In nearly every measure of economic
well-being and career attainment—from personal earnings to job satisfaction to
the share employed full time—young college graduates are outperforming their
peers who have less education.
When today’s young adults are
compared with previous generations, the disparity in economic outcomes between
college graduates and those with a high school diploma or less formal schooling
has never been greater, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The analysis finds that college
graduates ages 25 to 32 who work full time earn about $17,500 more annually
than employed young adults holding only a high school diploma. The pay gap was
significantly smaller in previous generations.
College-educated Millennials also
are more likely to be employed full time than their less-educated counterparts
(89% vs. 82%) and significantly less likely to be unemployed (4% vs. 12%).
Employed Millennial college
graduates are likelier than their peers with a high school diploma or less
education to say their job is a career or a steppingstone to a career (86% vs.
57%). In contrast, those with a high school diploma or less are about three
times as likely as college graduates to call their work “just a job to get
[them] by” (42% vs. 14%).
In 1979, when the first wave of
Baby Boomers were the same age as Millennials today, a typical high school
graduate earned about three-quarters (77%) of what a college graduate made.
Today, Millennials with only a high school diploma earn even less: 62% of a
typical college graduate’s salary. On some key measures, such as the percentage
who are unemployed or the share living in poverty, this generation of
college-educated adults is faring worse than Gen Xers, Baby Boomers or members
of the Silent generation when they were in their mid-20s and early 30s.
Among other findings:
- Among employed Millennials, college
graduates are significantly likelier than those without any college experience
to say that their education has been “very useful” in preparing them for work
and a career (46% vs. 31%);
- Better-educated young adults are
more likely to say they have the necessary education and training to advance in
their careers (63% vs. 41%);
- About nine in 10 Millennials with
at least a bachelor’s degree say college has already paid off (72%) or will pay
off in the future (17%); and
Among the two-thirds of college-educated
Millennials who borrowed money to pay for their schooling, 86% say their
degrees have been worth it or expect that they will be in the future.