Once upon a time a man named Uncle Frank gave his nephew a card for his high school graduation. In the card was a $20 bill and one sentence in regards to the importance of furthering his own education that was later worth millions to the young man. The card read...

“Don’t grow up to be a mule, work with your head not your back.”

Truer words were never written than Uncle Frank's single sentence back in the 1960's and the nephew is living proof forty years later.

For more proof, let's revisit some earlier LO Insights material about the staggering value of an education...

Using average hourly earnings from different professions from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and assuming the average student attends class 160 days per year and the average worker has a forty year career, we can put a value on every day of school attended. The results follow...

High School: $1560 per day for every day in grades 9-12, compared to a High School drop out.
2 Year Trade School: $1128 per day compared to a HS graduate.
Four Year Degree: a whopping $3288 per day compared to a HS graduate.

And an average doctor will make $2788 per day of grad school plus the $3288 per day for their degree and $1560 per day of high school adding up to about $5 million in lifetime earnings over the high school dropout. And these numbers are in today's dollars, not inflation or time adjusted.

That's right. Getting a degree is like paying your kids over $3000 per day on top of their $1560 per day for high school.

Please feel free to share this with the graduates and future graduates in your life!