Zavala 1 Luis Zavala Prof.

Collin Ludlow-Mattson English 114 December 10, 2013 What is a College Degree Really Worth? As children we are told that if we go to college that we will be successful in the future, but is that always necessarily true? It is not required to go to college and a large amount of people dont go. Who would blame them, when there is so much time and money that must be invested just to get a college degree? Most people are tired of school and just want to get started with their lives, and start making money. There is however a large increase in students attending college in the past few years. A high school diploma is not worth as much as it used to anymore. What I really want to know is if all this hard work and dedication is worth struggling through. What I knew before I started working on my paper was that not everyone with a college degree is guaranteed a job. I knew this because I have seen that my cousin graduated from CSU Dominquez Hills with honors and she still is working at Walmart. She actually got that job right when she started college and she is still there 2 years after she graduated college. I also knew that some degrees from certain majors are worth more than other majors. I didnt however really know which majors as of right now are being the most worthy of getting. As a freshman in college I learned from experience that college is very expensive and lots of students have to take loans just to pay their way through school. I also know that college takes lots of time that you can spend on other things like working. Its not just time spending in class, us students must also

Zavala 2 spend time doing homework, studying, and working on projects. It can be stressful at times but every student does it, hoping for that successful future that they were promised as children. It didnt take much time for me to decide on what I wanted my I-Search paper to be about. I have actually been thinking about my topic since I started college. When I see the tuition and book costs, and all the time I take up committing with college, I always think to myself if at the end it will be worth it. I really wanted to know more about this topic because there might be other things I have to do to make my college degree worth the effort. An example is, two students have a bachelors degree from the same school, but doesnt mean they will both get jobs. One of the students can get offered a lot more jobs than the other and vice-versa, depending on the students major. Being more informed on my topic can have a large impact on my life because, it can help me know what I have to do, to not be one of the students who make nothing worth of their college degree. Lots of students just follow all the requirements and get their way through college and expect to get a job handed to them. Thats not the case and the more we prepare and inform ourselves, the more we will succeed to find a job. I find it interesting researching for my I-Search paper because it has something to actually do with my life. It is something that lots of us dont think about in college. The main reason we are mostly in college to be able to get a good stable job. What I want to know in this paper is which majors actually have more job opportunities, and how much those jobs pay. I also want to know if people are usually satisfied with the job they get after college. Another question I have is if some jobs require a masters degree to get a job, because I got an interesting answer when I asked my cousin why she was able to not get a job. She told me that she was unable to get a job with her major because she needed to get a masters degree to be qualified enough. Was she

Zavala 3 right, or was she just not looking enough? The last thing I wanted to know is what the job demand for business majors is, because that is the major I currently have. One of the successes that I got from researching for this paper is that I learned that education also varies through location. In an article by the Washington post, the author Plumer states that big cities have more job openings and offer a wider variety of job opportunities that can potentially fit the skills of different workers. This sounded like great news for me because I plan to stay here in San Francisco after I graduate from SFSU, and San Francisco is a big city with job opportunities everywhere. One of the difficulties I did have writing this paper was finding if people were satisfied with their jobs. It seems that it is difficult to see how satisfied someone is with their jobs. There are lots of other factors that come in to play like location, who you work for, and expectations. Verhofstaut explained that probably one reason why some college grads might not feel as satisfied with their jobs is that they had higher expectations on the job they are going to get out of college. Out of all the research I did, I feel convinced that I did the right decision into continuing school. A statistic from the U.S. Department of Labors 2011 reported that, usual weekly earnings of wage and salary workers found that workers with a high school degree had an estimated median income of $641. Comparing to someone that earned a bachelors degree whose weekly income median is $1,158! That is about $27,000 more dollars per year. It seems that a college degree is very helpful, but I also needed to know, what are the unemployment rates of somebody with a bachelors degree? The U.S. department of Labors found that unemployment rate for workers 25 years old and up with only a high school degree was 9.4% compared to those with a bachelors degree which is 4.9%. Although a bachelors degree does not guarantee a job, it sure reduces the probability of someone being unemployed. My cousin

