I like to write. As a matter of fact, I love to write. I have kept a diary since I was twelve, written and submitted articles to local magazines (none of which have ever been published), even written a book that I plan to publish electronically one of these days. You would think that with writing being such an important part of my life, I would be pursuing a degree in English and a professional writing career. Yet, with the advice of my family and peers and in the interest of financial security, I have chosen to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. As I’m writing this essay, I am beginning to understand how paradoxical and counterintuitive this decision is but (here comes the rationalization) the opportunity cost of pursuing an in-demand, high paying career is well worth sacrificing a career in writing, which is not as ambitious in the eyes of society. As we all know, perception is reality, however baseless it is. An English degree is just not perceived as being as marketable or desirable as a degree in finance. I, too, ascribe to this particular opinion and I’m no better for it.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers website, students who graduated in 2013 enjoyed an average starting salary of $45,327, which represents a 2.4% increase from the average salaries reported in 2012. Graduates with a degree in business earned an average starting salary of $55,635 in 2013, a 7.9% increase from 2012 and is the largest increase of average salary in a particular discipline. Those people graduating with a degree in Education or the Humanities earned on average $40,337 and $37,791, respectively. This information is highly influential when determining what type of degree you want to invest in. No one wants to h...
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...is me and I cannot afford to waste my days perusing the ancient Grecian texts or Sumerian cuneiform writings. The society we live in values hard labor more than labors of love and for that we are all the less. Now you see why I haven’t begun my dissertation on the African diaspora. However, it is us, the college students, the stalwarts of higher education who shape the future and impose on it our will. To be an English major or not to be an English major, that is the question that I ask myself and the decision boils down to the hardest one a college student must make. Do I choose the major I love or the major that pays?
Works Cited
Naceweb.org. 2014. Salary Survey: Average Starting Salary for Class of 2013 Grads Increases 2.4 Percent. [online] Available at: http://www.naceweb.org/s09042013/salary-survey-average-starting-class-2013.aspx [Accessed: 6 Feb 2014].
Thousands of people end up enrolling in college after they graduate from high school. Most of them want to further their education so they can make something out of themselves. It is a common idea among many, that college will end up increasing one’s average income. In the article, The College Payoff Illusion, by Edwin S. Rubenstein, he wrote that “In 1997, college graduates earned an average of $40,508 versus just $23,970 for non-college graduates”. The statistic shows that graduates are making more but does it have more to do with their college degree or their personality?
Wilson, Robin. “A Lifetime of Student Debt? Not Likely.” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 256-273. Print.
The argument about whether college is worth it or not has been one of the biggest arguments throughout the media for decades. Students suffer a lot from the debts that they get from college and also the amount of studying that they do in college and when they graduate they ask themselves “is graduation from college really worth all the money that we paid and all the work that we have done?”. Leonhardt and Matthews are two journalists who talk about whether college is really worth it or not, and they both have different perspectives. David Leonhardt thinks that college is absolutely worth all the money you pay and the work you do, stating that “Americans with fouryear college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree.
Ungar, S. J. (2010). The new liberal arts. In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.). “They say, I say”: The moves that matter in academic writing with readings. (2nd ed.). (pp. 190-197). New York: W. W. Norton. This article looks to prove that liberal arts education is just as valuable as “career education” because contrary to general belief, career education doesn’t guarantee high-paying jobs after they graduate.
Thomas, C. (2011). Is the American Dream Over? They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Zac Bissonnette, “Your College Major May Not Be as Important as You Think”. New York Times. New York Times. 03 November 2010. Web. 05 Mar. 2014
Salaries for Class of 2012 College Grads Are up 3.4% over the Pay of Those Who Graduated a Year Earlier. "Starting Salaries Rise for New Graduates." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. .
People with a college degree tend to make more money than those who didn’t attend college. This is because most of the jobs that have a higher earning require a college degree. People that only get their school diploma don’t make as much money as someone with a college degree. A study done suggest that people who have a college degree are more likely to get hired because they have an education compared to those who don’t. According to the United States Bureau people who achieved the current degrees earned the following median salaries. People with a doctorate degree earn $100,000 or more. With a bachelor’s degree people earn $58,000 and people with an associates earn $42,000 or more(Lucier). A High School diploma is not worth as much as a college degree. A High school diploma means less today because of the shaping of the world. People who only have a high school diploma earn only about $33,000. These numbers also depend on the type of field that you are going into. For example, people that have a bachelor’s degree in engineering or management will earn a little bit more (Lynn). They will earn more because these fields are really important. In my opinion the United States has been transformed
Here are some reasons that show why a higher education can benefit you, Medical jobs with no college degree pay $20,000-$40,000 annually on average. Allied Health Careers with two years of college pay from $40,000-60,000 annually and Nursing Careers with Associate’s or Bachelor Degree pay $40,000-55,000 on average annually. While with an advanced nursing career with a Master's Degree earned pay of
People who have a college degree make more money, in yearly earnings and salaries. IN the article actually college is very much worth it,Andrew J. Rotherham reports that “The median weekly earnings for someone with some college but no degree were $712, compared to $1038 for a college graduate.”(87) An average of $324 more a week and an average of almost $17,000 over a year. Getting a college degree can make a huge difference in potential income. That’s compared to people who have gone to college but didn’t get a college degree, the median salary for people who just have a high school degree is even less.
