What is a bachelor degree?

A bachelor’s degree requires 2 to 4 years of study and international connotation. All of the programs include theoretical courses and numerous internships with an increasing specialization. BA degree is mostly taught by business schools.

In general, bachelors degrees come in two forms: Bachelor of Arts  (BA) and the Bachelor of Science (BS), depending on whether they are generally oriented towards “human sciences” or “exact sciences”.

This is a three to four-year higher education program that should allow you to understand the whole of a specific field, and prepare you for the pursuit of studies or to return to the labor market.

Bachelor’s Degree in the US vs Other Countries

Graduation
A Bachelor’s degree can be obtained at a university in the United Kingdom, Ireland, America, Australia … But the conditions, nor the duration of studies, of obtaining it are not the same in all of these countries. Thus, a bachelor can lead to two types of degrees: “ordinary Bachelor’s degree” or “Bachelor’s degree with honors”. The second one most often requires a longer period of study. For instance in England the majority of degrees are Honors and require at least three years to be completed or four years with a placement in a company for a year or a year abroad. Australia has a system almost similar to England, although subtleties exist.

A Bachelor degree in Scotland, on the other hand, requires 4 years of study, although if your grades are excellent in high school or the equivalent in the UK, you can enter directly in the second year. For the United States and Canada, however, a Bachelor’s degree requires 4 years of study. To reduce costs, some students spend two years in Community College and then transfer to a university to complete the program.
International Ranking
The US is no longer the leader in the world in term of education performance. In recent years the United States has been overtaken by their competitors. In 1990, they were the number one in the world for the proportion of graduates of higher education among the 25-34 age group. In the 2000s, the country is on the 12th place. Only half of the students from disadvantaged backgrounds enroll in college. Only one-quarter completed their studies and graduated; the national average for all students was 44%.

Did you say things are better now…?

If you did you are wrong. According to recent statistics, in 2015 the U.S. ranked seventeenth out of forty countries ranked in overall educational performance. In that same year, South Korea was the number one in general adult education. Now Singapore teens occupy the top global education ranking.

BA degree and social class

The BA degree is a sure gate of entry into the professional world and the middle class for students who are in the the lower classes.

The bachelors degree can be awarded in the category “arts” (BA) or “sciences” (BS). The first two years are rather general studies; the last two are more focused on specialization. Students can choose a “major” (public health, plastic arts, biology, foreign languages, engineering sciences, computer science, and others) or a “double major”.

To graduate, students will have to accumulate a certain number of credits in the obligatory courses and options, which tend to vary according to each major. The average cost of tuition is $ 17,000 per year.

Bachelor’s degree salary twice as high…

It takes up to 4 years to obtain a BA degree, but at the end, it is highly rewarding. Although the value of the study is not the same in every country, obtaining equivalences are relatively easy within the Anglo-Saxon university system. By now I guess you may be asking what is a bachelor’s degree salary.

The bachelor degree guarantees a salary twice as high as a simple high school diploma. Some degrees, such as engineering, can make more than $64.000 per year. Higher education is indeed the most direct way to move up to middle–class status.

In conclusion, remember that behind the pomp of graduation enroll the realities of life, among which debts. Graduates who had to borrow to pay for their education leave the university with thousands of dollar in debts on average. Somehow you will have to pay back.