What is the best way to prepare for a recession, apart from building assets and storing money away for a rainy day? It would seem that my high school counselor had this one right, it comes down to education. The College Advantage: Weathering the Economic Storm, released last week by the Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center on Education and the Workforce, shows that while the recession was tough on everyone, those with four-year or graduate degrees had it better than most. The report’s title, coupled with the images of umbrellas, sends a clear message; a college degree provides protection during hard economic times.
According to the Georgetown report, four out of every five jobs wiped out during the recession were held by employees with a high school diploma or less. That amounts to 5.6 million jobs lost, and to date there has been no recovery for that sector. However, those with even a little college education, or those holding associate degrees, only saw a 1.75 million drop in jobs and the recovery has already replaced 1.6 million of those lost jobs. Most impressive is that people with a Bachelor’s level degree or higher gained 187,000 jobs by the end of the recession, and have added another 2 million during the recovery.
This news comes as conformation to many of us who advocate for higher education, but we also need to be mindful of the rising cost of college and (more…)
