Criteria C and D Linear Models Practice

Different jobs pay different amounts and require different levels of education. Imagine a high school senior
is trying to decide what to do after graduation. Pick two careers and calculate how many years it would
be until their net incomes are the same. If the student asked for your advice, which career would you
recommend?

Profession Annual Degree Years of Tuition +

Salary Needed Education Fees
Auto Mechanic $35,000
High School -- --
Videographer $64,000

Paralegal $42,000
Associate’s 2 $3,500/yr.
Programmer $80,000

Cartographer $60,000
Bachelor’s 4 $10,000/yr.
Fashion Designer $74,000

Criminologist $72,000
Master’s Bachelor’s + 2 $11,000/yr.
Astronomer $93,000

Lawyer $140,000 Law Bachelor’s + 3 $17,000/yr.

Surgeon $230,000 Medical Bachelor’s + 10 $32,000/yr.

The table shows the total money each degree would make after 5 years. If you knew you would only be
working for 5 years, which type of education would you choose and why?
Here is the table showing 10 years of work. Comment on your prediction, were you right or wrong? How
close were you? Is this what you expected?
 The graph below shows the total amount of money earned over a lifetime for different levels of
education. Write 5+ sentences analyzing the information in this graph. Use the words intersection,
break even, gradient, y-intercept, and linear.

Money Earned vs. Education

14000000

12000000

10000000

High School
8000000
Associate
Bachelor
6000000
Masters
Law
4000000
Medical

2000000

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65

-2000000

Use the graph above to predict how many years a person with a law degree would have to work to
make $20000000.

In your answer, you should:

 Identify the factors to be considered when making your prediction
 Estimate the year the year the person with the law degree will make $2000000 or more
 Use a suitable degree of accuracy for your results
 Justify whether the year you estimated makes sense in the context of the problem