The numbers don't lie

I turned down a $88K/year job

— Fresh out of high school. I’d taken 3 years of computer programming. I wanted a summer job before college. It was 1995. A local furniture store got back to me after I applied. I thought they wanted me to move stuff around. “How about you come in full-time as an IT administrator?” they said. They were offering $45K a year. That’s $88K today with adjustments for inflation
— Lots of money for an 18-year-old. “Take it,” my friends said. “You’d be mad to refuse.” I turned it down because I wanted to further my education. Throughout the years I spent getting 3 master’s degrees and after sending 5,000 job applications— I regretted not taking that job. More than once. However
— I’m 40 now and have earned $2.5M more than if I had taken it. On average in the US, those without a college degree will make $1.7M in the course of their lives. Those with an undergraduate degree, $2.6M. Master’s, $2.9M. And an MBA or law degree, $3.7M. Mark Zuckerberg is a college dropout. But he’s also a one-in-a-billion unicorn. For most of us, higher education is an investment that will pay for itself many times over. Don’t buy into the hype. Be thoughtful about whether you go to college or not. The numbers don’t lie.'    
Written by Jason Schenker