life attending high school. Today, obviously, the notion that everyone should attend 13 years of school is indisputable.

But there is nothing magical about 13 years of education. As the economy becomes more technologically complex, the amount of education that people need will rise. At some point, 15 years or 17 years of education will make more sense as a universal goal.

That point, in fact, has already arrived.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say (Published 2014)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Everyday Economics Some newly minted college graduates struggle to find work. Others accept jobs for which they feel overqualified. Student debt, meanwhile, has topped $1 trillion. It's enough to create a wave of questions about whether a college education is still worth it.

# data[].attributes.body
-Knowledge of current events.
-Less likely to be incarcerated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I like to stay busy. I find more joy being up and moving than I do just sitting around. With a jam-packed schedule, it's understandably difficult to find time to stay up to date on current events.

Trying to sort through the virtually endless amount of information in search of good news often leaves me feeling a little bit like:

But staying up to date on the news doesn't have to be frustrating or time consuming. I would know!
Here's a helpful guide to being in the know, even on the busiest of schedules.
A news roundup will summarize major headlines, offering you a quick and dirty introduction to recent events. Glance it over while your morning coffee's brewing or while you're waiting for the train.

Roundups won't offer in-depth analysis, but you can make note of the things you want to read more about later when you have a bit more time.

The Everygirl's In the Know column is updated weekly and offers a great summary of major happenings. If you want a daily roundup, the New York Times can send a daily news briefing straight to your inbox. For those of you who drive to work, The BBC's hourly bulletin and NPR's hourly news summary both make for great hands-free listening.

Once you know the major headlines, you may decide to follow up on a few and learn more. Save time by heading straight to a news source you already trust rather than sorting through questionable Internet search results. My favorite sources for trustworthy, unbiased (or at least as unbiased as possible) news are NPR and the BBC.

If I find myself particularly interested in a world event, I'll search for opinion pieces once I feel I know the hard facts. Opinion writing, while obviously biased, can help take the facts you know and put them into perspective. Of course, it's important we don't use opinion pieces or biased news outlets as our only source of news. Personally, I'm a fan of The New York Times Opinion Pages and comedy news shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight.

If you don't have the time to sit down and sort through the news, consider downloading an app that can do most of the sorting for you.

Circa is a news app that pulls stories from hundreds of sources and condenses it in a way that is simple, quick, and unbiased. You can select stories and topics that interest you and the app will remember them, sending push alerts to your phone when similar news breaks.

This one might seem painfully obvious, but I have to include it because it's an incredibly effective way to stay up to date on the news. Pick your favorite news outlets and be sure to like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Most news sources will post breaking news to social media as it happens; this will keep you informed as you scroll through your newsfeed with little to no extra time spent on your part.

Now go out into the world like the powerful, knowledgeable, up-to-date woman you are.
We want to hear from you! Do you try to keep up with current events? How do you get your news?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Easy Ways to Keep Up with Current Events - The Everygirl

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I like to stay busy. I find more joy being up and moving than I do just sitting around. With a jam-packed schedule, it's understandably difficult to find time to stay up to date on current events.

# data[].attributes.body
-Longer, healthier lives.
-Lower smoking and obesity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There's a lot of debate right now about the value of higher education and the costs associated with going to college. Central to the discussion are legitimate concerns about affordability and what students actually know and are able to do with the degrees they receive.

Despite these concerns, ample data - including a recent Gallup-Purdue survey of college alumni - show the benefit college brings in terms of earnings potential and access to quality jobs.

And a new study from the University of Maine adds fuel to the already compelling case for college with this finding: Citizens with postsecondary credentials not only contribute to the economic prosperity of communities; they also live happier, healthier lives.

The study, It's Not Just the Money, authored by Professor Phillip Trostel, finds that college graduates report having "good" or "very good" health 44 percent more than their non-graduate peers do. Further, college graduates are nearly four times less likely than high school graduates to smoke, and are significantly more likely to exercise, wear a seat belt, maintain a healthy weight and regularly see a doctor. Not surprisingly, then, college graduates have a life expectancy of seven years longer than those who hold a high school diploma or less.

