Through my research in my past posts I have uncovered some insightful information and statistics to help me get a better idea of whether or not the value of the degree is decreasing as tuition rises. My original assumption was that the degree is decreasing in monetary value, and I still think that holds true through my research. To back my belief, I have run some numbers using my resources from the past few posts from "Statistics Brain" and "Salary Trends." In between 1990 and 2000 there was an increase of average incomes reported from bachelor degree graduates of $12,298. The price of tuition with fees and room/board rates only increased $1,364 for one year of college in this same decade. From 2000 to 2010 however, from the averages those bachelor degree graduates reported, there was only an increase of $8,464 in income but tuition in this decade increased $2,906. The increase in per year income was well higher when the increase in per year costs was less. As time has gone on, the income increase is declining per decade while the tuition costs are increasing. To put it more simply, our pay rates for graduates are not growing as fast as the cost of tuition. In my opinion, this proves that the monetary value has been decreasing.
Other questions I still have are about student loans and how they have changed over time. I have not researched this part of my inquiry and am still curious how those effect my findings. Does the difference in student loans over this time make degrees even less valuable? How much interest are students paying on the average loan? How does that factor into the per year costs for school? How much were we paying in 1990 in interest on our loans? These questions could still factor into my argument.
Although I have found information to support my belief that the degree is declining in value, I still found a lot of intriguing things that prove just how valuable degrees still remain. Overall it is concerning to me that the degree is losing its value, but I am glad to report that the answer to my original question is that a degree is still worth achieving when comparing it to not having a degree at all. arlingtonva.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/
In my further research I thought I would first touch more on incomes for college graduates over the years, as there is still more information to uncover here. The article, "Salary Trends Through Salary Survey: A historical Perspective On Starting Salaries For New College Graduates," by Andrea Koncz, shows figures on reported average starting salaries for various bachelors degrees dating back to the 1960's up until 2015. This article is really informative because it not only includes the salaries as time has moved on, but it also includes the adjusted value of those average salaries. This gives us a better idea of the value of the college degree over time for income purposes. This article provides great insight on my overall question. The first figure shown in the article is a table representing the average starting salaries of various bachelor degree graduates reported every year since 1960 with their percentage change from year to year. And then it also shows the adjusted average starting salary since 1960 along with its percentage change from year to year in value compared to 2015's economic value accounting for inflation. Here is a video by The Guardian that explains inflation.
If you are looking from one year to the next it tends to fluctuate as there are stretches where income values increase and there are stretches where they decrease. Actual income amounts have a somewhat constant upward trend, however, only until recent years. The lowest value the degree had been was 1994 when it was valued at $44,560. The highest the value has been was 1969 when it was worth $59,169.
In 2015, the average starting salary was $50,219, this is the same as the value this year since all other values are based off of this year. It took a large fall from 2011 to 2012 when starting salaries actually dropped from $51,171 to $44,259 in just one year. The value of these salaries dropped from $53,166 to $45,102. They have been increasing every year since that fall, however, in 2015 neither the value nor the income had reached what they were in 2011. They also provide a graph that represents the change in value from 1960 to 2015.
Overall my reaction to this article is that it is proving that the value does not change too dramatically overtime but at times there have been large differences. It seems to be back on the upward trend as 2015 was reported. This tells us that even as inflation rises the bachelors degree is still remaining relevant in value for starting incomes, but it doesn't seem to be on an upward trend overall in value as education continues to progress. This also doesn't account for the amount paid to achieve these degrees.
