• Obtaining a high school diploma can be a major step in the right direction for your career.connoisseur admiring your advertisement image by Peter Baxter from Fotolia.com
  
  Although passing classes may not seem like a future-altering issue to 17-year-olds, obtaining a high school diploma can make a huge impact on a student's future. That piece of paper can have an affect on employment and advancement, job retention, salary and the economy as a whole. Like college degrees, high school diplomas can now be attained online, and a true diploma can be more desirable to universities and employers than a GED.
  
  

Employment

• High school graduates are far more likely to have a job. According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, having a diploma makes an individual 37.5 percent less apt to be unemployed. Whether you've got a bundle in savings or have been living paycheck to paycheck, unemployment can put a damper on your financial situation, especially if it's indefinite and not a temporary lay-off.
  
  

Income and Accumulated Wealth

• Perhaps because of the high rate of unemployment among high school dropouts, high school grads tend to accumulate 10 times the wealth of their credential-less classmates. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, accumulated wealth represents assets and investments, not just salary. A higher level of education might help an individual to earn more, but the accumulation of wealth is what makes him financially secure. And the AEE reports that high school grads have $5,000 for every $500 a dropout can claim.
  
  

Economic Involvement

• The AEE also estimates that if every head of household in the U.S. had a high school diploma, Americans would have accumulated an additional $74 billion in wealth. As it stands, more than 25 percent of households live from one paycheck to another, saving and accumulating very little. In 2002, the Corporation for Enterprise Development said that about a quarter of U.S. households wouldn't be able to live at the poverty level if they were suddenly fired or dramatically demoted. That same year, the Center for Social Development concluded that larger proportions of homeownership, entrepreneurship and educational advancement are found in areas with a greater instance of wealth. Also occurring in those areas are higher levels of civic responsibility, voter turnout and community stability.