Welcome back, seniors.
Now the fun really begins.
You wondered if your time would ever come. Now, all eyes are fixed on you – and everyone is following your lead. On sports teams, you comprise much of the varsity. And you hold the leadership posts on clubs too. Between homecoming court and graduation, this is truly the year that you’ll always remember.
Your senior year is a long slow goodbye. This is your last chance to do so many things. And maybe that’s what makes this year so special. Deep inside, you know big changes are ahead. Whether you’re dreading or embracing this change, one question will shadow you all year: Where will I be a year from now?
That’s particularly true about college. There are so many factors to weigh. Where are my friends going? Which campus feels most like home? What do I want to study? And who’ll give me the biggest aid package?
You may be thinking a year ahead. In reality, you need to look five years ahead…if not more. Soon enough, you’ll be joining your classmates, siblings, and even parents in the work world. And you’ll quickly learn a key lesson: You need money to do whatever you dreaming of doing.
You’ve probably heard that your college is your destiny. That’s more hyperbole than anything. But your school choice does place you on a particular path. If you believe the quickest path from point A to point B is a straight line, it behooves you to factor income potential into your college choice.
HOW PAYSCALE CALCULATES GRADUATE INCOMES
This week (September 10th), PayScale, a leading data warehousing firm that specializes in employee compensation, released its 2015 College Salary Report. Covering median salaries at both “early career” and “mid-career,” PayScale provides a rough idea of what you can expect to earn after graduation for both Bachelor’s and advanced degrees at over 1000 colleges.
The data was culled from PayScale’s database of 1.4 million college graduates, which is collected from its ongoing online compensation surveys and capture employer, compensation, demographic and educational backgrounds. While sample sizes vary, the average sample per school was 325 graduate profiles (with some schools featuring as many as 4,000 profiles).