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The Most Popular Degree Pays Off
High School
The future of the high school economy remains uncertain, but it continues to provide good jobs. In 1991, there were 14.7 million good jobs for workers with no more than high school diploma, but that number has declined to 12.9 million by 2016. About 27 percent (2.9 million) of young workers ages 25-34 with no more than a high school diploma have a good job, which is down only slightly from 29 percent in 1991. Overall, the high school pathway provides 20 percent of all good jobs. The good job opportunities it provides are primarily for men.
Middle Skills
The middle-skills pathway is comprised of workers with more education than a high school diploma, but less than a BA including, certificates, certifications, licenses, associate’s degrees, and some college coursework. This pathway is in the midst of major transformation from traditional blue-collar jobs to more skilled technical jobs across skilled-services and blue-collar industries. In contrast to high school jobs, this pathway continues to grow. Workers with middle skills have 16 million good jobs, or 24 percent of all good jobs.
The middle-skills pathway includes those in traditional middle skills jobs, such as firefighters, law-enforcement officers, electricians, mechanics, installers, repairers, technicians of industrial equipment, and highway maintenance workers; it also includes those in skilled and technical jobs, such as healthcare technologists and technicians, computer control programmers and operators, surveying and mapping technicians, and information and record clerks.
Bachelors Degree
The bachelor’s degree (BA) has become the premier pathway to economic opportunity. The BA now accounts for 56 percent of all good jobs, due to greater demand for workers with at least a four-year college education. Nearly three out of four BA jobs (74%) are good jobs.
Majoring in business pays off. Students’ earnings and debts vary across more than 1,700 institutions at the bachelor’s, master’s, and associate’s degree levels, but in the majority of programs, business students’ median earnings two years after graduation are roughly 10 times their debt payments.
Despite a general earnings boost conferred by a degree, earnings vary greatly depending on the degree type, age, gender, race/ethnicity, and occupation of an individual. The findings are stark: Women earn less at all degree levels, even when they work as much as men. On average, women who work full-time, full-year earn 25 percent less than men, even at similar education levels. At all levels of educational attainment, African Americans and Latinos earn less than Whites.
The future of the high school economy remains uncertain, but it continues to provide good jobs. In 1991, there were 14.7 million good jobs for workers with no more than high school diploma, but that number has declined to 12.9 million by 2016. About 27 percent (2.9 million) of young workers ages 25-34 with no more than a high school diploma have a good job, which is down only slightly from 29 percent in 1991. Overall, the high school pathway provides 20 percent of all good jobs. The good job opportunities it provides are primarily for men.
Middle Skills
The middle-skills pathway is comprised of workers with more education than a high school diploma, but less than a BA including, certificates, certifications, licenses, associate’s degrees, and some college coursework. This pathway is in the midst of major transformation from traditional blue-collar jobs to more skilled technical jobs across skilled-services and blue-collar industries. In contrast to high school jobs, this pathway continues to grow. Workers with middle skills have 16 million good jobs, or 24 percent of all good jobs.
The middle-skills pathway includes those in traditional middle skills jobs, such as firefighters, law-enforcement officers, electricians, mechanics, installers, repairers, technicians of industrial equipment, and highway maintenance workers; it also includes those in skilled and technical jobs, such as healthcare technologists and technicians, computer control programmers and operators, surveying and mapping technicians, and information and record clerks.
Bachelors Degree
The bachelor’s degree (BA) has become the premier pathway to economic opportunity. The BA now accounts for 56 percent of all good jobs, due to greater demand for workers with at least a four-year college education. Nearly three out of four BA jobs (74%) are good jobs.
Majoring in business pays off. Students’ earnings and debts vary across more than 1,700 institutions at the bachelor’s, master’s, and associate’s degree levels, but in the majority of programs, business students’ median earnings two years after graduation are roughly 10 times their debt payments.
Despite a general earnings boost conferred by a degree, earnings vary greatly depending on the degree type, age, gender, race/ethnicity, and occupation of an individual. The findings are stark: Women earn less at all degree levels, even when they work as much as men. On average, women who work full-time, full-year earn 25 percent less than men, even at similar education levels. At all levels of educational attainment, African Americans and Latinos earn less than Whites.
The College Advantage
The unemployment rate for all four-year college graduates is 4.5 percent, but the unemployment rate for recent four-year college graduates is more than 50 percent higher at 6.8 percent. At the same time, unemployment rates for recent high school graduates are near 24 percent.
