Research Show Big Earning Benefits From Earning a Graduate Degree, But The Amount Varies With The Student's Field

Georgetown University research has shown that those who have a graduate degree make substantially much more income on average than those with just a bachelor's degree. Based on the information provided in the report (http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/) those with a graduate degrees earn around 40 percent more than those with just the bachelor. However, there was a lot of variation depending on the student's college major.

Those with bachelor degrees in "Health and Medical Preparatory" averaged 190% more earnings when they had a graduate degree, and those with bachelor degrees in "Miscellaneous Social Sciences" averaged 134% more. However, those with bachelor degrees in Psychology/Social Work averaged only 43% more; those in Health, 50%; in Business, 40%; and in Education, 33%. In a few fields, such as Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Studio Arts, and Petroleum Engineering the boost from a graduate degree was very small (in the single digits).

Once you earn a graduate degree it essentially “lasts" for the rest of your career, and you continue to benefit from it for all those years, so, it is very likely to be worth your while to earn the graduate degree money-wise. When you consider the how much you learn, the increase in academic prestige, it is easy to see how earning a graduate degree can really help you.

In a prior post I mentioned that liberal arts majors are particularly likely to benefit from a graduate degree. A study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that liberal arts majors make significantly less than professional majors when just out of college, but the liberal arts major’s median salaries are similar to those with the other majors if the liberal arts majors got a graduate degree. The Chronicle of Higher Education article is at http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133/ .

I have a similar post on the blog of my website (My website is a direcotry to online graduate degree programs): http://onlinegraduateschool.tripod.com/blog2.htm#geo.