Even at a time when paying for college has become a lifetime endeavor for the average Americans, having a college degree is still a worthwhile investment, according to a new study published by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.

College tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978, far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food, according to Bloomberg. Sky-rocketing tuition and fees pushed up the national student loan debt to more than $1 trillion, surpassing credit cards in consumer debt.

"It's a tough job market for college graduates," said study co-author Anthony P. Carnevale. "but far worse for those without a college education."

When the Great Recession began in December 2007, employment gains of a decade were lost, sending January 2010 employment down to August 1999 levels.

The Great Recession was the longest recession since World War II and recovery from it has been slow. By early 2012, only about half of the jobs lost during the recession had been regained and job creation is still insufficient to move the unemployment rate below 8 percent.

However, as millions of jobs vanished, the number of people with bachelor's degrees who had jobs did not decline and some high-education fields even had job gains.

At the same time, nearly four out of every five jobs destroyed by the recession were held by workers with a high school diploma or less.

Even as employment rose during the recovery, people who did not go to college continued to lose ground, shedding 200,000 jobs from early 2010 to early 2012.

The study, based on data collected by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, divided the nation's work force of 140 million people into three groups: those who did not go to college, those with some college education or an associate degree, and those with at least a bachelor's degree.

The U.S. economy so far has gained 3.4 million jobs since the recovery began. Despite the gains, the economy still remains 3 percentage points short of its prerecession employment.

All of the post-recession recovery in the job market has gone to workers with education beyond high school, with greater job gains made by those with Bachelor's degrees or better.

Since job growth resumed in early 2010 with the end of the recession, employment by those with a Bachelor's degree or better has increased by 2 million, while employment by those with an Associate's degree or some college experience has increased by 1.6 million.

Those with some college education or an Associate's degree have recovered nearly 91 percent of jobs lost during the recession, but are still short of their prerecession employment levels.

Meanwhile, those with only a high school diploma or less continue to experience job losses, though in much smaller numbers.

"In part this is due to the financial bubble that created a corresponding bubble in housing and construction jobs," the report said.

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College-led recovery
As is illustrated in the graph, employment has been essentially flat since January 2010 for adults who never went to college.Job losses were concentrated among the less educated in the workforce. With 78 percent of the job losses, those with no education beyond high school were more than three times as likely to lose their jobs as those with some college education or an Associate's degree.Employment for those with a Bachelor’s degree actually rose during the recession though not as much as it might have without the recession. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Men lost more jobs in recession and gained more in recovery
Men lost nearly three times as many jobs as women in the recession.By January 2010, a total of 7.2 million people had lost jobs and 5.25 million of them were men. In the recovery, men have regained some lost ground.Four out of every five jobs added to the economy (or 79 percent) have gone to men. But, because men lost more jobs than women, men are still further from their prerecession employment levels than women.Among both men and women, the better educated gained jobs while the less educated continued to experience job losses. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Men have lost jobs during every recession, but women lost more in the last recession than any prior recession
Men have lost more jobs than women during every recession, thus job losses for men in an economic downturn should not come as a surprise.But this recession’s impact on women’s employment was much greater than in previous recessions.Losses to women in prior recessions were in the form of slowdowns in their rate of job growth, but in this recession women suffered actual job losses. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Education level determined employment changes and opportunities for both men and women
For both men and women, the less-educated workers experienced the vast majority of job losses. Women with a high school diploma or less lost 2 million jobs during the recession while men with the same level of education lost 3.6 million jobs.In comparison, women with a Bachelor's degree or better actually gained 381,000 jobs over the recession and men with a Bachelor’s degree or better lost fewer than 200,000.Job gains for both sexes in the recovery were primarily by those with at least some post-secondary education.Women with a Bachelor's degree or better added 1.2 million jobs and men with the same educational attainment gained more than 833,000 jobs.Women with a high school diploma or less continued to lose jobs in the recovery, raising their total loss since the beginning of the recession to 2.6 million.Men with a high school diploma or less gained back nearly 400,000 jobs in the recovery but, with a loss of 3.6 million jobs during the recession, they still had a net loss of 3.2 million jobs. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Employment growth in the past two decades has been entirely through increases in the number of workers with some postsecondary education, while employment for those with a high school diploma or less has declined
Employment growth since 1989 has been driven entirely by workers with education beyond high school.The number of workers with some college or an Associate’s degree has increased by 12 million or 42 percent from its 1989 level.The number of workers with a Bachelor’s degree or better has nearly doubled (an 82 percent increase) from 26 million in 1989 to 48 million today.The shift in the workforce from less-educated to more-educated has been a slow and steady process brought about by technological development and increased global competition that led to automation of the workplace and offshoring. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Earnings of four-year college-educated workers remain nearly twice those of high school-educated workers
Today, the average earnings of a Bachelor’s degree holder remain nearly twice as much as those of a worker with only a high school diploma.There has been very little change in the wage premium of workers with an Associate’s degree or some college relative to wages of those with only a high school diploma.The annual wages of those with an Associate’s degree or some college remained at around 20 percent above the wages of those with only a high school diploma between 1970 and 2010. http://www9.georgetown.edu/gra
Unemployment Student loan Investment Unemployment