The Value of a College Degree

Dr. Beverley J. Pitts
This piece was published August 12, 2008 on the op-ed page of the Indianapolis Star.

A recent Wall Street Journal article suggested that a college degree may be declining in value because it no longer is enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck over the course of a career.

I’m not sure a degree ever was a guarantee of progressively higher earnings. But as the article acknowledged, a college degree was a gateway to a well-paying career, to significantly higher lifetime earnings, and to greater insulation against unemployment. That is still the case, and our young people can’t hear that message too often. Today more than ever, failure to attain an advanced education will vastly restrict career options and make one much more vulnerable to recession.

Perhaps there was a time when a person with a “college premium” (a degree) could pretty much count on a steadily rising paycheck. The Wall Street Journal article noted that this premium was 40 percent in 1979, which meant that a college-educated worker earned 40 percent more than a worker with a high school diploma. That premium had reached 75 percent by 2001, but has remained fairly stagnant since then.

Might it be that we as a society have been so successful in producing increasing numbers of college-educated workers that we have set a new bar? Given the rapid pace of economic change today, the new message for colleges and universities is that it no longer is sufficient to prepare a student for a single occupation or field; we must give them the skills to move among many disciplines over a lifetime, while at the same time instilling in them the importance of civic and social engagement as part and parcel of their work.

Another message is that colleges and universities must be more sharply attuned to shifting workforce needs, and respond rapidly with curriculum changes and new programs. No field is stagnant today—not even a well-paying, high-demand field like nursing, where there is no foreseeable end to short-staffing at all levels, including management. That’s why UIndy has expanded its nursing education to provide master’s programs in nursing administration on site at hospitals in Indiana’s largest healthcare chain, and why we have just created an accelerated master’s program to enable individuals with bachelor’s degrees in other fields to enter the nursing profession, prepared for leadership. Other universities are responding in their own ways to rapid changes in business and industry.

If this decade has reinforced anything thus far, it is that adaptation and differentiation are critical to survival in the 21st Century. This holds true for employers and employees alike, and especially for colleges and universities. The degrees they award now have to do far more than grant access to a job; they must certify that the holder is prepared for a lifetime of professional evolution, during which knowledge and skills will be continually honed and updated.