Salaries
Sometimes there is a wide range of salaries in the same area. Medicine, for example. Doctors get paid a lot more than nurses, but then they do more training too. A doctor, straight out of university, can expect to be paid around $45,000 compared to a newly graduated nurse who might be paid $35,000.

Similarly a graduate with a degree in agriculture could expect a starting salary of around $33,000 compared with an agricultural worker who would start on $24,400. By the way, the best paid job for those starting out, is dentistry, at around $55,000.

The minimum wage payable to an adult in Australia in March 2004 was $23,316 a year, before tax, or $448.40 gross a week, which is $11.80 per hour.

Recruiters say that an undergraduate degree is worth an extra $10,000 a year. If you want to upgrade at a later stage and do a post graduate degree, which is another two years of study again, you will probably add another $5,000 to $10,000 a year to your pay packet.