Qualification payoff escalates as GFC bites

University qualifications just got more valuable than ever, with the annual payoff rising about $3000, while overall salaries stood still.

The relative value of university qualifications increased more than ever during the global financial crisis, according to the findings of the latest Australian graduate survey. The survey of over 120,000 higher education graduates, conducted around four months after they'd completed their studies in 2008, revealed that the typical starting salary for young degree-qualified workers increased by 6.7 per cent last year - easily outstripping the 1.8 per cent inflation rate - while overall salaries for people in their early 20s stood still. In 2009, the median annual starting salary for graduates...