One thing you might do is call around to local businesses in your area and ask them what is the minimum amount of education required to work there, and how much would a person with the minimum requirement be paid.

You can also check online job finding agencies such as Monster.com, and Careerbuilder.com and just browse some of the job listings posted. Many of them will tell you the minimum required education.

For the most part, the more education you have the more career opportunities you are open to. Of course, if you are applying for a job and so is someone else that has more education than you, that person has a little bit of an advantage over you. It is not completely impossible to find a job if you do not have an education, it is just a whole lot harder.

Good Luck, and stay in school!

Perhaps there simply isn’t a large enough market for their field in the place where they live. My dad is a programmer with a college education and 35 years of experience but he was unemployed for a very long time because we had to move to an area where there wasn’t a demand for his skills.

And I really think that it depends on the kind of employment you’re referring too. A blue collar office job may require a degree, but a retail position may just require a high school diploma or none at all.

And certainly people with limited education can find jobs just fine in the retail, food service, entertainment industries, etc…..

Also, if you have a God-given talent for something such as art or singing, often people don’t care what kind of education you have….There are some high-paid high school drop outs out there who are celebrities…

A more productive research project might be to show how education contributes to higher-paying, longer-lasting employment, rather than a lack of education contributing to unemployment.

they can speak only enough English to get by but they make it somehow. financial aid is not enough to pay the rent and bills while you go to school. People have to work to GET an education. Who makes it that long? I have a five-year advanced degree but only cuz I had mommy and daddy to help me and to live with – regular people find it almost impossible. My husband has a high school education and makes way more than I do.