Question

Does It Pay to Get a College Degree? In Exercise 2.21 on page \(58,\) we saw that those with a college degree were much more likely to be employed. The same article also gives statistics on earnings in the US in 2009 by education level. The median weekly earnings for high school graduates with no college degree was \(\$ 626,\) while the median weekly earnings for college graduates with a bachelor's degree was \(\$ 1025 .\) Give correct notation for and find the difference in medians, using the notation for a median, subscripts to identify the two groups, and a minus sign.

Short answer

The difference in medians between the weekly earnings of high school graduates without a college degree and college graduates with a bachelor's degree is \$399.

Step-by-step solution

Define the Medians

Let's denote the median weekly earnings for high school graduates without a college degree as \(M_{HS}\) and the median weekly earnings for college graduates with a bachelor's degree as \(M_{C}\). According to provided information, we have \(M_{HS} = \$626\) and \(M_{C} = \$1025\).

Establish the Formula

Finding the difference between the two medians is simply a matter of subtraction. We want to subtract the median earnings of the high school graduates \(M_{HS}\) from the median earnings of the college graduates \(M_{C}\). The formula is, \(Diff = M_{C} - M_{HS}\).

Calculate the Difference

Substitute the given values into the formula, thus \(Diff = \$1025 - \$626 = \$399\).