How much does a degree affect your pay? - Comparably | Comparably

How much does a degree affect your pay?

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15 Answers

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    Helped learn how to be dedicated towards something and work hard. Advancing Myself and growing is how it affects the pay. Helps land a foot in the door.

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    Not at all, decades of experience & multiple degrees got me the same starting pay as the guy who had never worked in the industry before & had no idea or clue how to perform their job.

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    Very little these days.

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    Depends on the department but, a degree will get you a higher salary.

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    It depends on the job. If a degree and/or work experience is required, the person with the degree AND work experience will get the higher offer every time.

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    A lot. People often don't give negotiations to those without a degree. Tell them you have a degree, negotiations start. It's a handy tool. Secondly, they automatically pay those w/a degree more. I'm not just speaking of some companies, I'm speaking of most--this is the norm. The exception is those companies that don't do it, for whatever corporate or small business reason. A master's can help with even higher pay, but some jobs only require bachelor's and this might not give you more pay in the beginning. Although, your master's degree will help you climb faster & thus better pay faster. Other cases, Master's gets you automatically 6 figures. So, in short, it absolutely affects it a lot. Not to say that you can't make good money without a degree, that's possible. Degree is better. Don't listen to blogs saying degree is overrated--they just needed a story to write. Trust me, in ALL cases a degree is better & you'd much rather need one than not. Don't go it w/o 1 unless no choice.

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    It would help, but often times experience trumps a degree.

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    i think it does affect pay however I think more impactful is experience

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    It helps to a point - until you are overqualified and a company doesn't want to pay you for having a PhD, when a Master's will do, for example.

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    It depends on the industry. Ideally, no one should stop ever stop learning and taking courses. The absence of a degree only affects pay in industries that demand them to prove abilities & career growth when the relevant experience is not enough. (education, healthcare, NPO's, etc.)

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    Sales is straight commission, so a degree has no impact on how much you can make.

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    Considerably. High school to bachelors is the largest jump.

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    None at all, have a masters and employers simply don’t value degrees over a BS or BA unless you’re staying in acedemia advanced degrees are useless now

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    Doesn't impact it at all as I don't have a college degree and am I high earner in terms of design. It's all about having secondary skill to compliment design saavy. In my case, it's analytics, which greatly boosts my pay.

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    In tech generally doesn't affect very much... most prominent in first job right after school, after that almost no bearing