College Graduates Have a Median Net Worth of $505,400. Families Without a High School Diploma Have $18,600

A diploma gets handed out once, but it keeps showing up in a family’s finances decades later. Just how wide that gap can get is shown in the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances for 2025. Families led by someone with a college degree had a median net worth of $505,400. Families where the head of household didn’t finish high school had $18,600.

Net worth is everything a family has, like a home, savings and retirement accounts, minus everything it owes. The median is the family in the exact middle of the distribution. A few very wealthy families can pull the average up sharply while barely moving the median. That’s why the median gives a better read on a typical household. The survey sorts families by the education of the “reference person,” which basically means the head of the household, and every figure is in 2025 dollars.

Ranking Median Net Worth by Education Level

Here’s how the four groups stack up, from highest to lowest, with each one’s change since the 2022 survey:

1. College degree: $505,400, down 1%
2. Some college: $181,000, up 21%
3. High school diploma: $106,700, down 9%
4. No high school diploma: $18,600, down 55%

For comparison, the median for all families was $215,900, up 2% from 2022. Only the college group sits above that line. Some-college families posted the one big gain of the lot. Families without a diploma lost more than half of their median net worth in three years, which leaves a smaller buffer against a layoff or a large medical bill.

Why Wealth Gaps Run Wider Than Paychecks

Income explains part of the story. The survey found college-degree families had 1.9 times the median income of those with some college, but almost 3 times the median net worth. A small paycheck gap turns into a much bigger wealth gap over time, and three things do most of that work.

Homeownership

A house is the main way most families build wealth, since each mortgage payment chips away at debt while the home’s value tends to rise. The Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts show households with a bachelor’s degree or higher held 68.1% of owner-occupied real estate in the second quarter of 2026. Households without a diploma held 2.7%.

Retirement Plan Access

Jobs that ask for a degree are more likely to come with a 401(k) and an employer match. That shows up in the amounts. College households hold 73.7% of defined contribution retirement accounts and annuities, while households without a diploma hold 0.5%. That gap mostly reflects differences in retirement plan access, participation, earnings, and accumulated savings.

Time for Savings to Grow

Stocks and mutual funds rose for every group over the past year, up 30.3% for households with a high school diploma and 26.5% for those without a diploma. The catch is that a strong percentage gain on a small base can still be small. Families who started with assets early benefit from those gains year after year.

Over decades, that compounding piles up. College households held 48.6% of all household net worth in 1989, and 75.8% by mid-2026. Part of that shift shows more Americans earning degrees over those years, so the share numbers capture a changing population as well as a widening gap.

Moves That Work With or Without a Diploma

Employer retirement plans are a common starting point, and contributing at least enough to get the full match captures money that is part of a worker’s pay. In 2026, workers can put up to $24,500 into a 401(k), and those 50 and older can add $8,000 more in catch-up contributions.

Automatic contributions take willpower out of the equation. Vanguard’s How America Saves found 61% of its plans used automatic enrollment at year-end 2024. In Fidelity’s data on nonprofit plans, auto-increase features accounted for 46% of contribution rate increases. Money that leaves the paycheck before it hits checking tends to remain saved.

Social Security timing matters too, especially for families with smaller nest eggs, because the monthly check may cover most of their retirement income. Waiting past early eligibility raises the monthly benefit for life, up to a point. We walk through how those trade-offs play out when taking at 62, 67 or 70, and we condensed the whole decision onto a single page in a free framework if you want a quick reference.

Habits Behind the Numbers Matter Most

This ranking shows where families stand today. Some-college families increased their median 21% while college families slipped 1%. What separates the top of the list from the bottom is has a home, getting into a retirement plan early and letting money sit for decades. A degree makes those things easier to reach. Still, the habits behind the numbers shape where families end up.

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