The Importance of Education

We all know the US continues to struggle through a Great Recession with high-unemployment rates at 9.6%.  David Leonhardt notes that "almost 45 percent of today’s unemployed workers have been without a job for at least 27 weeks."  He also shows that  this downturn has not affected the population equally.  Some states have survived much better, like Nebraska with unemployment at 4.5%, while others with mostly manufacturing jobs or large housing bubbles have suffered the most.  


Perhaps the biggest disparity in unemployment can be seen in levels of education.  We, as teachers and others, say that education is important for getting a job and living a life.  We have cute quotes like "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance".  We know that education can be the silver bullet to poverty and remains the greatest opportunity to change your economic status (unlike music, sports and the lottery).  But most of the time, students hear these messages and dismiss them as just another slogan, another phrase to get them interested in something that doesn't interest them.  Some students think, these old teachers don't know what they are talking about, this is a waste of time.  But know I have factual evidence to back up our statements.


Using BLS data (Found Here), Andrew Sullivan created a chart to truly show the importance of education.  His accompanying post can be found here.

As shown, unemployment remains highest for those without a high school education.  Those with a Bachelor's Degree or higher have the lowest unemployment throughout the country at about 4.5%.  For the highly educated among us, we really don't see a recession going on.  Not only have the college-graduates retained their jobs, but their salaries have risen as well adding to the disparity of educated vs. uneducated.


Hopefully, something like this can help show students the value of an education.  Maybe this can show parents, the community, and the politicians the importance of fully funding and supporting education.  Graphs can really make me smile sometime.