Census: Even 2-Year Computer Degrees Pay Off

Most people in this day and age agree that going to college is a good thing, but the practical, fiscal value of a college education has long been harder to pin down. Can you earn money with an English degree? Do you really set yourself back by only going to a two-year school? Didn’t Bill Gates drop out of Harvard?

Save the last one (yes), these aren’t easy questions to answer, but given the escalating costs of secondary education, most agree that its time that they are.

The Census Bureau released figures today which found that yes, a college education does pay off, but more so in some fields and education levels than others. Some of the winners included computer degrees, and they don’t mean bachelor- or graduate-level ones. Individuals with associate’s degrees in computers averaged an income of about $3,760 a month, about the same income as those with B.S. degrees in education or social science.

Vocational certificates in engineering also paid off well, an average of about $3,880 a month, or nearly the same as four-year degrees in natural sciences.

But it was B.S. degrees in engineering paired with MBAs (advanced business degrees) that really paid off, earning an average of $5,992 a month.

“They make so much more money than others than even someone lower level engineering or computer degree will make just as much as one with a four-year bachelor degree in other fields,” a Census Public Information Office spokesperson told eWEEK.