Zavala 4 Erika is one of the few college grads who were not able to find a job. She told me that it was too difficult for her to find a job and that she had to go to graduate school to find a job she wanted. I did some research on my cousins major and tried to figure out why she was probably not able to get a job. Verhofstraut states that fields such as sociology focus on general skills and have less discernable occupationally specific components. It may be that my cousin Erika did not inform herself much on what she was really studying. When I called her for a second time after doing some of this research, she told me that she should have done a minor to specify more on a certain skill. She also told me that she researched and found that there was not much demand for her major in the location she lived at. When I asked upper division students at SF sate if they believed that getting a bachelors degree was worth the effort, I got some consistent answers. Matt who is studying business accounting said Not every student going into college graduates, those who do graduate are making a name for themselves and actually competing for those high skilled jobs. Another student Estevan who is in his final year for economics believes, education is always the way to go, the more education one has the more he will be searched for. Their comments are true; the more educated one is the better. It is not always easy to go to graduate school however because most students dont want to commit more time and money for another 2 years when they already have a college diploma. Xavier who is studying economics told me, I have been in school my whole life and I just want to start working already, to start making money and start my life. Xaviers mentality seems to be the mentality of most college students. Chances of getting the job you want after college are not always the best but most students think that a college education should be enough. I learned by a study done by Georgetown, that by 2018 it is estimated that about two-thirds of jobs will require some form of

Zavala 5 college education or better. It seems that not only will college be worth it in the future, but it will be almost necessary to find a job.

College is the best way to get a job, but I wanted to know job fields paid the best. Another study done by Georgetown University showed the Top 5 highest median starting paying jobs and the lowest. The highest paying jobs consisted in mostly Engineering majors, but also medical and science majors. They average from 86,000 to 120,000 annually in their first few years. The lowest paying jobs consisted in social working jobs and early childhood education jobs. The last thing I wanted to learn was about how well do business students usually do. The Wall Street Oasis, claims that MBA employability continue to improve with 92% of 2013s global business school graduates finding jobs within 3 months, compared to 86% from last year. I also looked into what the median salary was for business marketing because that is where I plan to get my degree in, and the median pay is about $116,000 per year. Another very interesting fact I found from All Business Schools, is that by 2020 the demand for Business Marketing employment jobs will increase by 14%! Out of the research and interviews that I have done, I have learned a lot on the importance of a college degree. A college degree is not only worth it, it seems necessary to have a job that will give you a good well-being. Students who usually cannot find a job after college usually dont do enough research on what they are studying. To increase your odds on finding a good job, a student should see if the job has a high demand in the area they want to live in. They should also see if their major is too general and will require extra education or specialization. It doesnt seem necessary yet to have a masters degree but it will always increase your chances of getting a job. A quote from Adam Michelle states the public is aware of the real world pay off. They know that the only thing more expensive than a college

Zavala 6 degree is not having an education. Education might be expensive but there is a reason why most students are taking the risk, because they know that it will pay off very well in the future.

Zavala 7 Work Cited All Business Schools. "Business Administration Salary: What You'll Earn." Business Administration Salary. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013 Garvey, Martin J. "Is An MBA Worth It? -- A Business Degree Is the Best Investment When It Comes to an IT Executive's Salary." Lexis Nexis. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2004. Hardy, Marcelina. "7 Benefits Of Earning A College Degree." Yahoo! Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2013 Loose, Terence. "Is a College Degree Worth It?" Yahoo! Education. N.p., 13 Nov. 2013. Web. Oranguntan, Senior. "Is an MBA Worth It?" Wall Street Oasis. N.p., 16 Apr. 2013. Web Plumer, Brad. "Only 27 Percent of College Grads Have a Job Related to Their Major." The Washington Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2013 Verhodstadt, Elsy. "Higher Educated Workers: Better Jobs but Less Satisfied?" Pro Quest. International Journal of Manpower, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2010.