Money, it is what we work our entire lives for and sometimes send without a second thought. It is even sometimes powerful enough, that it can dictate how someone’s life is; whether it is’ a luxurious life filled with vacations and expensive things, or a modest life of just the essentials. This is how most people view if they are successful or not: if they are making a lot of money or not, and in society today, one of the only proven methods to earn more money is through education. A higher-level education, mainly college, has been proven to earn more money, raises the chance of being employed over someone with just a high school degree, and gives a better chance at being successful in life. College leads people to the path of opportunities and chances that others just do not have. Receiving a college education also puts one on the right side of the pay gap and can lead to more and more opportunities down the road. There are some individuals that feel that college is not worth it, or that there are smarter options but those ideas just do not follow the facts and statistics laid out by economists and other educated people. There have also been polls run that show graduates feel their education was worth the price. Institutes of higher-level education lead to better pay, more job opportunities over workers without colleges degrees, and an easier track to success.

To start, one of the major growing benefits with a college education is the pay gap that follows. The pay gap is the difference in salary between someone with a college degree and someone without one. This difference has been recently studied by the New York Times, and has shown that people with a college degree will make, on average, 98% more an hour than someone with no form of higher-level education (Leonhardt). That means someone who went to as little as two to four more years of school than a high school graduate can be making almost double what they make in an hour. And the gap only increases with the more years you attend and the higher of a degree that you get. It is also not unreasonable to think that the pay gap could be over 105% or even 110% more in the favor of college graduates by the year 2020. The pay gap also increases over time as someone with a college degree getting more and more raises than someone without a college degree. In the previous years, the gap has not been this massive. In the early 1980’s, when economics first started to study and record the pay gap, it was only at 64%, but since then it has made some rather large jumps. In the 1990’s, the pay gap was up to 85% and in 2013 was targeted at 98% (Leonhardt). The very recent, very sharp jump in the pay gap can be attributed partially to the recession that the United States faced during 2008 to about 2011, when many out of work people went back to school, but that still does not take credit for the constant increase since the 80’s. Even if the Recession had not happened, the pay gap would still have continued to grow over those years. If the United States economy grows and companies offer to pay more qualified people more and more money, than the pay gap will continue to grow more and more each year.

To add, if someone was looking to try and fight the pay gap to try and lower it to give everyone an equal chance at the same pay, they would need to make one of two very drastic choices; either eliminate the option of not going to college so that everyone will have the same qualifications, or eliminate college so that no one can demand a higher wage because of their education. Both ideas will never work because you would be asking to change an entire society. The pay gap is increasing because more and more students are going to college every year and they are the workers demanding more and more money compared to their friends that only graduated high school. In previous generations, going to college was not as widely done as it is today. In the past few decades, the numbers of college students have grown exponentially year after year and more and more college graduates are entering the work force. Doing this is flooding the job market with qualified workers that not only demand a higher salary, but require it for all their hard work they had to do while in college. The pay gap is almost that of a reward to the college graduated for going through two or more extra years of school. And it should be, college is an option, and a pretty expensive one, and those students should be rewarded for what they have done, but it is slowly starting to shift into being a social norm. Being on the wrong side of the pay gap can still give you a livable wage, but someone with a college degree doing the same job as someone could be earing nearly double what they make if they do not have a college degree.

Additionally, businesses are starting to feel the need to selectively hire college graduates so that the companies feel that they are getting the best workers for their money. If a business could pick to hire the most qualified and highest educated workers, why would they not? That’s exactly how the companies are starting to think when they are faced with hiring either a high school graduate or a college graduate. More and more businesses are starting to do this and it is very much effecting high school graduates that do not have a college degree. Businesses are starting to require that their workers have some form of higher-education because they are fine paying workers more money if they are already trained by professionals in their fields and do not need to be taught and educated on what is in their field (Weston). If workers could come in on the first day and be right on the ball and be able to work as good and as hard as they could, they would save the business so much money in the time it would take them to train a new worker with no background in the field and get them working at full speed. This is money that businesses do not want to play around with, so they will make the safe decision to hire college graduates. This is raising the unemployment rate for just high school graduates, which was at 11.8% in 2013, and lowering the unemployment rate for college graduates, which was at 3.3% (Rampell). In the eyes of a college graduate, those numbers are great, their hard work payed off, but for a high school graduate, they could see their chances at a job slipping away. The only solution to this problem for high school graduates would be to join the other side and attend college so they can compete with the other college graduates for jobs. 

Furthermore, college graduates believe that the money they are spending and have spent on their education was well worth it. College graduates were asked to take a survey to rate whether their education was worth the price on a scale from one to five. Nationally, about 77% of graduates rated their education worth with either a four or a five (Weston). With those numbers, one can see that more than three fourths of the country’s graduates believe that their money spent on education was the right choice to make instead of going straight to work after graduating high school. They can take on the debt from their education and pay it off in a timely fashion because of their raised wages. We can see that investing in yourself will pay off more than not investing in yourself at all. This is an investment that has little chance of depreciating, as shown by Mr. Heimer’s research, even at the age of 50, a worker with a college degree is still earning up to 48% more than workers without a degree (Heimer). 

