Side Businesses Will Help Degree Holders Earn More Money In Chicago
Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Wheaton College and Knox College are ranked as five of the top schools in Illinois. But is going to a top school an automatic guarantee for a high-paying salary? It depends.
"We pretend all B.A.s are the same," said John Sexton, the 15th president of New York University, during a recent webisode of "Larry King Now" on OraTV. "They're not. [For example] we don't expect a Mercedes to cost the same as a Ford. You've got to keep your eye on the quality, value and then you make a choice.
Regardless of how impressive the reputation is for any top school in Chicago or nationwide, the type of degree and the field that students get in will affect their pay. And it will also help the average person earn more money than they would without going to school.
According to The New York Times, American degree-holders in 2013 made 98 percent more per hour than those who didn't have a degree. That's even higher than the 64 to 89 percent rise in bachelor's degree salaries from the 1980s to 2008.
Ranked by concentration area, Forbes reports that the highest pay for bachelor's degree students is in engineering, computer science and business. The highest engineering position — petroleum engineering — averaged $96K for 2013 bachelor's degree graduates. Communications, math and sciences, education, humanities and social services fell somewhere between $37K to $43K in 2013.
So how are bachelor degree students finding ways to make higher pay even if their fields aren't lucrative?
U.S. News counts off several side gigs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' pay rates that have proven to bring in side income. Six of the 12 suggested gigs include website designer, social media consultant, yoga teacher, illustrator, life coach and pet sitter.
Bloggers, one of the other suggestions, depend on readers and online ad revenue to make a profit. Forbes reports that one woman made as much as $5,000 writing about an iPhone. Another woman made $70K from hosting Twitter parties. The majority of bloggers are women (18.9 million, according to Pew Research Center). For both men and women, effectively understanding how search engine optimization works adds extra leverage for the latter side gig.
Taking on elective courses or training classes outside of a student's major may be the most useful way to improve pay for the future.
Shamontiel L. Vaughn is a professional journalist who has work featured in AXS, Yahoo!, Chicago Defender and Chicago Tribune. She's been an Examiner since 2009 and currently writes about 10 categories on Examiner.com.