This week's report on educational attainment confirmed what was already known but bears constant repetition; education leads to better incomes.The difference between a secondary school graduate's median salary ($55,367) and a person with a Bachelor's degree ($87,522) is about $32,000 a year. That is a huge amount of money over a lifetime of work.Of course, not every graduate will earn the median salary, and there are highly successful people who never finished high school, let alone went to university. But the general rule applies. Finishing university improves your earnings potential.So it is good news that the number of people with degrees and further education is rising. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of people of working age with at least a Bachelor's degree rose by 29 percent. That means that 31 percent of working age people have at least a Bachelor's degree compared to 24 percent in 2000.That's important, not only because it means that people have a chance to earn and advance more, but because Bermuda's economy is increasingly knowledge-based and needs more highly trained people.There were increases in Bermudians with Bachelor's degrees (from 18 percent to 25 percent of working age Bermudians) and among non-Bermudians (40 percent to 47 percent).Overall, Bermuda ranked 20th among OECD nations, which sounds pretty good until you consider that Canada can boast that 51 percent of its working age population has at least a Bachelor's degree, the US is at 42 percent and the UK at 38 percent.If Bermudians only are considered, the Island would drop down the list to 24th, competing with Portugal and Hungary.So Bermuda and Bermudians are making progress, but the need to accelerate attainment levels is increasing.The most concerning aspect of the report is the continued disparity in earnings between whites and blacks. It is one thing to say that this is due to differences in educational attainment, which remain significant 45 percent of whites have at least a Bachelor's degree compared to 22 percent of blacks.But the difference remains stark between whites and blacks with the same level of educational attainment. The median salaries for white and black people with Bachelor's degrees was $105,000 and $80,000 respectively a difference of $25,000 a year.So it's good to have at least a Bachelor's degree, regardless of your race, but it's better to be white, and, no doubt, best to be a white male since males also earn significantly more than females with the same qualification.This even applies to unemployment. Black unemployment levels are higher than white and a much higher proportion of black males with no qualifications are jobless compared to their white counterparts.When only Bermudians are considered, the gap between median salaries at bachelor's degree is $15,000 -- $95,000 to $80,000 -- narrower, but still significant.What is especially worrying is that the earnings gap between whites and blacks has widened between 2000 and 2010.This may have been caused buy the way the economy shifted from tourism to international business in that decade, and how better qualified non-Bermudians were required in that period.That is one of the nuances which means the disparities cannot be wholly laid at the feet of systemic racial bias, and it is important to strip out those differences before determining what role bias might play.But the differences are stark.This newspaper has stated before that narrowing the wealth and earnings gap between whites and blacks in Bermuda is the most critical job facing the community.At the very least, this report shows that the job is not yet done.