Lifetime Returns to Educational Degrees

Education is an investment: it costs time, effort, and money. But be it an apprenticeship, master craftsmanship, or university degree: the costs of education pay off. The bottom line of our study for Germany is that each higher level of qualification yields between 22 and 64 percent higher income over the entire working life. Over their entire career, individuals with an apprenticeship degree earn 143,000 Euro more than those without a professional degree. A master craftsmanship yields 129,000 Euro more than an apprenticeship, a degree from a University of Applied Sciences 267,000 Euro, and a university degree 387,000 Euro. But there are large differences by field of study both for apprenticeship and university degrees – for instance between medical studies and social work.

Here you can find a short non-technical overview on this topic.

Non-technical contribution:

Einkommenserträge von Bildungsabschlüssen im Lebensverlauf: Aktuelle Berechnun­gen für Deutschland (with M. Piopiunik and F. Kugler). ifo Schnelldienst 70 (7): 19-30, 2017

Newspaper article:

Lehre, Meister, Studium: Bildung lohnt sich. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13.5.2017, p. 24

A contribution on our research results:

Studieren lohnt sich - aber was? Beitrag auf Spiegel Online vom 29.3.2017 über die Ergebnisse dieser Studie