Degrees Boost Earnings At Any Age
The “old college try” is taking on a whole new meaning.
Today, nearly one-third of students graduate well into adulthood, usually taking classes while juggling other responsibilities like a job and parentings.
The end reward is the same for both non-traditional students –25 or older when they earn their degree – or traditional students –24 and younger – finds a recent Gallup survey sponsored by Purdue University and the Lumina Foundation.
The study examined 4,000 non-traditional students who earned their degree between 1990 and 2014, and 7,500 traditional students graduating in the same time span. According to the report, “Individuals who graduate college around the same time but at different ages are currently fairing equally well in terms of personal income. Still, traditional graduates likely enjoy higher lifetime earnings because they reap the economic benefits of a college degree for a longer period of time.”
The results “make sense,” observes Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.
But looking at average earnings for thousands of workers doesn’t mean that every individual who finishes college will see their paycheck rise, says Carnevale. It’s usually those who earn a degree that is related to the career they pursue who will see earnings grow.
For instance, a 30-year-old plant manager who gets an engineering degree could match average pay for all grads that year and in the future, but the same would not be true for a 30 year-old-retail worker completing an anthropology degree.
Many large firms now offer tuition assistance, notes Carnevale, “but with the proviso that the [course of study] has something to do with the worker’s job.”
The numbers of non-traditional college students will continue to grow, predicts Carnevale, since better-paying work is increasingly tied to better earnings.