Degrees are pricey, to be sure. I'm going to an "inexpensive" public university, but the program isn't cheap by any means. But it's an investment that will yield a return, and even a pricey degree is often worth the investment.
If the chart at http://www.earnmydegree.com/online-education/learning-center/education-value.html is accurate (it cites Census Bureau numbers), on average people with a Bachelor's degree earn over $1 million more in a lifetime than those with a high school diploma. On an annual basis, those with a Bachelor's earn around $20,000 more. So let's say it costs $60,000 to get a Bachelor's. That's sounds fairly pricey, but statistically speaking you'll make your money back in three years and everything after that will be profit. It's a no-brainer. From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 4:18 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SUSPECT: RE: MCSE question John, I think that the relevance of college degrees in the 21st century will depend greatly on the cost of attending college either A) continuing to spiral out of control in relation to other costs or B) leveling off and then coming back into line with other costs of living. If option A bears out, then no one other than the extremely wealthy, will have college degrees 10 years from now. YOMV, TVK From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 2:42 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SUSPECT: RE: MCSE question I think that trend will end, though, as we move forward in the 21st century. I suspect that more and more employers will expect the IT pros they hire to have degrees and the knowledge that (hopefully) comes with them. The Master's I'm working on is in Management Information Systems. Interestingly, this program actually falls under the university's College of Business. The coursework focuses strongly on aligning IT skills with business needs-in fact, several of the courses we take are actually part of the MBA program. This is critical because there has traditionally been somewhat of a disconnect between business and IT, but companies in recent years have started to push much more strongly for business justifications for IT investments. IT pros are having to learn how to more closely integrate with the business side of things. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
