Education impacts earnings five times more than other factors ---  

According to a new study, education levels had more effect on earnings in the workforce than any other demographic factor, such as gender, race and Hispanic origin. Many factors, such as race and Hispanic origin, gender, citizenship, English-speaking ability and geographic location do influence work-life earnings but none had as much impact as education. The estimated impact on annual earnings between a professional degree and an eighth grade education was about $72,000 a year, roughly five times the impact of gender, which was $13,000.

This positive reality is no surprise to successful Hispanic professionals who have achieved success despite supposed racial or gender barriers.

Roseann Torres, 42, is a lawyer who owns her own family law practice in Oakland. She grew up in a low income, single-parent home where her mother had three jobs and was not home very much.

She says that she didn’t do well in high school and upon graduation decided to get a minimum wage job. But after one year, she decided to go to college. “There was nowhere to go in a minimum wage job,” she says.

“I was exposed to educated women of various races who made a lot of money and had their own career - that inspired me to go to college,” adds Torres.

When asked about barriers to higher education and earnings, Torres says that believes gender is an issue, but mainly within the Hispanic culture.

“I heard from women that their parents did not support them going to college, even when they were accepted to top universities like Harvard,” she says.

The earnings study, compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, looks at the economic value of educational attainment by estimating the amount of money that people might earn over the course of a 40-year work-life given their level of education. The report also looks at the effect of other factors, such as race and gender groups and other characteristics with regard to this relationship.

"This analysis shows that there is a clear and well-defined relationship between education and earnings," said Tiffany Julian, an analyst with the Census Bureau.

Speaking of the most important factors in her success, Torres says, “Everything came down to who I associated with and getting mentors.”

A lawyer who mentored Torres encouraged her to not to worry about the money required for university and to seek scholarships to help pay for her education. Torres acknowledges, though, that there are not enough mentors in the Hispanic community. She regularly volunteers her time to share her truths about success with young people.

“When I speak to high school students in Oakland, I tell them that being an entrepreneur, you can do anything if you work hard - the sky is the limit.”

 

• Overall, white males had higher earnings than any other group at every education level, with the exception of those with a master's degree, which was topped by Asian males, and those with a professional degree, where Asian males were not significantly different from white males.

•  For Asian, black and Hispanic groups whose highest education completed is high school, the difference between each group's work-life earnings was not large compared with the differences between these groups when they had higher levels of education.

•  Asian men and women with a bachelor's degree or higher had greater returns on higher education than blacks or Hispanics of either gender. For example, an Asian female with a professional degree made $3.7 million in work-life earnings compared with $2.3 million for a Hispanic female with a professional degree.

•  Naturalized citizens saw a small yearly increase in earnings over the native-born population ($1,210), but those who were not citizens made $2,446 less a year than the native-born.

•  Language spoken at home had an effect on earnings: those who spoke a language at home other than English saw a decrease in annual earnings after considering all other factors. Even those who speak English "very well" saw a decrease of $989 in annual earnings compared with English-only speakers.