Please help me out with this economics project!

Degree chosen: ECONOMICS DEGREE

Instructions:

In this assignment you will use data on starting salaries for a specific major field and data on the cost of attending college to calculate the value of your own degree and write a brief report (2- page maximum) that details your procedures and findings. Include an appendix with your Excel tables and a works cited section on separate page at end (does not count towards length requirement) citing any data and other sources used. Written material should be typed, 12 pt. font, double spaced with 1 inch margins. Please do not ask me to accept assignments that are not combined, and please do not exceed the space limit of two written pages of text-my grading will stop there. When you are ready to submit your project, please include your paper and the file containing your data. The purpose of this assignment is to: * Help you apply the methods we learn in class to calculate the value of your own education. * Give you some experience using data and spreadsheet software (e.g. Excel), as these skills are highly valued in today's workplace. This report should include the following components: * Adescription of your projected career path and the assumptions you have made about your salary progression. * An estimate of the net present value (NPV) of expected lifetime earnings for someone in the major you selected and an estimate of the internal rate of return (IRR) to an investment in a degree in the major you selected. * An explanation of your data sources and a discussion of any assumptions you had to make. * Aninterpretation and contextualization of your results. Potential Data Sources: * The annual salary survey of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has information on reported starting salaries for over 400,000 employers across the US. * The Census Bureau has age-earnings profiles for individuals by education level. Go to Census.gov, click on Tools>>Income & Poverty>>Income>>Detailed Tables>>Person. The PINC-04 tables will be the most useful for finding starting salaries by age group. * You should be able to find interest rates (necessary for your NPV calculations) from the US Treasury's website or from The Wall Street Journal. * The cost of attendance can be found on the University's admissions pages or in the Statistical Abstract of the US. The BLS (bls.gov) is a great source for information on earnings growth, inflation rates, and expected work life. Tips for Getting Started - If you are taking this course from outside the United States, try to find appropriate sources from various government agencies in your country. If you don't feel comfortable using those sources, you can imagine yourself as a US-based student. In thinking about your projected career path, you may want to think about whether you expect to take time off or cut back your work-hours at any point during your career. Do you expect to go on to obtain an advanced degree? In that case, you may instead want to calculate the return to this advanced degree. See me if you want to do this and aren't sure where to start, You need to use EXCEL or some other spreadsheet program. This will be very helpful in making your NPV and IRR calculations since these functions are built into Excel. Make sure your calculations seem reasonable. If you are calculating a very high IRR, make sure you are taking into account both direct and opportunity costs. Pay careful attention to which costs should and should not be included in your calculations. (e.g. should you include the cost of room and board?) Be sure you use starting salaries for your salary in year 1; otherwise your earnings profile will be inflated, Errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation will result in reduced grades. What is Your Degree Worth? First, I looked up the average starting salary for a Human Resources Manager and found that it is $49,895. With this starting salary, | created what | expect to earn starting from age 22 to age 63, one more than average retirement age. This is assuming that workers will continually retire later. Initially, 1 gained a 2,000 raise every 2 years. At age 29, | projected that [ will stop working for three