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Is college a waste of money?
A recent post about a 20-year-old woman who bought a home drew much attention here and around the web. I noticed in the comments that people were debating not only her decision to make such an investment but also her choice to skip college for the time being. Today, I read another article claiming that college may be a waste of money. So, let's have at it.
"College costs -- along with living and medical costs -- are rising, and salaries are going down right now," Managing Director of Formula Capital and Wall Street Journal columnist James Altucher said. "College graduates don't have the same benefits as they did 30 years ago..."
"If a student wants to go back to school in their 20s, when they've made some money, traveled, and matured a bit, then go ahead," Altucher said. "But a parent shouldn't have to spend $50,000 a year for their kid to go to frat parties all day long."
The basic argument here, and I'm sure you've heard it before, is that college isn't for everyone. It's kind of like challenging the ideal of home ownership, something that's been encouraged in this country as the "right thing to do" and the way "to get ahead." How about some alternative thinking?
Why don't parents give a quarter of the amount they would have spent on an education to their kid to invest? The cost of starting a business is next to zero. Not everyone is an entrepreneur, but there's no harm in trying to be one.
"Critical thinking shouldn't cost $200,000," Altucher said. "There are other ways to learn that while kids can make money and get experience. Lay your own track. Become an artist, entrepreneur, investor."
Minyanville actually makes the statement: "The best university in the world is called Google. You can learn anything you want on the Internet, free of charge."
It's easy to say something like that, and of course, there are examples of non-college grads who went on to fortune and fame. Career coach Marty Nemko keeps a list of them. He argues that college is "a wise choice for far fewer people than are currently encouraged to consider it:"
Colleges trumpet the statistic that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than non-graduates, but that's terribly misleading because you could lock the college-bound in a closet for four years and they'd earn more than the pool of non-college-bound--they're brighter, more motivated, and have better family connections.
Earlier this month, the Chronicle of Higher Education asked a series of questions to higher education experts. It's worth reading. Here's an interesting question:
How much does increasing college-going rates matter to our economy and society?
Nemko: Increasing college-going rates may actually hurt our economy. We now send 70 percent of high-school graduates to college, up from 40 percent in 1970. At the same time, employers are accelerating their offshoring, part-timing, and temping of as many white-collar jobs as possible. That results in ever more unemployed and underemployed B.A.'s.
Winters: Increasing college-attendance rates in the United States is essential to reducing income inequality and maintaining our stature as a world economic leader. Our economic dominance in the second half of the 20th century was directly related to our educational dominance.
It's a good debate to have right now. With our economy changing in so many ways, there's definitely room to consider our old models of higher education. Maybe we should encourage shorter, more affordable "bursts" of school? Perhaps that would encourage more students to wait until they know what they want to do with their education.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. And do you think employers are ready to embrace such changes?
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Because of out-sourcing (sending manufacturing overseas) and in-sourcing (bring them here on green cards), we have supersaturated the U.S. market with college degrees. You can borrow a fortune and go the most expensive university in the land, and it will still not guarantee you a career. The most illustrative story I heard was one presented on NPR of an electrical engineer with a masters from Stanford who was offered a job at IBM. Six months into the job, they out-sourced him to Bangalore, India. I had a similar experience.
If you are going to college, don't pick something easy to out-source or in-source, like engineering or programming or IT. Pick something like health care or law or teaching or politics. Politics is the best choice, because that way you can screw your fellow man out of his job and his life savings without ever losing yours.
Having no degree, I will withhold my unqualified opinion on the costs and benefits of the collegiate investment and instead offer the wisdom of others:
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
"Education seems to be in America the only commodity of which the customer tries to get as little he can for his money."
-Max Forman
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-Mark Twain
<href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism">Autodidacticism</a>
<href="http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/eduquote.htm">Quotes on Education</a>
<href="http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/08/27/is_college_wor... Williams: Is College Worth It?</a>
Recently, I heard a professor tell his students that a masters degree is the new bachelors. I guess inflation occurs in certifications as well. I guess this country is doing very well considering it can push 70% of it's students through college or the new high school diploma.
This might be a little off subject, but I will try to bring it back at some point...
I think there is a disconnect between students and professors in college. Most of the professors I had (recent engineering graduate) simply did not know how to teach, they profess. They are more suited for research in a lab, but because they have their PhD and bring in a lot of money to the school through their research (ie grants, exposure, etc) they double as professors. In most cases it was up to the students to teach themselves how to solve problems and when we got stuck, did we go to the professor for help? No. Instead there were "teaching assistants" (upper level students who had the class before) to help us. So what are the professors really doing for the students?
So here's where I bring it back on subject. Why are we paying high tuition for PhD professsors that aren't capable of teaching the students. College does seem like a waste when most of the time the students are paying a ton of money each year to buy expensive books and teach themselves.
We need "teach"ers in college not "profess"ors.
College is not a waste of money if you get a specialized skill. If you get a generic liberal arts BA, especially at a private school, good luck.
Much has been made of eroding quality of education. I strongly disagree. The major fault I see in young workers is the sense of entitlement and expectations that many graduates from 2000 to 2007 had. The financial crisis sort of took care of that problem.
As to the education, as time goes on, the field of knowledge grows. Students at top tier universities have more to take in. Many topics that consumed a semester of physics or chemistry, now are a week.
The large lecture hall and TA approach also gets a lot of bad press. I think it is ideal for preparing students to work. A lecture hall of several hundred where no one knows if you came, followed by a TA lead discussion essentially introduces the material. The student is left to learn it for himself. Sounds a lot like a workplace to me.
The idea that small classes and lots of attention yield better results is faulty. People that consume much of their supervisors time are not just annoying, but laid off at the first chance. My best employees have been those that I do not need to spend too much time with or thinking about.
Successful careers require self sufficiency and advanced skills. If you have picked up neither in college, it will be difficult to realize a return.
I want to respond to the part about students learning for themselves which is like the workplace.
I couldn't agree more. So why should students pay so much to teach themselves? Wouldn't college be a waste if students could just buy the textbooks and teach themselves, like you say they are already doing...
This is an especially interesting aspect of this debate, considering the growth of online classes. Those classes generally require you to be a self-starter and are just as beneficial but in many cases are more affordable than regular classroom tuition.
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