AURORA — Parked in front of a computer at Gateway High School, junior Samuel Rotibi is eyeballing his potential future earnings if he follows his dream of attending Colorado State University and majoring in biology.
The numbers are not pretty, at least early on. Just earning a CSU bachelor’s degree in biology will earn him around $22,500 a year after graduation, he learns. Maybe his kids won’t get the latest XBox console, he jokes.
With a few more keystrokes, Rotibi could find he might be better off going to community college and choosing from any of nine programs that will earn him more money one year out of school.
This kind of informed calculus is what Colorado higher-education officials have in mind with Wednesday’s release of a new report and searchable online tool detailing earnings one, five and 10 years after students earn a credential from Colorado colleges and universities.
Early-career earnings of graduates with technical, career-oriented associates degrees — or even some certificate programs — can meet or exceed those of graduates with many bachelor’s degrees, according to the report, “Education Pays in Colorado.”
While a bachelor’s degree will pad the bank account more at the 10-year mark, the differences compared with lesser degrees are not vast. Not surprisingly, the field of study has a huge bearing.
The findings are likely to rekindle a debate over the value and purpose of higher education in an era of staggering student debt.
Critics such as the University of Colorado system say the numbers sell them short because they don’t include students who leave the state, government workers, self-employed entrepreneurs and graduate-degree holders.
“It provides a partial snapshot and certainly not a complete picture,” said Ken McConnellogue, vice president for communication for the CU system. “By being incomplete, it might give a skewed view to those the study is trying to reach.”
Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said the survey shows that those with limited resources should at least consider credentials short of a bachelor’s.
“We are not arguing that students should make a decision about pursuing a degree based only on earning potential,” Garcia said. “There is a lot of other value in post-secondary education that can’t be measured simply in dollars earned. But when you ask students what they most want to know, they do say they are most concerned about job prospects and earnings.”
The data covered about 215,600 students who graduated or completed a program from 2002 to 2012 at Colorado public colleges and universities and three private schools: University of Denver, Regis University and Colorado Christian University.
Those included were identified in the state unemployment insurance wage database, work in the state and earn minimum wage or above.
Among the highlights:
• The top-earning certificate-holders are from fields such as health care technicians, criminal justice and corrections, and fire protection.
• Not all associates degrees are created equal. The associates of applied science degree has far higher market value than an associates in art/science degree.
• Graduates of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden earned the most: $55,101 after one year, $90,934 after a decade.
The search tool, EdPays, is an effort of the department of higher education and College Measures, a joint venture of the American Institutes for Research and the for-profit firm Optimity-Matrix Knowledge. The Lumina Foundation provided funding.
College Measures president Mark Schneider said a good rule of thumb about success in the labor market is either learn how to fix things (technology fields) or people (health care).
“There are pathways to the middle class that are not through bachelor’s degrees,” he said. “But when you ask students and families what do you mean by post-secondary education, they almost always say, ‘bachelor’s degrees.’ That is an addiction we need to start working on.”
The trend lines show Colorado students are catching on. In the past five years, the number of associates degrees has more than doubled and the number of certificates has grown 30 percent.
The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded grew 58 percent. Bachelor’s degrees outnumbered sub-baccalaureate degrees — 32,000 to 26,000 — but the gap is narrowing.
For Gateway student Rotibi and many others, pay is just one piece of the college puzzle.
“Going to college, you get to interact with people,” he said. “It teaches you a bunch of life skills. With community college, it’s kind of like high school. You go to a class, you go to another class, you go home, you do your homework and you do the same thing all over again.”
That CSU biology degree he is eyeing does have a much better return after a decade — earnings are nearly $57,000, above the median for Colorado bachelor’s degrees — and Rotibi may pursue an advanced degree in medicine.
“I just want to make enough that I can live comfortably,” he said. “It’s fine if I make money, but I really just want to be able to do what I love doing.”
Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com or twitter.com/egorski
