...openings.

Data consistently show that, on average, college graduates earn more money, experience less unemployment, and have wider variety of career options than other workers do. A college degree also makes it easier for jobseekers to enter many of the fastest growing, highest paying occupations. What's more, having a degree is the only way to get a start in some careers.

Between 2004 and 2014, almost 14 million job openings are projected to be filled by workers who have a bachelor's or higher degree and who are entering an occupation for the first time. Some occupations will offer more openings and bigger than others will

Keep reading to learn about the benefits of having a college degree and the expected demand for college graduates. Find out which occupations are projected to offer the most job openings who are entering them for the first time. And learn about the difficulties of measuring the demand for college graduates and the strengths and limitations of this study's methods.

In this article, a college graduate is defined as a person who has a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral (Ph.D.) degree or a professional degree, such as one in law or medicine. For a discussion of associate degrees and other levels of education, see the companion article, "The 2004-14 job outlook for people who don't have a bachelor's degree," beginning on page 28 in this issue of the Quarterly.

College graduates: In demand and doing well More people are going to college now than ever before, in part because of the advantages that a college degree confers. College-educated workers' higher earnings and lower unemployment are good reasons to go to college, and these benefits are also evidence of the demand for college graduates. Higher earnings show that employers are willing to pay more to have college graduates work for them. And lower unemployment means college graduates are more likely to find a job when they want one.

More people going to college

The number of people who have a college degree has been increasing steadily. According to Current Population Survey data, the number of people aged 25 and older who have a college degree grew from 37 million to 54 million between 1994 and 2006. By mid-2006, more than 28 percent of people aged 25 and older had a bachelor's or higher degree.

Higher earnings, lower unemployment

As a whole, college-educated workers earn more money than workers who have less education. In 2005, workers who had a bachelor's degree had median weekly earnings of $937, compared with $583 a week for high school graduates--that's a difference of $354 per week, or a 61-percent jump in median earnings. (Median earnings show that half of the workers in the educational category earned more than that amount, and half earned less.) For workers who had a master's, doctoral, or professional degree, median earnings were even higher. The OOChart on page 60 is a graphic illustration of how education affects earnings.

Higher earnings for college graduates are a long-term trend. The wages of college-educated workers have been rising over the past decade--and they've been rising faster than the earnings of other workers. (See chart 1.)

[GRAPHIC 1 OMITTED]

In addition to earning more money, workers who have more education are also less likely to be unemployed. At 2 percent, the 2005 unemployment rate for workers who have a bachelor's or higher degree is half the rate for high school graduates (4 percent) and less than a third of the rate for dropouts (7 percent).

Higher earnings and less unemployment combine to give graduates substantially higher incomes over a lifetime compared with their less-educated counterparts.

The trouble with averages

Statistics about college graduates paint a rosy--and numerically accurate--picture of overall employment. But the data describe college graduates as a whole. High earnings are not guaranteed for individual graduates.

For every graduate who earns more than the median, another earns less. And while unemployment rates are low overall, many college graduates sometimes have trouble finding work, especially if they are waiting for a particular type of job.

People's career prospects depend on many factors besides having a college degree. The local job market, the type of degree, the level of experience and skill, the occupation that a person is trying to enter, and many other considerations play a role in job-search success.

Occupations with many openings

Between 2004 and 2014, BLS projects 55 million job openings for workers who are entering an occupation for the first time. Of these, at least 13.9 million are expected to be filled by college-educated workers. More than half of these openings are expected to come from the need to fill newly created jobs. The rest are projected to come from the need to replace workers who retire or leave an occupation permanently for other reasons. Many of today's college-educated workers are poised to retire, and replacement needs are expected to be high, especially in large occupations.

In some occupations, most workers have a bachelor's or higher degree. In other occupations, education levels vary. Many occupations that are expected to have the most openings for college graduates relate to business, computers and engineering, education, counseling, or healthcare, but all career types will provide opportunities.

"Pure college" occupations

For this study, analysts assumed that every future job opening in some occupations would be for a college-educated worker. In these "pure college" occupations, at least 60 percent of current workers aged 25-44 have a bachelor's or higher degree, fewer than 20 percent have a high school diploma or...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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