College graduates are nearly five times less likely to be jailed or imprisoned than those who have no college experience, according to the report. And graduates utilize about 39 percent fewer government resources, such as emergency assistance and jails, and contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars more over a lifetime in local, state and federal taxes.

What's more, college graduates are the engines of civic movement. They volunteer at a rate 2.3 times higher than those with a high school diploma or less, contribute more than three times as much to charity, and vote and participate in politics at a significantly higher level. Graduates also have stronger participation in community organizations-- schools, service and religious organizations. The culminating effect is stronger, safer neighborhoods. And yes, college graduates are far more likely to report being happy.

The new study adds to a growing body of evidence laying out the case for college. But much of what has been written about the outcomes of higher education to date relates to the economic benefits of high- quality postsecondary learning--the higher wages, employment levels and good jobs that are highly correlated with postsecondary credentials.

The Gallup-Purdue Index, for example, underscores this point with deep analysis of what alumni see as the educational experiences that are associated with having a good job and that lead to workplace success.

Personal well-being and happiness factors -while much less studied than the economic benefits - provide an equally compelling argument for college. Consider that the presence of people with postsecondary credentials translates into stronger, more engaged, communities. That's critical because communities, now more than ever, are the linchpin in our country's future. They are home to two-thirds (and growing) of the nation's population, and drive more than three-quarters of the nation's economy.

Though the case for college is growing stronger, a disturbing reality remains: college is not within reach for all Americans, especially low-income and minority populations. Millions are deprived of the financial and lifestyle benefits bestowed by college, and their communities miss out on the advantages of having a population with high postsecondary attainment rates. That's why shrinking our nation's talent deficit and preparing individuals to meet employer demands is so critically important today.

How do we work together to increase the number of Americans that hold a quality postsecondary credential? One strategy is to work with communities to create a national movement from the ground up.

Cities like Greensboro, N.C., Fort Wayne, Ind., and Dallas, Texas, are working to integrate the city's various postsecondary, business and government resources to find efficient ways of addressing the talent deficit. These examples, and many others, illustrate the idea that these communities are increasingly talent hubs--places where commerce and creativity thrive in ways that impact both social and economic well-being. The work in these cities shows that when diverse partners collaborate to increase postsecondary attainment, they can spark large-scale change.

Higher education attainment isn't just about the money--it's about the people, and opening up the worlds of opportunity that only education can provide. It is about enriching lives and communities, reducing crime, increasing engagement, and feeding the economy with the talent it desperately needs.

Jamie Merisotis is president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, a national foundation dedicated to increasing Americans' college attainment, and author of "America Needs Talent: Attracting, Educating & Deploying the 21st-Century Workforce."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Want to Be Happier and Healthier? Then Go to College.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There's a lot of debate right now about the value of higher education and the costs associated with going to college. Central to the discussion are legitimate concerns about affordability and what students actually know and are able to do with the degrees they receive.

# data[].attributes.body
-Higher levels of psychological well-being and mental health.
-Higher sense of control over life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Simple Tips To Reduce Your STRESS Right Now

# data[].attributes.body
-Higher rate of employment.
-Career versatility.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All Subjects and Degree Programs Agricultural Studies Architecture Design Biological Sciences Business Management Computer Science Culinary and Cosmetic Services Engineering Health Professions and Medical Services Humanities and Liberal Arts Legal Studies Mechanical and Electrical Repair Media Related Communications Physical Science Psychology School Administration Transportation and Distribution Services Visual and Performing Arts

# data[].attributes.headline
3. Higher Quality of Life For Your Children

# data[].attributes.subject
3. Higher Quality of Life For Your Children

# data[].attributes.body
-Kids have higher chance of graduating college if you graduate.
-Kids have likelihood of having a higher-status and higher-salary career.

# data[].attributes.body
-Having greater marital satisfaction.
-Possessing interpersonal and human relations skills, such as leadership.

# data[].attributes.body
-Effective problem solving skills and learning to deal with complex and ambiguous problems.
-Effective consumer decisions and choices.