Below i describe two differing articles on the topic of college and whether or not it is even worth going any more. The first is from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's website and the second is from Business Insider.
Why college IS worth it.
In the article "Do the Benefits of College Still Outweigh
the Costs?" by Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, it is stated that even though wages for college graduates have decreased " after climbing impressively between 1980 and 2000, the return to a college degree has held steady for more than a decade at around 15 percent, easily surpassing the threshold for a sound investment." According to Abel and Deitz, the driving force behind this anomoly is that the wages of those without college degrees have also fallen, and that although the past ten years have been rough on college graduates they hae been even more rough on those without degrees. The average wages of those with Bachelor's degree tends to be over $60,000 compared to the under $40,000 average made by those with just a High School Diploma. Read more here:http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci20-3.pdf
Why college IS NOT worth it.
In an article on Business Insider, a different picture is painted. According to one of the charts in the article below, earnings for those with bachelors degrees on average was closer to $45,000. I'm not 100% sure why the difference, i found one other site that said the same thing as the Feds article however most everything i was able to find when researching put the average wage of someone with a bachelors degree in 2013 around $50,000 - $55,000 (article links below.) According to the article on Business Insider, there are actually more people with college degrees right now that are unemployed, than unemployed high school graduate, and that a large portion of those with jobs and a college degree are "mal-employed."
Read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-two-charts-prove-a-college-education-just-isnt-worth-the-money-anymore-2012-6
Average Annual Income By Education:
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
http://www.statisticbrain.com/college-education-costs-and-statistics/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883617.html (This one ends at 2010 but as you can see from the others, the gross income begins to decline from there so you can use that info to make an educated guess as to where it would fall in 2013)
Don't forget to join our group for updates!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1523386281252680/