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Is a Bachelor’s Degree Worth It? New Study Says Yes… Once You Turn 34
By Adam Hardy MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
A bachelor’s degree lags at first, then delivers higher lifetime earnings despite upfront costs.
A college degree pays for itself, new research shows. It’s just a matter of time.
Because of the high cost of attending college plus the years outside of the workforce that it takes for college students to complete their studies, high school graduates out-earn college grads for the first 16 years of adulthood, according to findings from a new study by the nonprofit College Board.
It isn’t until age 34 that graduates with a bachelor’s degree truly start to see the benefit in terms of earnings.
“A college degree is one of the largest investments most families make, and students and families are right to ask what they can expect in return,” Jessica Howell, vice president of research at the College Board, said in a news release Tuesday. “Education remains a powerful driver of opportunity, but there are differences in outcomes.”
The College Board’s analysis determined this by looking at cumulative earnings for U.S. adults at all education levels, while accounting for the cost of attending college.
From 18 to 33, high-school graduates have the upper hand because they started working and earning right off the bat and had no higher education costs, while college students delayed their earnings for four years to complete their bachelor’s degrees — and had to pay those degrees off.
At age 34, high school graduates lose their advantage. By that time, the typical high school grad has cumulatively earned about $476,000, and the bachelor’s degree holder has, for the first time, earned more: $485,000.
Every year following, the bachelor’s degree holder strengthens the lead, and the earnings gap grows. By age 64 — the oldest in the College Board’s analysis — the typical high school grad has earned just under $1.1 million to the four-year college grad’s $1.6 million.
In other words, bachelor’s degree holders typically earn 46% more money in their lifetime than high school grads, even after accounting for the cost of college.
A major caveat
To be clear, the College Board’s analysis makes a few assumptions: that the full-time working age starts at 18 for high school grads and 22 for bachelor’s degree holders. Another assumption is that the bachelor’s degree was completed in four years, totaling roughly $92,300.
In reality, just under half of bachelor’s degree-seeking students actually graduate in four years, according to data from the Department of Education. And not all college students start at age 18, either.
Additionally, the earnings include all majors for college grads, and some majors are far more lucrative than others.
For instance, computer engineering majors enjoy the highest wages among all majors for early-career grads ($90,000), and by mid-career they earn $131,000, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. However, the unemployment rate among those majors is 7.8%, second only to anthropology majors at 7.9%. For all workers, regardless of education, the unemployment rate is 4.2%.
On the opposite end of the income spectrum, pharmaceutical-related majors tend to earn only $40,000 early in their careers.
Typical earnings for all grads straight out of college are about $46,000, according to the College Board. But New York Fed data shows that recent grads with 17 of some of the most popular majors — including hospitality, education and psychology — earn less than that.
Assuming they find stable employment, computer engineering majors are likely to see the benefit of their degree long before age 34. Meanwhile, a psychology major might not see the perks until their 40s. In the end, though, college grads tend to come out on top regardless of major.
“The question isn’t just whether education pays — it’s which pathways lead to the strongest outcomes,” Howell said. “This report illustrates the importance of where to enroll, what to study and completing a degree in a timely fashion.”
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Adam Hardy is Money's lead data journalist. He writes news and feature stories aimed at helping everyday people manage their finances. He joined Money full-time in 2021 but has covered personal finance and economic topics since 2018. Previously, he worked for Forbes Advisor, The Penny Hoarder and Creative Loafing. In addition to those outlets, Adam’s work has been featured in a variety of local, national and international publications, including the Asia Times, Business Insider, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Nasdaq and several others. Adam graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida, where he studied magazine journalism and sociology. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income, single-parent household, Adam understands firsthand the financial barriers that plague low-income Americans. His reporting aims to illuminate these issues. Since joining Money, Adam has already written over 500 articles, including a cover story on financial surveillance, a profile of Director Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an investigation into flexible spending accounts, which found that workers forfeit billions of dollars annually through the workplace plans. He has also led data analysis on several of Money’s marquee rankings, including Best Hospitals, Best Credit Cards, Best Places to Live and others. In 2025, Adam was named a Goldschmidt Data Journalism Fellow by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). As part of the fellowship, he received hands-on training from SABEW, the U.S. Census, U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other federal government agencies in Washington, D.C. Adam also holds a multimedia storytelling certificate from Poynter’s News University and a data journalism certificate from the Investigative Reporters and Editors at the University of Missouri. In 2017, he received an English teaching certification from the University of Cambridge, which he utilized during his time in Seoul, South Korea. There, he taught students of all ages, from 5 to 65, and worked with North Korean refugees who were resettling in the area. Now, Adam lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with his pup Bambi. He is a card-carrying shuffleboard club member.