Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Professional degree?

Shawn Roberts

The majority of informed people in the world know that with a better degree comes a better salary. However, is it really worth putting in the years of work or pay the monumental costs of obtaining the more prestigious degrees? To find out there has to be some number crunching. For starters the average yearly earnings of a bachelor’s, master’s, and professional’s degree are $43,000, $53,000, and $70,000 respectively. The difference in these salaries is considerable but so is the amount that it costs to obtain them.

The average cost of a four year institution is $15,665. The average cost of graduate school to get a master’s degree is $14,825 while the average cost of a professional program is $20,903. This means that the cost of a Bachelor’s degree is $62,660, $92,310 for a master’s, and a staggering $146,272 for a professional degree. The next thing we can now calculate is that it takes almost one and a half years to pay off a bachelor’s degree, almost two years to pay off a master’s, and a little over two to pay off the funds for a professional degree. The high salary of a professional degree then quickly surpasses that of the other two. Within 18 years after graduating from high school the net profit of a person with a professional degree is greater than that of a person with a bachelor’s degree and a person with a master’s degree. Therefore and in conclusion, if a person plans on working past the age of 36 it is in their best interest to spend the extra time and money to obtain a professional degree.

http://www.salary.com/
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