Something very important is happening this week, even for those of us who aren’t directly involved.
This week, thousands of students are beginning classes at Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women and East Mississippi Community College.
For these students, their success in college is likely to dramatically affect their futures. We have long understood the link between a college education and financial security. The best study, a 2015 University of Kansas study that, for the first time, used personal income tax data from the Social Security Administration, shows that the lifetime earnings gap between high school and college graduates, including those with a graduate degree, is around $1.13 million for men and $792,000 for women.
While earlier generations of non-college graduates could rely on an abundance of factory jobs, today’s manufacturing is moving quickly toward automation, using robotics to perform work that was generally the domain on unskilled labor. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that by the time the freshmen who begin classes this week graduate, two-thirds of all jobs will require a college degree or post-high school training.
The future will belong to the educated and the options of those with only a high school diploma or less will be extremely limited. It is, in fact, a pathway to poverty.
Yet the value of an education is not limited to earning potential. A New York University study indicates increased college graduation rates correspond to a significant decrease in the crime rate. A 5-percent increase in the college graduation rate, for instance, produces an 18.7-percent reduction in the homicide rate, for example.
College graduates even live longer, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Based on its data, at age 25, U.S. adults without a high school diploma can expect to die nine years sooner than college graduates.
The personal benefits cannot be ignored. Neither can the benefits a community reaps for an educated populace. Communities with a high percentage of college graduates are more prosperous, healthier and safer.
So we salute all the students as they begin their classwork, not only for what it means to their futures, but what it means to ours as well.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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