On another note, after realizing that education is the most direct route to success, economist started stressing educating children at a very young age. Economists are emphasizing focus on childhood education because if the children are educated they will be set of the best possible path for success (Boushey & Schmitt). And with more educated people in society, Economists say that society and the quality of life will improve. Economists have found that if a population of people in a society are all educated, they will have the best quality of life (Evans 3). This will lead to a more successful society and will give the citizens in the society the best life possible. If everyone is working to their fullest potential, the success of a society is limitless. Also, with educated workers working as best as they can, the unemployment rate would drop, the quality of life would increase, and the economy would be booming (Hibel &Hu). With everyone working as best they can, people would earn more and more money and be able to recycle more money back into the economy instead of saving it, thus leading to a bright economic future. The path to success lies in the hands of the children today; educate them now for a brighter future. 

On another idea, in today’s society, it is very hard to live a happy, successful life without money. People may say that needing money to be happy makes you materialistic and that you can be happy by living on the simplest of terms, but honestly that is not the case for most people. People need money to eat and drink, clothe themselves, and put a roof over their heads. Without money, none of this is possible. You need to buy food and water, buy clothing, and either buy or rent a home to live in. Without money, life can be very dark and very unpleasant for almost anyone. No one wants to be homeless and living on the streets so the best way to combat this is through education to give anyone the best chance at a successful life. It does sound quite materialistic but most people today cannot live off the land and be disconnected from society. Money is very much a necessity to strive and enjoy life to the fullest. 

One point to add would be that the increase of students attending college could be inflating some of the previous numbers mentioned before.  The number of workers with at least a bachelor’s degree has risen from 21.9% in 1975, to 24.7% in 1995 and now 33.5% in 2012 (Rampell). People may say that this increase in workers with college degrees is pushing others to attend so they can compete for jobs with them, but actually it the other way around. People saw the opportunities opening for educated workers in new fields, such as new technology, so they flocked to the schools to get educated (Treiman 215). This caused more and more students and workers to follow in their footsteps and start this surge of educated people. And this surge is not over. The number of college students is increasing each year and will continue to rise. This trend is a huge bonus to almost all walks of life; the economy grows, the standard of living improves, and society as a whole will flourish. And with the expansion of colleges, such as satellite campuses, and new schools opening every year, there should be more than enough room for everyone so they can peruse an education and improve their lives. 

There is a small downside to this. Since education is booming now, every high education institution wants to give their students the best education in the country, which is causing these schools to offer different qualities of education. Goldman Sachs preformed a study that found that the pay gap is not as large for workers that attended colleges that were ranked in the bottom 25% of colleges. These lower ranking colleges are too small and not as well known to offer as good as an education as huge universities, such as the University of South Carolina (Long). Workers coming from these lower schools cannot demand as high pay as some of the other workers that went to more prestigious schools. However, Goldman Sachs numbers are slightly skewed due to the few success stories of some people dropping out of college and making billions, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. People like them skew the numbers because yes, they did not graduate from a college with a degree, but they went on to make billions where people with a degree from a bottom 25% school have a very, very small chance of every being able to do that. But as these smaller schools do the research and realize that this is happening, they will revise their school and give their students the best education that they can provide. It may take some time, but the smaller, lower ranking schools will adjust and then the quality of all higher-level educations will be closer to the same worth, which will allow these workers from these smaller schools to earn the same amount of money as those who attended the best schools. 

Lastly, some may also say that if one is not smart enough for college, they should go straight to the work force, or even if they are smart enough, then they should start working earlier. Both of these ideas are ones that will pass through almost every person contemplating about attending college or any other higher-level education institution. These are answered easy enough through study and facts. Even if someone thinks they are not smart enough for college, people can go to junior colleges first to get a handle on what college classes are going to be like and then decide if they want to just get a two-year associates degree at the junior colleges they are at, or even transfer to a full four-year school to get a bachelor’s degree. And if someone is smart enough to enter the work force and work to their fullest ability, they still need things for business and companies to look at on a resume. They need to see that the worker they are thinking about hiring is actually educated and does not just sound intelligent. With as many people in the work force as there are today, companies would rather take someone who looks better on a resume than someone who his just as educated as them, if not more educated, in term of intellect, but doesn’t have as impressive as a resume (Weston). So even if you are losing four years of work, you would be setting yourself up for better opportunities later in life. Even with a two-year degree, one will still be on the better side of the pay gap and will have many more opportunities then if they just went straight to work instead of attending a junior college first.

All in all, whether it is a two-year associates degree, or it is a full-fledged doctorate, a college degree will pay off tremendously throughout life. Higher-level education will lead to, more money, more opportunities, and more success in life. Not going to college can lead to a harder, less resourceful life where following the path to college not only give an individual a better life, but also give a better life for the people that live in the same society. Education is the way to success and your either on the right side, or you are getting left behind. Investing in yourself is the only sound investments that are guaranteed to pay off, and investing in your education is certainly investing in yourself. 