Unemployment rates for new four-year college graduates peaked at 11.1 percent in July 2011 before declining to 6.8 percent in May 2012. Meanwhile, unemployment rates for new high school graduates peaked at 30 percent in January 2010 and are still at 24 percent in May 2012.
Unemployment rates for four-year college graduates went up during the recession but never exceeded 6.3 percent, compared to the peak 13.4 percent in February 2010 and the current 9.4 percent unemployment rate for high school graduates.
Since the recession began, the healthcare industry has added over one million jobs for people with two-year and four-year college degrees.
Unemployment rates for new four-year college graduates peaked at 11.1 percent in July 2011 before declining to 6.8 percent in May 2012. Meanwhile, unemployment rates for new high school graduates peaked at 30 percent in January 2010 and are still at 24 percent in May 2012.
Unemployment rates for four-year college graduates went up during the recession but never exceeded 6.3 percent, compared to the peak 13.4 percent in February 2010 and the current 9.4 percent unemployment rate for high school graduates.
Since the recession began, the healthcare industry has added over one million jobs for people with two-year and four-year college degrees.
Learning While Earning: The New Normal
Learning While Earning: The New Normal finds that over the last 25 years, more than 70 percent of college students have been working while enrolled. These 14 million college students face the challenge of balancing work, school and other life priorities. The report explores these working learners and finds that students can’t work their way through college anymore to offset debt. It also identifies several policy changes that stand to help these students succeed.
Career Pathways - STEM
The generative economic power and social influence of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has made the production of a capable science and engineering workforce a priority among business and policy leaders. They are rightly concerned that without a robust STEM workforce, we will become less competitive in the global economy.
Many among these leaders have argued tht there is a shortage of STEM workers. They cite disturbing trends in the STEM pipeline, such as the fact that although the raw number f Doctoral and Master’s degrees in STEM has increased, those disciplines have declined as a proportion of all degrees awarded.
Other respected authorities have vigorously contested the claims of shortage, arguing that we produce enough STEM degrees to fill all the STEM opening (Lowell and Salzman 2007, Freeman 2008, Teitelbaum 2003). These critics continued to argue that the language of crisis surrounding much of the dialogue is misleading, and they suggest that we are actually overproducing STEM talent at home, especially at the graduate level in academia They conclude that despite increased funding for STEM education and research, tenure-track academic jobs for people who invest more than a decade of their lives in postsecondary STEM education are becoming scarcer. Therefore, these critics argue, promoting STEM is leading gifted students down a path of limited career prospects ad wasted talent.
Both the oversupply and the undersupply arguments have merit, depending on which STEM workers, which education level, and which STEM competencies are being discussed. For the most part, the debate over whether we have too many or too few STEM workers has focused on the portion of the STEM workforce engaged in research and development (R&D) activities, as many believe that R&D is the part of the STEM workforce that most contributes to innovation.
However, R&D workers represent a small share of the STEM workforce. We are concerned not only with the 21 percent of the STEM workforce in R&D, but also with the STEM workforce as a whole, STEM competencies as a whole, and the demand for them both within and outside of traditional STEM occupations.
What is really at stake in the current debate over the existence of quantifiable STEM shortage is an important question regarding a national strategy for sustaining economic innovation in the United States at a time when science, technology, innovation, and the related work in STEM occupations have become more integrated globally.
Many among these leaders have argued tht there is a shortage of STEM workers. They cite disturbing trends in the STEM pipeline, such as the fact that although the raw number f Doctoral and Master’s degrees in STEM has increased, those disciplines have declined as a proportion of all degrees awarded.
Other respected authorities have vigorously contested the claims of shortage, arguing that we produce enough STEM degrees to fill all the STEM opening (Lowell and Salzman 2007, Freeman 2008, Teitelbaum 2003). These critics continued to argue that the language of crisis surrounding much of the dialogue is misleading, and they suggest that we are actually overproducing STEM talent at home, especially at the graduate level in academia They conclude that despite increased funding for STEM education and research, tenure-track academic jobs for people who invest more than a decade of their lives in postsecondary STEM education are becoming scarcer. Therefore, these critics argue, promoting STEM is leading gifted students down a path of limited career prospects ad wasted talent.
Both the oversupply and the undersupply arguments have merit, depending on which STEM workers, which education level, and which STEM competencies are being discussed. For the most part, the debate over whether we have too many or too few STEM workers has focused on the portion of the STEM workforce engaged in research and development (R&D) activities, as many believe that R&D is the part of the STEM workforce that most contributes to innovation.
However, R&D workers represent a small share of the STEM workforce. We are concerned not only with the 21 percent of the STEM workforce in R&D, but also with the STEM workforce as a whole, STEM competencies as a whole, and the demand for them both within and outside of traditional STEM occupations.
