On Campus

Students in U.K. and Canada overestimate earnings

What do graduates make in Canada? It’s less than you think.

Canadian students consistently over-estimate their future pay — but at least they are not alone.

In Britian, a new study has found that four out of five graduates were earning $48,000 or less in 2010. Only seven per cent made more than $64,000. The study included 22,000 people who finished university between 2000 to 2010. That’s far lower than what they expected to be making, reports Times Higher Education.

That overconfidence echoes a survey of 24,000 Canadian students that was co-authored by Sean Lyons of the University of Guelph in 2010. He and his fellow researchers found that soon-to-graduate Canucks expected to be making an average of $70,000 within five years of graduation.

Data from Statistics Canada (via Lyons’ blog) shows that most people never make it to $70,000 per year. Graduates aged 25 to 29 made an average of $45,000 in 2010, those aged 30 to 34 made an average of $51,000 and salaries were highest for those in their early 50s, at an average of $59,000.

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