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What is the value of education for household income? The Census Bureau’s annual survey data for
2015 published last week gives us some interesting insights into this question.
The comments above and below are excerpts from an article by Doug Short(AdvisorPerspectives.com) which may have been enhanced – edited ([ ]) and abridged (…) – by munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!)
to provide you with a faster & easier read.
…The chart below shows the median annual household income for nine cohorts by educational attainment…[Of particular note is the fact] that…the Bachelor’s Degree median of $88.0K is over double the High School grad’s $42.0K.
Here is the same chart, this time illustrating the Mean (average) household incomes for the same cohorts.
For a better sense of the mean skew, below is a side-by side comparison of the median and mean. As we would expect, the mean is larger than the median for all cohorts.
The educational attainment of householders has clearly increased over the time frame of the Census Bureau’s annual data. The current survey questionnaire dates from 1991. Below is a pair of pie charts that highlight the difference in the cohort percentages in 1991 versus the present.
Here is the same visualization of the year-over-year comparison.
The column chart below gives us a clearer comparison of the individual cohorts…[and shows that] educational attainment has clearly advanced over the 24-year time frame of this Census Bureau series.
Below is a snapshot of inflation which shows that the cost of post-High School education has increased dramatically since 1991.
Conclusion
Advanced educational attainment correlates with higher household incomes but the cost of that education has soared.
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