What is really at stake in the current debate over the existence of quantifiable STEM shortage is an important question regarding a national strategy for sustaining economic innovation in the United States at a time when science, technology, innovation, and the related work in STEM occupations have become more integrated globally.
College is Just the Beginning
American postsecondary institutions, government agencies, and employers spend $1.1 trillion annually on formal and informal higher education and training. Of that amount, $649 billion goes for formal postsecondary education and training each year. Colleges and employers spend the most on formal postsecondary programs. Colleges and universities spend $407 billion on formal education annually, while employers spend $177 billion. Employer spending on formal training has increased by 26 percent since 2018 (pre-Covid-19 pandemic), when employers spent $140 billion. By comparison, colleges and universities’ spending on formal education grew by 82 percent, from $224 billion to $407 billion, over the same period. Certifications, apprenticeships, and other workforce training comprise $47 billion of annual spending on formal training and federally funded job training programs comprise $18 billion of spending on formal training. In addition, employers spend $413 billion on informal, on-thejob training annually. Including both formal and informal training, employers spend $590 billion annually, the largest element of the postsecondary education and training apparatus. Employers spend most on college-educated workers in service industries.
Trillion Dollar Infrastructure-Proposal Could Create Million of Jobs
Infrastructure jobs are good jobs that pay well and potentially can reboot Middle America, restoring the economic growth to the pace it was on before being derailed by the Great Recession. In the following sections, we discuss the jobs, education, training, and skills implications of implementing major infrastructure overhaul. Here is what a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure might mean for the job picture overall:
• The creation of more than 11 million jobs over the next 10 years. These jobs would be a combination of the 6.4 million missing jobs that were not created as a result of the Great Recession (2007-09) and 5 million more jobs in related industries created as a result of the stimulus effect of the new infrastructure.
• A temporary increase in the proportion of infrastructure jobs, from 12 percent to 14 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy.
• An emphasis on occupations in construction and extraction and transportation and material moving, which will make up the vast majority of new infrastructure jobs.
• A disproportionate jobs advantage for men, since the majority (92%) of new infrastructure jobs would likely be filled by men, given the historically male-dominated employment in infrastructure occupations, especially in transportation and construction.
• The creation of new jobs in management and white-collar office occupations, particularly for workers with an Associate’s degree or higher.
• A potential surge in jobs for less-educated Hispanic/Latino workers. They are disproportionately working in infrastructure jobs that require a high school diploma or less, while white workers are disproportionately concentrated in infrastructure jobs that require an Associate’s degree or higher.
• A possible increase in formal and informal training opportunities for Hispanics/Latinos and blacks/African Americans working in infrastructure. As a group, they have relatively lower levels of educational attainment, so they stand to benefit from increased training.
• High demand for certifications for welders, concrete strength-testing technicians, construction managers, and construction health and safety technicians, all of which are in-demand credentials.
Infrastructure Jobs Are Well-Paying Jobs, Especially for Workers without a Four-Year College Degree
• The creation of more than 11 million jobs over the next 10 years. These jobs would be a combination of the 6.4 million missing jobs that were not created as a result of the Great Recession (2007-09) and 5 million more jobs in related industries created as a result of the stimulus effect of the new infrastructure.
• A temporary increase in the proportion of infrastructure jobs, from 12 percent to 14 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy.
• An emphasis on occupations in construction and extraction and transportation and material moving, which will make up the vast majority of new infrastructure jobs.
• A disproportionate jobs advantage for men, since the majority (92%) of new infrastructure jobs would likely be filled by men, given the historically male-dominated employment in infrastructure occupations, especially in transportation and construction.
• The creation of new jobs in management and white-collar office occupations, particularly for workers with an Associate’s degree or higher.
• A potential surge in jobs for less-educated Hispanic/Latino workers. They are disproportionately working in infrastructure jobs that require a high school diploma or less, while white workers are disproportionately concentrated in infrastructure jobs that require an Associate’s degree or higher.
• A possible increase in formal and informal training opportunities for Hispanics/Latinos and blacks/African Americans working in infrastructure. As a group, they have relatively lower levels of educational attainment, so they stand to benefit from increased training.
• High demand for certifications for welders, concrete strength-testing technicians, construction managers, and construction health and safety technicians, all of which are in-demand credentials.
Infrastructure Jobs Are Well-Paying Jobs, Especially for Workers without a Four-Year College Degree
It's not about having the right opportunities, It' about handling the opportunities right."
Mark Hunter
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