Annotated Bibliography: Examining the Importance of a College Degree

This annotated bibliography examines the importance and value of a college degree, drawing on ten journal articles. The introduction highlights the significance of higher education for future growth and career prospects. Each entry provides a concise summary of the research goal, methodology, key findings, and conclusions of the cited article. The articles cover various aspects, including the economic benefits, labor market returns, and social impacts of a college degree. The bibliography includes studies comparing college graduates with non-graduates, assessing the value of community colleges, and analyzing the long-term outcomes for students. The conclusion emphasizes the crucial role of a college degree in shaping students' lives, increasing their confidence, and improving employment opportunities.

Annotated Bibliography 1
Annotated Bibliography

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Introduction
The importance of college degree in today’s world keeps noteworthy value for getting future
growth. Student gets theoretical knowledge through college degree regarding specific topic,
through which they can learn what they want to do in the future. There is a different perception
regarding this topic of different authors. An Annotated bibliography is mentioned below by
taking help of ten journal articles on the topic of the importance of college degree.

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1. Horowitz, J. (2018). Relative Education and the Advantage of a College
Degree. American sociological review, 83(4), 771-801.
This article reviews the relative education and the benefits of a college degree. The research goal
of this article is to describe the value of a college degree at the time of expanding higher
education. Higher education development covers the worth of a college degree, and there is a
threat for underemployment in less cognitively challenging employment in college-educated
workers. Horowitz has taken use of all ASEC data between 1971 and 2010 to get secondary data
from such resources. The qualitative method has been chosen by the researcher to accumulate the
data. The results have come that college-educated individuals work less cognitively difficult
jobs. The conclusion has been drawn from this article that the role of the college degree keeps
significant value in future growth as it helps in increasing skills for a specific profile.
2. Salazar, A. M. (2013). The value of a college degree for foster care alumni:
Comparisons with general population samples. Social work, 58(2), 139-150.
This article focuses on the worth of the college degree for promote care alumni in which the
researcher highlights the importance of higher education for personal growth. Higher education
is linked with considerable adult life repayment, involving higher income and developed
excellence of life, among others. The research goal is to emphasise the promote care alumni
college graduates for the rate of employment and individual income. The researcher uses the
recent study compared adult results of 250 foster care alumni college graduates with taking two
samples of general population graduates to find out the importance of higher education in the
lives of adult young. Primary research has been used by the researcher to collect the data for
making a comparison of employment, housing and other outcomes. The conclusion has come

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from this research article is that the role of higher education enhances the capability of the
student to work in multinational companies.
3. Daly, M. C., & Bengali, L. (2014). Is it still worth going to college?. FRBSF
Economic Letter, 13, 2014.
In a contradictory, the researcher of this article was pit question regarding the college degree. It
has been found that the documenting the increasing cost of the college education and moderately
bleak job prospects for graduates of new college that have raised a question regarding whether a
four-year college degree is still the right way for the average American. The research goal of this
article is to examine whether going to college stay valuable investment. A qualitative approach
has been used by the researcher to collect the data that provided the fruitful outcome for the
research. The results showed that the value of the degree of college remains high. The conclusion
depicted that redoubling the efforts to make college more reachable would be money and time
well spent.
4. Goldber, L. R., Parham, D.F., Coufal, K.L., Maeda, M., Scudder, R.R., & Sechtem,
P. R., (2010). Peer Review: The Importance Of Education For Best Practice.
Journal of College Teaching & Learning. 7(2).
This journal article portrays the importance of education for best practice that elaborates the
importance of college degree for the students to attain the future growth. The systematic process
has been considered in the journal article for proper learning. The goal of this research article is
to identify the importance of education for the student that is helpful in getting growth in the
future. The researcher has focused on getting data by using a quantitative approach for which the
survey has been conducted by the researcher. A 32-item survey was developed. Various

