In an increasingly competitive world labor market, you want to have every advantage over someone else to land the job, pay and benefits you want. A college degree can help you in your career goals and is required for many jobs.
Pay Advantage
Numerous studies show that people without a college degree will often make tens of thousands of dollars less each year in salary compared to those with a degree. Differences range from $20,000 more for a bachelors degree to $60,000 more for a doctorate and higher. Over the course of a lifetime, this will add up to nearly a million dollars in income difference. Of course, having a degree doesn't guarantee that you'll get the job you want -- experience, personality and overall skills sets are also considered, and hard working people without degrees often succeed in some fields. But overall, your chances of economic success increase with a college degree, and the more advanced the degree, the better. Especially during economic hard times, people without a degree are unemployed or underemployed more than people with a college degree.
The College Experience
Some employers are less concerned about the actual major studied as much as the degree conferred. In other words, having a college degree shows the prospective employer that you have the experience of making short, medium and long-term goals, working through projects, finding and using resources and assessing your own work. All of these are essential skills in the workplace, and a college degree can demonstrate your professionalism and maturity to your employer. An uncompleted degree plan may indicate a lack of motivation or workplace skills.
Trade Skills
Most obviously, a college education exposes you to the skills needed for many of the highly competitive and rewarding careers. Universities are constantly consulting with major employers to determine what state-of-the-art skills are needed and modify their curriculum accordingly.
The Learning Experience
Many college graduates take their degree into the office, only to find that their assigned job has less to do with the major, but a college degree indicates that you have the aptitude to learn new concepts. The company's managers figure that because you've taken courses in all kinds of topics, in and out of your field, you can probably handle learning new concepts. Furthermore, employers want to know that they are hiring someone who knows more than just their field -- the core curriculum requirements of most universities expose you to liberal arts, social sciences and hard sciences beyond your major field of study.
Career Advancement
Partly due to social expectations, sometimes due to certification requirements and occasionally just because "that's the way it is," some jobs require a college degree, including advanced degrees for promotion. Managerial jobs, especially executive jobs, often require a master's or doctorate degree.
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