Believe it or not, high school dropouts do have career options, they just aren't always very lucrative ones. Workers without a high school degree earn an estimated $973,000 in their lifetime, roughly $330,000 less than they would with a high school diploma and only a fraction of the $2.3 million one earns with a bachelor's degree, according to a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce. That means high school dropouts, on average, earn $24,000 a year, or $11.40 per hour. While the average salary may be low, the study found more than two dozen professions that hire high school dropouts and pay more than $1 million in lifetime earnings, closer to what one would make with a high school diploma. Here are a few of them, listed by TheStreet.com:
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Estimated lifetime earnings: |
Percent of occupation with high school diploma or less: |
| Construction manager | $1.5 million | 34.8% |
| Bus and truck mechanics | $1.5 million | 63.3% |
| Office and administrative support managers | $1.4 million | 26.8% |
| Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives | $1.4 million | 19.6% |
| Electricians | $1.4 million | 46.7% |
