Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

High earnings without a college degree?

August 30, 1999

Is it possible for a worker to have high earnings without a bachelor's degree? For a small proportion of workers without a degree, the answer is "Yes."

Workers age 25 and older, by usual weekly earnings and degree status, 1998
[Chart data—TXT]

Last year, the median earnings for all college graduates were $821 a week. Of full-time workers age 25 and older without a bachelor's degree, 15 percent earned more than $821 a week in 1998. However, 62 percent of workers without a degree had weekly earnings below $572 per week, which was the median for all workers age 25 and over.

Workers with high earnings and without a degree can be found in a variety of occupations. Examples are computer programmers, electricians, firefighting occupations, real estate sales occupations, and tool and die makers. Although the majority of workers without a degree in these five occupations do not have high earnings, in 1998 there were at least 50,000 people in each of them who did not have a bachelor's degree and who earned more than the median college graduate.

These data on earnings are from the Current Population Survey. The above figures are for full-time, year-round wage and salary workers age 25 and over. Find out more about earnings and education in "High earning workers who don't have a bachelor's degree (PDF 275K)," by Matthew Mariani, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 1999.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, High earnings without a college degree? at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1999/sept/wk1/art01.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics


triangle