Want a better job? Get a better education.

This is a topic that a feel very strongly about. I'm climbing up on my soap box armed with great data, so watch out. There is a mountain of evidence to prove that good paying jobs come to those who have a good education. There are a few exceptions and a handful of cases where someone broke out of the norm and got a lucky employment break, but generally if a person wants a secure employment future, they must get an education or some sort of skill certification. If a person wants to scrimp by their whole life and worry about where the money is coming from for the essentials of shelter, food and clothing then just drop out of high school or quit school after graduating from high school and plan to struggle the rest of the time.
I've been spending a lot of time lately with someone in this situation. She is 18, dropped out of high school and is struggling to finish her GED. There are a lot of other issues going on, but the basic idea that life is going to be a CONSTANT daily struggle for her from here on out has left an impression on me. She won't stand a chance of getting ahead in life working minimum wages jobs, using food stamps and trying to survive. I took her to the grocery store to get some food and learned how food stamps work. She was scared to death that she wouldn't have enough money on her food stamp debit card to pay for the items she had in her cart. Government and church financial assistance can only do so much. I'm going to try and influence her to get more training and education and increase her chances of better employment in the future. Why oh why don't people see that settling when they are young into this pattern of living is only going to cause a lot of hardship and grief over the course of their lives? Why don't they see that the choices they make today determine the lives they will lead tomorrow?
Why don't young people stay in school? Why don't they continue their education after high school and get some sort of training or skill? Why don't they see the direct correlation between learning and earning? Why don't they see that every effort to study and learn while they are young will come back to them 10 fold as they grown older? Why don't their parents work with them to get good grades and take their education seriously? Why do parents let their kids waste their time on so many mindless distractions while their futures crumble before their eyes?

I'm so grateful for my parents. They valued education. They saw to it that each of their seven children got an education and some training so that they could support themselves and so that they wouldn't have to work minimum wage jobs. They sacrificed so that we could have this great gift. They valued education for the basic advantage it gave us to be well rounded and to be able to reason, write, think, discuss and know what is going on in the world. They valued it because they wanted us to be happy and successful and to strive towards something worthwhile. They set the example of how to contribute to society in meaningful ways and they expected us to do the same.

What keeps people from getting a degree or certificate of some sort after high school graduation?

I thought this graphic was very interesting. This article in the D News makes some really interesting points about Utahns specifically:

• Utahns with a degree or certification have an income level 75% higher than those who do not and are 2 1/2 time more likely to hold a salaried position that come with benefits.
• over the course of their work life, students who receive a Bachelors degree earn about $650,000 more than high school graduates. They also experience increased career opportunities, better health care benefit and overall a deeper quality of life.
• A child with parents who did not earn a degree had a 27.8 percent chance of earning one. If one parent earned a degree, that number rose to 41.8 percent, and if both parents have degrees the number peaks at 55.2 percent. Students with both parents and at least one sibling with degrees had the highest chance at 80 percent.
• Nationwide, Americans with at least a four-year bachelor’s degree tend to be employed more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in July 2011, the unemployment rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree was only 4.3 percent, compared to 15 percent for those who have not finished high school, 9.3 percent for those who have only a high school diploma but no secondary education.
• Utah's universities and colleges need to be more flexible in helping people obtain a degree while juggling jobs and family. This seems to be the biggest obstacle.
  

My personal feeling is that young families need to be prepared to sacrifice to gain an education. There are grants and loans and ways to make it happen. I worked very hard to help my husband complete his graduate degree and we sacrificed in a lot of ways to get through those years. We were really, really poor and those were very hard years. But we made it and we slowly started to see the benefits of the sacrifice. I hope that young people will weigh the benefits and the disadvantages and make the choice to work hard while they are young to obtain a college education or some sort of specialized training.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but there is a clear connection between the level of education an individual achieves and the level of happiness he has in life.