Employment and Degree Completion Go Hand-in-Hand

Unemployment being linked to less education should come as no surprise to anyone. Just because you went to a college or university doesn’t guarantee you a job these days.

And if you didn’t complete your degree program, you’re going to have a much harder time finding employment.

To explain this phenomenon a National Public Radio article provided us with a new vocabulary word, bifurcation. Bifurcated means to divide into two parts or branches; therefore, college students become graduates and non-graduates.

While this might seem like a simple concept, before the recession college graduates with “some college” could find jobs, yet this number has been steadily declining since 2007 according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 2007 the percentage of workers with some college who were employed was about 2007, it now lingers around 64%.

Degree completion has become just as essential as going to college. Recipients of a bachelor’s degree or higher have nearly a 10% higher employment rate and unemployment rate that has dropped only about .4% since last year.

It is also worth noting that the difference in pay between an associate’s degree and bachelor’s is over $10,000 on average per year.

Everyone says getting a degree is one of the most important milestones of your life but forget to express that completing the degree is just as important.