Valuation of Education is a research method that assesses the value of

Valuation of Education is a research method that assesses the value of educational attainment; its goal is to identify both the actual monetary value of diplomas and degrees to their recipients, in terms of expected salaries, and to identify the monetary value of educated employees over less educated employees to employers. The findings of the Valuation of Education method have increasingly influenced hiring procedures within academia, government, and, to a lesser degree, business and finance.

Valuation of Education gathers its research by comparing individuals in the same job category, but at different levels of educational attainment. Although the connection between education and salary is well-known, the most surprising finding of the method is that the correlation between education and job proficiency is consistent, regardless of job category; in other words, more progress within the education system translates to a greater value of an employee to virtually any business. Moreover, a worker who holds a degree higher than that of a coworker earns a proportionally greater salary than his or her counterpart, regardless of skill, and this salary ratio remains relatively constant across job categories.

However, one question remains: are the economic gains made by the highly educated as identified by Valuation of Education methods commensurate with the increasing price of education itself, or are these salary increases mere gestures that allow the highly educated to justify immense expenditures of time and money in pursuit of pecuniary gains?

The costs of education indeed justify themselves: even the increasing costs of advanced degrees are earned back by the majority of employees, while many other methods by which employees attempt to raise their pay scale have not proven to legitimate their costs. This is true despite the fact that education is often applicable across occupational fields, while other methods of advancement are targeted to specific occupations. For example, professional development or on-the-job training impact neither salary nor job proficiency as much as do higher levels of educational attainment.

1. According to the passage, which of the following statements is best supported by Valuation of Education's findings?

(A) An employee of the federal government who earns a Master's Degree can expect a larger jump in his or her lifetime earnings than can a businessperson who earns a Master's Degree.

(B) A community college will raise the salary of a professor with a Ph.D by a substantial amount and lower the salary of a colleague who did not receive a Ph.D solely to make her believe that her financial commitment to her Ph.D was worthwhile.

(C) A wholesaler who takes self-guided distance learning courses during his free time will build income and skills more effectively than a wholesaler who cuts back on his working hours in order to take community college courses.

(D) A government employee with a bachelor's degree who returns to school to receive an advanced degree will see a rise in income proportionally similar to the rise in income experienced by a university employee with a bachelor's degree who returns to school to receive an advanced degree.

(E) A businessperson with an advanced degree will both earn more money and be more proficient at his or her job than will a teacher with an advanced degree, regardless of the amount of on-the-job training held by either person.