Is attending college worth the money and effort? Majority of the population feel that it’s worthy. In Today’s time, out of 10 people, 9 passes out of high school, and approximately 8 out of 10  who complete high school enroll in college immediately after completion of school. People join a college for various reasons. One of the first reasons for enrolling into a college is to obtain a high paying job after graduation.

This following analyses the link between higher education and increased earnings and shows how this has evolved through the recent years. Likewise, it will illustrate projected estimated revenues during one’s working life for different levels of education.

However, one must note that these estimates are not conclusive evidence since there are many factors affecting salaries. Projected salary information is based on data accumulated during the Census.

Education and Earnings

In India, the salary earned not only depends on the degree but is very much dependent on which institute the person has obtained that degree from. Starting salaries of a person having a Bachelors in Engineering from a premier institute such as IITs is much more than that of a person having the same B.E from a private college. But as everyone knows, it is not easy for everyone to enter into premier institutes. Now a day’s many private institutes providing graduation ranging from Engineering to Hotel Management, there are many companies that have emerged in many cities which cater to training personals in job-specific skills such as Digital Marketing, Technical Writing, AutoCAD, etc.

The trend in the past decade has been to complete graduation in India and go for masters abroad. Most of these students go for Education loan with the hope of repaying the same after they land in a good job abroad. This trend leads to brain drain, which is entirely a different topic altogether which we will not talk here. But what we are concerned about is that the ROI. If the student gets a job immediately in their desired field, then well and good, but there are few streams like Pure Science, where finding the right job is not very easy abroad. Then, in that case, the ROI takes a beat.

The opportunity cost must always be kept in mind while deciding for higher education. In India, a high school pass is mandatory to land you in any white color job. Our country which is mainly dependent on jobs created by projects from foreign countries, backend jobs and IT support jobs are widespread. Many graduates prefer to work for a year or two, gain income and experience and then go for higher studies. Yet, some people work and complete degrees side by side.

The salary earned also depends on the city where you work. If you work in an A tier city, your income for the same job is higher than that obtained for the same position as a b-tier town. Similarly, MNCs pay much more than startups and middle-level companies for the same position. In our above discussion, we have not considered Government jobs, which give you a lifelong income even after you retire in the form of pensions and also we have not touched the teaching, Medicine and Research field into consideration as it is mandatory in these fields for the individual to hold a Masters or higher degree. Thus, we cannot generalize and conclude what the Economic value of higher education as it varies from field to field and person to person. But it definitely can be said that the economic value of higher studies is positive in the long run.