Individual Development Accounts and the Workforce Investment Act

Posted by on May 29, 2007

Coordinating Individual Development Accounts and the Workforce Investment Act to Increase Access to Post-Secondary Education and Training (pdf)
Mark Greenberg and Nisha Patel, Center for Social Development

As employers demand more highly skilled and educated workers, it has become increasingly important for workers to receive education beyond high school in order to support themselves and their families. Adults with postsecondary education earn more than their less-educated counterparts. In 2003, median yearly earnings for high school graduates were $26,332, compared to $32,154 for Associate degree recipients and $42,116 for Bachelor?s degree recipients. These earnings differences compound over the course of a working lifetime. The Census Bureau has estimated that average work-life earnings for a high school graduate working full time, year-round, would be $1.2 million, compared to $1.6 million for an associate degree recipient, and $2.1 million for a bachelor?s degree recipient. Households whose members do not have any postsecondary education are at a greater risk of being low income?54 percent of children whose parents only have a high school degree live in low income families, compared to 22 percent of children whose parents have some college education. Moreover, the financial returns of postsecondary education have grown over time. While in 1975,full time, year round, workers with college degrees earned 1.5 times as much as those with high school diplomas, by 1999 this ratio had risen to 1.8. In 1975, workers with advanced degrees earned 1.8 times as much as high school graduates; by 1999, they earned 2.6 times as much.

http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/csd/Publications/2006/RP06-09.pdf