October 23, 1998 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Earnings increase substantially
with additional education
Workers with a bachelor's, master's, doctoral,
or professional degree generally have higher incomes than do workers with less education.
In 1996, college graduates earned nearly 75 percent more than high school graduates.
Median annual earnings for all college graduates were $40,753, compared with $23,317 for
all high school graduates.
![Earnings by educational attainment, 1996](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120921212050im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/1998/Oct/wk3/art05.gif)
[Chart data—TXT]
A " diploma premium" is attached to each advanced educational
level. Employees with bachelor's degrees earned $36,155—55 percent more than high
school graduates. Employees with masters’ degrees earned 28 percent more than
bachelors’ degree holders and workers with Ph.Ds earned 31 percent more than those
with masters’ degrees. Those workers with professional degrees such as medicine or
law had the highest median earnings at $71,868, a level 18 percent above the median
earnings of workers with Ph.Ds.
The additional earnings associated with a professional degree represented nearly a
100-percent increase over the average earnings for those with a bachelor's degree and a
208-percent premium over the earnings of high school graduates.
These data are a product of the Current Population Survey.
More information may be obtained from "Earnings of College Graduates,
1996", Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 1998.
Of interest
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