While college costs a lot and student debt now exceeds credit card debt, the latest Pew Research Center examination of median annual earning, published in 2014, found that 25-32 year-old age group who had only a high school diploma were earning only 62% of what typical college graduates were earning. Pew said that graduates with a bachelor’s degree had median annual full time earning in 2013 of $45,500 compared to $28,000 for high school graduates. This was a gap of $17,500 in just one year of earnings.
Supporting a household on $45,500 a year is difficult. Supporting a household on $28,000 is nearly impossible.
In Kansas last year the dominant employment sector for 25-34 year-olds was retail and wholesale – one of the two lowest wage-earning labor market sectors.