Why go to college?
If you want to be successful in life, you have to sacrifice. College can expand your knowledge and increase your potential to get a job. It is a challenge that teaches you responsibilities and betters your life. According to the Census Bureau, Hispanics will be the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. by the year 2005. If current growth rates continue, by the year 2050 Hispanics will number 100 million, nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population. The impact on corporate America is clear. As we approach the next century, Hispanics will comprise an ever larger segment of the U.S. work force. Therefore, career opportunities for college-educated Hispanics have never been greater.
According to the Hispanic Schorship Fund:
"A college education pays off in a big way for Hispanics. The premium in lifetime earnings for a bachelor's degree over a high school degree is $500,000 for Latinos and $400,000 for Latinas. The premium for a Hispanic with a professional degree is $1.7 million - over 200% increase over a lifetime.
"Are there consequences to Hispanics for not continuing with their higher education? According to research done by the Council for Aid to Education, an independent subsidiary of RAND, men with a college education have kept pace with inflation between 1976-1995, men with some college education have seen a decline in real income of 14 percent, and men with only a high school diploma have lost 18 percent. Meanwhile, real wages of high school dropouts have declined by 25 percent.
"If these trends are drawn out to the year 2015, the results are even more devastating. Male workers with only a high school education will have lost 38 percent of what comparable male workers earned in 1976. And those without a high school diploma will have lost 52 percent in real earnings over the same period. If the U.S. economy continues to place a high value on a college-educated workforce, then only college graduates will be able to hold their own economically out to 2015."
