Well, it depends. Getting a professional degree will increase your earnings. Expatriating (where you degree is worth more) will do the same.

But the consequence of having not 12 but 15 years of quasi compulsory education is that basic degrees have become devalued.

New Zealand university degrees are the most worthless in the developed world, an international report reveals.The value of spending years at university has been severely dented by an OECD report that reveals tertiary study adds little to our earning power – less than $1000 a year for women, not much more for men.New Zealand is at the bottom of the global league tables. The net value of a man’s tertiary education is just $63,000 over his working life, compared with $395,000 in the US. For a Kiwi woman, it’s $38,000 over her working life – that’s less than $1000 a year.The Government says it has already cut the number of poor-quality courses by at least 15 per cent, and wants to reduce or eliminate fees for lower-level qualifications – because students who complete them don’t make any money out of their qualification.

via Our degrees don’t repay their cost – Business – NZ Herald News.