>From today's BLS daily report: > Education increases income, says USA Today, > in its page 3B box showing median household > income, based on education. According to it, > households in which there is a professional > degree have an income of $100,000; those with > a doctorate degree, $97,325; households in > which there is a Masters degree have an income > of $74,476; those with a bachelor's degree > $64,406; households with an associate degree, > $49,279; those with some college, no > degree, $44,149; households that include a > high school graduate, $35,744; households with > an education consisting of ninth to 12th grade, > $21,737, and households that include someone > with below a ninth grade education, $17,261. > Income is based on 1999 data from the U.S. > Census and the College Board.
Here is an anecdote from a former "hiring authority": Not that long ago, I was asked to hire a few recent graduates for some data entry jobs. Without exception, the ones I hired were very smart young fellows with bachelor' s degrees from respectable universities like UC Berkeley, Brown, Tulane and the like. What these young fellows with degrees in economics, physics, mathematics, engineering and the like were making were about $25,000 or so. Most of these young men and women accepted the jobs because they were interested in some experience that would help them go to an MBA program. Now, how does this compare to the above mentioned $64,406 for the median household with a bachelor's degree? What kind of a household is this median household and how relevant it is to look at the median in this context? By the way, you don't need degrees in those areas for data entry, nor you have any hope to save enough to apply for an MBA degree at a "decent" school here in Berkeley, unless your family has the means to support you. So most of these young men and women were stuck with boring jobs with nowhere to go. Hey, I also hired a few science Ph.Ds from very respectable schools for boring programing jobs (Ravi would know what I mean if I say they were required to write FORTRAN programs) for about $50K. Something is wrong with this USA Today picture or was I working at a firm/firms from Mars? Sabri
