It is yet another occasion for college students to talk about how important a college education is. Preaching to the secular choir is something every profession does, and higher education beats those drums as loud as any other.

You’ve heard it all before: College graduates make more money in their life while non-grads are resigned to a second-class existence. There are certainly exceptions – plenty of good jobs such as mechanics, plumbers and electricians don’t need a $25,000 or more piece of paper to make big bucks – but the general rule is that a degree gives you more freedom along with a bigger paycheck (and more benefits).

Technology is the story of our generation; the problem is that education should have been a volume of equal weight, and it’s not.

While technology has been taking off like a rocket, the amount of education people in America get has been crawling along since 1975.

That’s why education is important. As Harvard professors Goldin and Katz found, the demand for better-educated masses is far outpacing the supply.

When our parents were graduating in 1980, they could expect to see a 7.6 percent increase in their pay for each year of college. Even with the far higher, and all too often unattainable, cost of college now, in 2005 we could expect to see 12.9 percent more money for each year of college, again from Goldin and Katz.

One of the problems facing the country is the concentration of wealth.

It’s not so much that some are getting rich; it’s how rich they are getting in comparison to the rest of us. This isn’t class war; it just shows how important a college education is. A degree, especially an advanced one, is still one of the best insulators against poverty.

As N. Gregory Mankiw opines, there aren’t good governmental solutions to make the country more economically well-balanced, nor do we think there should be. Our advice, then, is to continue your education, pushing yourself as high up the economic ladder as you can.

Get a master’s degree or professional certification, or just take online courses in your discipline. Do something to keep up your education. Don’t be content with a bachelor’s degree for long.

As beneficiaries, we owe it to the next cohort to do what we can to support higher education in words and deeds; we also need to support K-12 education and universal pre-kindergarten.

And when you can, do something to help others get a higher education.

Support scholarships for CMU or whatever else you prefer. Don’t give your money directly to CMU, unless that’s your cup of tea. Instead, support endowments providing for your favorite department or establish a new scholarship to help bring more disadvantaged, good students to college.

Whenever possible, support the students over the university. Education is still the best and most predictable way to get ahead. It’s time to play catch-up with our schools; we need them more than we need smaller iPods.

E-mail the author: defaultuser