WASHINGTON — It’s always been true that getting a college degree helps a young person’s career prospects and future earnings. But one expert says that if you start on a four-year degree, it’s important to finish. It’s easy to infer that getting a little college under one’s belt will help, but that may not be true.
Melissa Korn, who covers higher education for The Wall Street Journal, says that a little college might be a dangerous thing: People age 20 to 24 who have a little college make virtually no more money than those with no college.
“In many cases, you are worse off than if you’d gone into the work force straight out of high school,” she says.
“You’re starting your work life later … you aren’t being considered for professional-track jobs, and you’ll often have student loan debt to boot.”
Korn says more students are leaving school without getting a degree — one-third of students who started college in 2012 didn’t return the next year. She adds that people who start school, leave and go back have an even lower completion rate.
Money is a part of the reason students don’t go back.
“A lot of people start seeing those tuition bills stack up, and they get a little bit nervous,” she says.
But part of the problem comes when people underestimate of the value of a degree.
Korn says if you want to try to make it without college, employers such as retail and grocery stores hire workers without a degree on a case-by-case basis, and often promote people within the company once they’ve proven themselves.
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