years in order to start a family. When [ start working again at age 32, | started with a higher salary because of previous experience and gave myself a 2% raise every 2 years until age 45, where that changes to 4%. The interest rate on bonds is 1.017 and I predicted that in a few years, this would go up to 1.019. I found the discounted interest rate by dividing my yearly salary by 1.019. I then found the present value by multiplying the salary of each year by the discounted interest rate. Next, [ found the estimated average earnings for High School Graduates online. | used this number to find my Internal Rate of Return for each year by subtracting the average earnings of those with a high school degree from my salary. From this, | found my IRR to be 12%. This means that my return on investment for getting a bachelors degree in Labor Employment Relations is 12%. From this percent, [ can conclude that my investment in human capital will be worth it. Works Cited Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. "Interest Rates, Discount Rate for United States.\" - FRED. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. \"Human Resources (HR) Generalist Salary (United States) United States Home Change Country Don't See What You Are Looking For?Get A Free Custom Salary Report ." Human Resources (HR) Generalist Salary. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016 "The Average Salary Without a College Degree." The Average Salary Without a College Degree. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. LER Bachelors Discounted Average Earnings Bachelors Degree- High Age Degree Salary Interest Rate Present Value for HS Graduates School Degree (IRR 18 $17,514.00 0.981354269 $17,187.44 $36,000 $18,486.00 19 $17,514.00 0.963056201 $16,866.97 $36,000 -$18,486.00 20 $17,514.00 0.945099314 $16,552.47 $36,000 $18,486.00 21 $17,514.00 0.927477246 $16,243.84 $36,000 -$18,486.00 22 $49,895.00 0.910183755 $45,413.62 $36,000 $13,895.00 23 $49,895.00 0.893212714 $44,566.85 $36,000 $13,895.00 24 $51,895.00 0.876558109 $45,488.98 $36,000 $15,895.00 25 $51,895.00 0.860214043 $44,640.81 $36,000 $15,895.00 26 $53,895.00 0.844174723 $45,496.80 $36,000 $17,895.00 27 $53,895.00 0.828434468 $44,648.48 $36,000 $17,895.00 28 $55,895.00 0.812987702 $45,441.95 $36,000 $19,895.00 29 $0.00 0.797828952 $0.00 $36,000 -$36,000.00 30 $0.00 0.782952847 $0.00 $36,000 -$36,000.00 31 $0.00 0.768354119 $0.00 $36,000 -$36,000.00 32 $51,895.00 0.754027595 $39,130.26 $36,000 $15,895.00 33 $51,895.00 0.739968199 $38,400.65 $36,000 $15,895.00 34 $52,932.00 0.726170951 $38,437.68 $36,000 $16,932.00 35 $52,932.00 0.712630963 $37,720.98 $36,000 $16,932.00 36 $53,990.00 0.699343437 $37,757.55 $36,000 $17,990.00 37 $53,990.00 0.686303668 $37,053.54 $36,000 $17,990.00 38 $55,069.00 0.673507034 $37,089.36 $36,000 $19,069.00 39 $55,069.00 0.660949003 $36,397.80 $36,000 $19,069.00 40 $56,170.00 0.648625126 $36,433.27 $36,000 $20,170.00 41 $56,170.00 0.636531036 $35,753.95 $36,000 $20,170.00 42 $57,293.00 0.624662449 $35,788.79 $36,000 $21,293.00 43 $57,293.00 0.613015161 $35,121.48 $36,000 $21,293.00 44 $58,438.00 0.601585046 $35,155.43 $36,000 $22,438.00 45 $58,438.00 0.590368053 $34,499.93 $36,000 $22,438.00 46 $60,775.00 0.579360209 $35,210.62 $36,000 $24,775.00 17 $60,775.00 0.568557614 $34,554.09 $36,000 $24,775.00 48 $63,206.00 0.557956442 $35,266.19 $36,000 $27,206.00 49 $63,206.00 0.547552936 $34,608.63 $36,000 $27,206.00 50 $65,734.00 0.537343411 $35,321.73 $36,000 $29,734.00 51 $65,734.00 0.52732425 $34,663.13 $36,000 $29,734.00 52 $68,363.00 0.517491904 $35,377.30 $36,000 $32,363.00 53 $68,363.00 0.507842889 $34,717.66 $36,000 $32,363.00 54 $71,097.00 0.498373787 $35,432.88 $36,000 $35,097.00 55 $71,097.00 0.489081244 $34,772.21 $36,000 $35,097.00 56 $73,940.00 0.479961966 $35,488.39 $36,000 $37,940.00 57 $73,940.00 0.471012724 $34,826.68 $36,000 $37,940.00 58 $76,897.00 0.462230348 $35,544.13 $36,000 $40,897.00 59 $76,897.00 0.453611725 $34,881.38 $36,000 $40,897.00 60 $79,972.00 0.445153803 $35,599.84 $36,000 $43,972.00 61 $79,972.00 0.436853585 $34,936.05 $36,000 $43,972.00 62 $83,170.00 0.42870813 $35,655.66 $36,000 $47,170.00 63 $83,170.00 0.420714554 $34,990.83 $36,000 $47,170.00 12%