The graph (right) demonstrates the potential for wage increases in your job/career journey based on your highest level of education/qualification.
Experience
If you leave before Year 12 and go into a paid job, you will gain job skills and experience, however you will pretty much keep the same wage for your working life. Boo hoo!
Year 12
If you complete Year 12, your wage earnings will improve (yay!), but there is certainly scope to ’up’ them.
Skilled Labour
If you train in a specific field then your wages are prone to go up as you get older. Skilled labour usually requires qualifications from TAFE (eg Cert IV or Diploma)
Bachelor & Higher Degree/s
Your wage earning capacity is much higher with University qualifications—thank goodness, as you will have pesky HECS fee/s to pay back!
Where would YOU like to sit on this graph?
That might depend on whether you want a Porche or a 50cc Ace-Scooter!!—and you may be a rare person who will buck the statistical trends. On the whole however, the message here is: the more you learn, the more you can earn.
I stole the dinky-di figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2010, Measuring economic returns to post-school education in Australia cat no. 1351.0.55.032. Here is the original graph….
