Women may have achieved economic equality; they are now earning more than men – sort of.

The catch is that this only applies to the median full-time salaries of urban women under the age of the 30 who are both childless and unmarried, according to a market research study.

Unfortunately, women with the same level of education, availability and seniority as the men in the cubicles next to them are still earning less.

The difference in pay is not due to a lack of qualifications. According to a study by Reach Advisors, women are 1.5 times more likely than men to graduate from college. At USF, the population is 59 percent female.

This means that women are taking more demanding and competitive jobs than males their age, but that doesn’t always translate into higher pay.

According to the study, women in their 20s now make 90 cents for every dollar a man makes, while older women still make approximately 80 percent of what men earn – an improvement, but still not equality.

What today’s workforce provides are two separate gaps: a pay gap for women and an education gap for men. It is ridiculous that women are not getting paid the same as their peers, even if they do the same work. By taking charge of their education, women have improved over men in one specific group, but they are still not receiving competitive pay in their fields, according to Time magazine.

The U.S. has become more progressive since its inception and has allowed women more equal treatment, but the job is far from finished.

Women must earn just as much as men in contemporary society.

There needs to be legislation that requires the same pay for both men and women if they have a similar resume. Businesses should be long past wage discrimination based on gender.

To reach equality, the working population needs both the accountability of companies to issue the same wages and young people to finish their degrees and work hard at their jobs. It’s 2010, and women should be working toward better education and better pay.

Jessica Shoenfeld is a freshman majoring in sociology.