For many skilled workers who are in the work force, the question of continuing education is always on their minds. Should they pursue secondary education? Is it too late? Will they have time and resources? Do the rewards worth the efforts? In today’s competitive working environment, it is an essential for job seeker to have a solid education background. With the advancement of technology, the skilled workers now cannot depend only on their skills and hard work to gain better wages and promotion advancement but also depend on secondary education. Higher education can bring private economic and social benefits to skilled workers.

The most commonly discuss cater gory of higher education is the private economic it brings. Private economic benefits are those benefits that have economic, fiscal, or labor market effects on the individuals who have attended postsecondary education. For many workers who enter the work force everyday, the objectives are to obtain a high paying, opportunity for advancements and job satisfaction. However, many of these skilled workers do not have secondary education backgrounds. In today technological advance workplace, a secondary education is required in many fields of work. The statistics favor those with higher education background in seeking employment. The overall employment is projected to grow about 20 percents by the year 2005, to 147 million workers and an astounding 39 percents of these new jobs will require a secondary education degree (Farr, 184.) Research shows that individuals who have gone to a postsecondary education are employed at higher rates and with greatere consistency. Another reason for pursuing secondary education is that it pays off in labor market; in both lifetime and average annual income terms, individuals earn more as a results of their higher levels of education. A worker with a degree earns about $16,000 a year more than, on average, than a high school graduate (Farr, 185), Furthermore, there are more college graduates enter the work force every year. The projection that that there are 1.32 million college graduates will enter the work force in the next decade (Kulman, 86.) This will result in others, without a postsecondary education, being bumped out of jobs. And they, in turn, bump out those even less education.

The statistics also point out that with a postsecondary education, skilled workers can improve their working conditions. In general, people who had higher education usually get promotes more often. These promotions creates better working environments since after promoted, people tend to work more in white-collar jobs, in office building or other facilities with air conditioning and heating, and conveniences (ranging from computers, to on-site childe care, to consistent work hour) that improve the quality of their lives. Furthermore, research also indicates that the ability to change jobs, or to relocate, is correlated with education attainment: the higher educated workers have, the more mobility they have.

Private social benefits is another category that higher education can bring to skilled workers.

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