Educational Aspiration: Comparing the value of a high school education vs. a college education.

In our current economy, the need for a college education becomes increasingly valuable despite the high cost of tuition and loans. The demand for skilled, college-educated laborers is high. A college education can also determine your future income potential and in many cases, it is the only way a person can climb up the socioeconomic ladder. There are two theories that suggests why the need for a college education has been growing -- increased international competition and skill-biased technology.

The first theory focuses on the globalization of the U.S. economy. The argument is that increased competition from low skilled labor abroad has decreased the wages of low-skilled workers at home. At first, this theory seems to make sense but the statistics do not make sense. The reason is that only a small portion of the US economy is actually subject to competition from abroad. Also, job competition is growing in both the most and the least trade-affected industries at about the same rate. (Irons, 1998)

The second theory for the increase in need for a college education has been called "skill-biased technological change". The idea is cur

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Approximate Word count = 1062
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)