In 2015, the median American graduate with a bachelor’s degree earned $68,000 a year, according to a survey by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Rutgers University.
That’s nearly $1,000 less than the median $76,000 earned by a graduate with the same degree in 2016.
In a similar report from the University of California at Berkeley, the earnings gap between a graduate of the public university system and the median public-college graduate in 2016 was more than $1 million.
This gap was especially pronounced in recent years, with students at top universities earning far more than their less-educated counterparts.
At the same time, the gap between graduates and non-graduates in education has narrowed.
Since 2000, the annual earnings gap in education at all levels of the economy has narrowed, according a report from a group of researchers led by UC Berkeley economist Kevin Hassett.
The gap between graduate and nongraduate earnings has been cut in half since 2000, according the report.
The wage gap has narrowed in part because of higher wages paid to those with advanced degrees.
As of June 2018, for example, graduates of public universities with bachelor’s degrees made more than those with master’s degrees, according it.
The earnings gap for graduate students has narrowed because they can afford to buy their degrees, said Adam Smith, an economist at the University, who co-authored the study with researchers from the Economic Policy Institute and other organizations.
In 2020, about 3.4 million people with advanced bachelor’s or master’s degree programs in the United States held a job, up from 3.1 million in 2020, according research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For those who hold advanced degrees, the unemployment rate for those with bachelor degrees was 3.2% in 2020.
But a majority of people with bachelor and master’s programs were still unemployed in 2021, according data from the Bureau for Labor Statistics, a part of the Census Bureau.
Those with advanced graduate degrees also saw the largest percentage of their workforce in the labor force in 2021.
A significant number of graduates in these programs, or at least the majority of them, held jobs, according Smith.
But the gap is wider in other areas of the country.
In 2021, the wages of graduates with advanced degree programs were more than half of the wage gap for non-graduate students, according Census Bureau data.
For example, the wage of a college graduate who held a bachelor or master degree in health care, a profession with a high share of white and Asian people, was $64,000 in 2020 compared with $30,000 for the same position for a non-degree holder.
In 2018, the national median household income was $53,500.
The national median for nonfarm wages in 2020 was $42,400, according census data.
But in 2021 the median household incomes were $42 and $33, respectively.
In some cities, such as New York City, the pay gap has widened, according and a report by the Urban Institute.
In New York, the share of college graduates in the workforce was 26.9% in 2021 compared with 15.5% in 2016, according U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
The share of non-college graduates was lower, at 12.6%, compared with 23.2%.
The share with a college degree was higher, at 36.9%, in 2021 than in 2016 at 21.9%.
The median household earnings of nongraduate students were $50,600 in 2021 and $53 a year in 2020 — up from $46,000 and $36,000, respectively, in 2020 and $43,000.
While the wage gaps for both graduate and graduate-school-educated workers have narrowed, they have not narrowed as much as for workers with no formal education.
The report by Hassett and his co-authors finds that while the earnings of people without a college diploma have narrowed over the past several decades, the compensation for these workers has increased, on average, more than the compensation of those with a degree.
For the bottom half of earners, the average hourly pay for a worker with a Bachelor’s degree was $12.60, compared with just $8.50 for the bottom quarter of workers, according their report.
But for the top half of workers with bachelor or masters degrees, median hourly pay was $22.90, up about 20% from $18.60 in 2020 for the lowest earners and up by nearly $40 for the highest earners.