JONATHAN JANSEN: How climbing the education ladder leads to much higher earnings
'There is a final question that parents and students often wonder about: What specific field of study pays best?'
EXTRACT
It turns out that the greatest difference in earnings across years of schooling is between those pupils with only a Grade 11 and those with a Grade 12 qualification. In fact, your salary nearly doubles if you have the matric certificate compared with what a Grade 11 will earn.
It is strange, but clearly matriculation signals something powerful in the market that brings considerable benefit to the person who successfully completes high school. This is a huge motivation to get more pupils to finish high school, given that slightly more than half of those who started in Grade 2 will eventually drop out of school, especially at or around Grade 10.
From a policy point of view this is a priority: ensure more children complete grade school. The straightforward economic benefits to individuals and, by extension, their families, are not inconsequential.
There is no shortage of education sceptics these days. Does education really matter? Look at the number of unemployed graduates. After all, the matric certificate is pretty worthless given the low passing standards. Why bother? Those questions make sense to cash-strapped parents. Believe it or not, there are elite schools in South Africa whose tuition fees are higher than those of universities. And students now graduate with a huge debt burden, given the spiraling costs of higher education.Is private spending on education really worthwhile given these high costs and the possibility that the degreed student might not even get a job? Well, my favourite economist for plain speaking, Mike Schussler, recently shared with me a batch of new statistics on the value of education in South Africa. The results will shock you. Marketable matric It turns out that the greatest difference in earnings across years of schooling is between those pupils with only a Grade 11 and those with a Grade 12 qu...
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