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questions have been asked by the researcher in order to get proper response from respondents for
which, demographic questions, primary and secondary spoken languages, ethnicity and other
questions have been entailed. The result showed that the importance of education is huge that
help students to grow effectively. It has been concluded in this journal article that administrators
in higher education are facing increased demand for accountability.
5. Belfield, C. R., & Bailey, T. (2011). The benefits of attending a community college: A
review of the evidence. Community College Review, 39(1), 46-68.
It has been reviewed by this article about the advantages of presence community college. This
article reports on the earnings achievements across all students and reconsiders the confirmation
for subgroups by alternative status and gender. The research goal of this article is to highlight the
importance of college degree for the students. The researcher has used various journal articles
and all studies have identified affirmative earnings gains. Primary and secondary data have been
used by the researcher to get effective data. It has been found from average earning gain from
attending a community college that there were only two articles that get major earnings gains
ranging from 7% to 24%. These results portrayed the value of higher education, which is not that
much valuable and efforts of someone towards achieving the goal keeps value for growth. The
conclusion has been drawn from this article that the review of evidence is helpful in getting
effective knowledge regarding attending community.
6. Dadgar, M., & Trimble, M. J. (2015). Labor market returns to sub-baccalaureate
credentials: How much does a community college degree or certificate
pay?. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(4), 399-418.

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The researcher has reviewed in the journal article that the enduring certificates and attacked
degrees have strong optimistic impact on probability of employment. The college degree has a
noteworthy impact over the confidence of the student as they can perform with an efficient
manner when they are having prior knowledge about how to perform. The research goal is to
elaborate on the associate degree. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been considered by
the researcher to accumulate the data. The result is shown by this article that associate degrees
initiate affirmative returns across almost every kind of study. The conclusion of this research
article is that higher education relies on the interests of the student. Interested student can use
them with an effective manner for future growth.
7. Brand, J. E., & Xie, Y. (2010). Who benefits most from college? Evidence for
negative selection in heterogeneous economic returns to higher education. American
sociological review, 75(2), 273-302.
The researcher depicts through this journal article that the economic return to a college education
different across members of the US population. On the basis of the principle of comparative
benefit, researcher generally presumes that positive selection is at work, individuals who are
ready to select into college also advantages from college. This research article has taken
consideration of the college education benefit in getting employment for which the hypothesis is
made. To evaluate the two hypotheses, the researcher has used the effects of completing college
on earnings. The evidence has been found from the researcher for unenthusiastic collection in
varied economic returns to superior education that depicted negative selection is still exist that
decrease the importance of college degree and investment on them. It has been concluded that
the selection of the student has been based on higher education but the negative selection in
mixed economic returns can lead skilled employees into demotivate situation.

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8. Chan, R. Y. (2016). Understanding the purpose of higher education: An analysis of
the economic and social benefits for completing a college degree. Journal of
Education Policy, Planning and Administration, 6(5), 1-40.
This paper investigates the private and public aim of higher education and defines for upper level
of education in future. The research goal is to elaborate on the importance of higher education in
the context of getting social and economic remuneration from a college degree. For completing
the research, there have been 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and 25 books published between
2000 and 2016 used by the research. The result showed from the analysis of this article that the
student can achieve social goals through higher education that contribute to bring change in their
lifestyle. The conclusion of this article depicts that the role of the higher educational and college
degree is helpful in bringing change in the social world, for which the latest policies have been
added by the researcher.
9. Dadgar, M., & Trimble, M. J. (2015). Labor market returns to sub-baccalaureate
credentials: How much does a community college degree or certificate
pay?. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(4), 399-418.
The research article investigates the role of the college degree in labor market proceeds to sub-
baccalaureate credentials. The researcher has to exploit rich dataset involves matched,
longitudinal college transcripts for students who involved in a community of Washington State.
Primary and secondary research has been considered by the researcher to accumulate
information. In the term of results, it has been found by the researcher that earning an associate
degree leads to affirmative amplify in earnings in every kind of field. The conclusion of this

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research has depicted that the influence of documentation acceptance on the likelihood of
employment and on hours worked per week is at slightest as important in degree as the influence
on wages.
10. Abel, J. R., Deitz, R., & Su, Y. (2014). Are recent college graduates finding good
jobs?. Current Issues in Economics and Finance, 20(1).
This article explores the reason behind getting high-quality college degree for finding good jobs.
The research gaols of this article are to find out the number of college graduates that have found
good jobs. For this, the researcher has focused on quantitative data and provided number of
charts for showing the graph of employment outcomes for recent college graduates. The result
demonstrated that the higher education and college degree definitely contribute to getting good
jobs. The conclusion showed the gap in the article in which it has been depicted by the researcher
that there are another ways as well to foster outcomes for college graduates.

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Conclusion
It has been concluded from the above articles that the role of the college degree in student’s life
is crucial as it helps them to change the world in a positive manner. Along with that, they will get
good employment through a college degree. With the help of the above articles, it has been found
that the lifestyle of student is also changed through college degree because it increases
confidence in them.

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