College allows the student to choose their own path in life and not just take any job they can get. For instance, I have always wanted to teach and I like the added perk of having the summers off. Obtaining a degree will ensure that you earn your maximum earning potential. On average a person that has their Bachelor degree earns about $15,000 a year more than high school graduates, while associate degree holders make about $7,000 a year more (Graff, They say / I say: the moves that matter in academic writing, 2014, pp. 208-225). However, over time the gap significantly widens to almost $50,000 a year, in favor of the college degree holder. Some might would argue that not all degrees are equal with some paying significantly less. I agree that the type of degree one receives directly impacts their salary, but the benefits of obtaining a degree are still valuable. In an article written by Terry Caron, his researched showed that unemployment rates significantly decreased the more education an individual received (Caron, "College Graduates vs. Non - College Graduates: Unemployment Statistics.")As Freeman Hrabowski mentions, “College graduates are much more likely to be employed than those with only a high school diploma and earn substantially higher salaries” (Graff, They say / I say: the moves that matter in academic writing, 2014, pp. 259-263).
It makes their family’s life become tough. They raise a question that why not letting these students go to work instead of this worthless education. As what is mentioned in the article “College degree still worth the investment, data suggest”, the author Mary Beth Marklein shows many evidences to support her main idea that the college education is still worth to invest because it can give college graduates higher wages. She showed the audiences a data, which pointed out that college graduates earned generally 56% higher that people who only have a high school diploma in the past four years. The author also said, “From 1982 to 2001, bachelor 's degree holders earned an average 80% more and associate 's degree-holders almost 30% more than workers with no more than a high school diploma”. The similar contents are also presented in the article “Median Salary Up Two Percent for Higher Education Professionals”. The author insists that the higher degree you get, the higher salary you will earn. In other word, it’s the truth that the college students might have heavy loans when they decided to go to college, but they
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is one of my favorite poems for many reasons, but recently it has started to gain new meaning as I face graduation. I have started to wonder how different my life would be if I had only chosen to travel down one road instead of sprinting down both roads at the same time. When I declared my biology major, my dad expressed concern that I was choosing one possible life and career over another possibility. He said he knew how happy writing made me and he wondered if I was doing the right thing in not pursuing that. He spoke the words I had not yet spoken out loud for myself. “You shouldn’t enter college worried about what you will do when you exit,” said David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, at a World Economic Forum panel discussion last week on the state of the humanities. Rubenstein’s words are true now and they were true then: I should not have worried about choosing so soon. After I arrived at Columbia College, I began taking English courses because I could not take biology courses without at least trying to explore my passion for literature and creative writing. Thanks to time at Columbia College, I started to see the value the required courses of the WPDM major more because of what they taught me about myself than what they taught me about the subject matter. Combined with my classes, my internship experiences have confirmed that I am indeed heading in the right direction. I could not become a successful writer and biologist without the valuable set of skills that I have gained through my time at Columbia College. I believe I made the right choice by choosing both roads.
A person with a bachelor or even a master's degree will show off their hard work though the salary since it would be higher than someone who just have a high school diploma. For this reason, someone with a high school diploma is limited on getting a better earning job. Most jobs even high paying jobs requires a college education.Based on NCES in 2013 salaries for someone with a bachelor's degree will earn around $48,500 while associate degree or high school diploma will earn between $37,000 and $30,000. Simply having a bachelor's degree will have the advantage of earning roughly around $18,000and $10,000 more each year than not having one. College education allows someone to have a better starting salary. As they work in the company, employees can get promoted, the salary will increase.
College degrees have proven to be a valuable resource to achieve a higher pay. “Is a College Education Worth It” writes, college graduates with a bachelor degree earned on average $30,000 more per year than a person with just a high school education (1). This statistic shows that with just a four-year degree, someone can earn more than a person with just a high school education. This also proves that people with a college degree earn more in their lifetime than people with just a high school education. “Benefits of a College Degree” adds that in a lifetime, people with a bachelor 's degree earn $2.7 million. People with just a high school diploma earn about $1.3 million in their lifetime (1). Abel and Deitz claim that over the past four decades, people with a bachelor’s degree earned 56% more than high school graduates while people with an associate’s degree earned 21% more than high school graduates (1). This comes to show how getting a college education has benefited people for four decades. Mark Peters and Douglas Belkin propose that the cost of college for someone with a bachelor’s degree is on average 110,000 to 130,000 (1). This number can seem very large to most people, but people with a bachelor’s degree earn more money, so the amount of debt they have will quickly