A permanent underclass

First, let me begin by saying I’m not dead. I’ve been sick and over-worked for the last week. However, the snow day gave me 14 hours sleep and some relaxation so I feel much better.

Earlier in the week I saw an article by Hope Yen for the Associated Press on the earning a between young adults with and without college degrees, which is the widest it has been in 48 years, and I’d argue that we’re creating a permanent underclass.

Yen argues that this shows the raising value of a college degree despite rising tuition costs, however, I’m not ready to say that instead I’m arguing college degrees are devalued, but not nearly as much as a high school degree. Yen arrived at this conclusion based on census data. The findings state that young adults with only a high school diploma earned 62 percent of the typical salary of college graduates, which is down from 81 percent in 1965 (the earliest year this was calculated).

Additionally, Pew shows increasing economic difficulties for young people without bachelor degree are more likely to live in poverty and be dissatisfied with their jobs. This is seen in a stratification of high and low wage work. According to Paul Taylor, Pew’s executive vice president and co-author of the report, “In today’s knowledge-based economy, the only thing more expensive than getting a college education is not getting one. Young adults see significant economic gains from getting a college degree regardless of the level of student debt they have taken on.”

With the rising costs of tuition resulting in college graduates having large debt and few employment opportunities. Affordable higher education would result in upward mobility for young people, of course there would have to be jobs available. A college degree now yields more earnings (adjusted for inflation), while a high-school diploma is worth less than ever before. The article used an example of college graduates ages 25 to 32 working full time earned $17,500 more annually than employed young adults with a high school diploma, $5,500 and $28,000, respectively. The median earning for high-school graduates fell more than $3,000 from $31,384 to $28,000 between 1965 to 2013.

Now, 22 percent of high-school graduates live in poverty compared to 7 percent in 1979. Taylor continued to say, “Despite their higher levels of college completion, today’s young adults overall are doing no better—and on many key indicators of economic well-being, they’re doing worse—than older generations were doing when they were the same age that Millennials are now. This is mainly because the economic penalties for not for not getting a college degree are so much stiffer now than in the past.”

The report also showed the young employed college graduates are more likely to say their job is a job is a career or a stepping stone then their peers with a high0school diploma. Those with high-school diplomas are three times more likely to consider their work as just a job to get by than college graduates.