Page 61 - Modul GE Full

There may be a range of perspectives on the best way to move our economy forward,
but one element essential to any answer is education. It may seem intuitive that more

educated people earn more, yet the extent to which this is true is striking. A picture is often
worth a thousand words, and the graph below illustrates this point.

The horizontal axis measures income while the vertical axis breaks up the income level

by education level. As we move to the right toward higher incomes, we see that college
graduates make up a bigger and bigger chunk of those earners. A few numbers help to

underscore this. Those with only a high school diploma accounted for 39 percent of those
who made between $20,000 and $30,000, but just 8 percent of those earning more than

$100,000. In contrast, college graduates only accounted for 18 percent of the $20,000-to-

$30,000 group and 75 percent of people earning more than $100,000, despite the population
of these two educational demographic groups being roughly equal.

The message is clear—more education opens the gateway to better, higher-paying jobs.
To put this into perspective, consider this: An individual with only a high school diploma is

twice as likely to make under $40,000 per year than someone with a college degree. In

contrast, an individual with a college degree is nearly nine times more likely to make over
$100,000 than someone with only a high school diploma and 13 times more likely to make

more than $200,000 per year. (Source: http//www.brookings.edu)

Instructions!

a. Working in pairs. Ask your friend to read the passage for you and try to understand as

much as you can at the first hearing.
b. Individually, read the text above silently and try to understand the complete story.

Chapter VII – Comparing Things 57