Is College Worth Every Penny?

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Permalink Reply by Jamie Hastings-Smith on September 15, 2008 at 10:08am

I think it's worth it for the simple fact that with a degree you open the door to a whole world of opportunities.

Now, could those opportunities be opened for a lower price. Definitely!

Some of the problem lies with the fact that you need a bachelors degree to be an administrative assistant.

And, that paying for college has become a game of "Let's Make a Deal" (for both the student and the college). I saw a survey that showed if families know they are going to pay $5,000 a year for college. They would rather go to the $10,000 school with $5,000 worth of financial aid rather than the $6,000 school with $1,000 financial aid because they feel like it's the "better deal." That is regardless of "fit."

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Permalink Reply by Suzi Shapiro on September 15, 2008 at 10:14am

You are correct that college is not for everyone. Learning is! College is one way to learn how to learn (If you did not do so in high school.)

Not everyone does well in a traditional college environment.

It may be lack of ability. More likely it is a lack of interest and motivation or poor preparation or even a lack of understanding about what a college education is supposed to provide.

A good college education gives you knowledge in a subject area. This is minor compared to increasing your ability to manage your time, communicate effectively, solve problems, work with other people, and understand more about the world around you.

Literature, philosophy and history courses (As well as psychology, sociology and anthropology) teach you about the differences between you and everyone else in the world and help you to understand and communicate with people who are not like you. This is an essential tool in an increasingly complex world and something you may not learn hanging out with your relatives, high school friends and co-workers.

Art, music and theatre courses not only add beauty and pleasure to your world, but they show you how to look, and listen and feel in new ways.

Those math and science courses help you to understand your doctor and the statistics in the local newspaper as well as how much it is really going to cost to rent-to-own that big screen TV.

College is also a "social-networking" opportunity where you are likely to meet people who will be friends for life as well as your next boss or colleague.

You can get many of these benefits in other places. Colleges just are one place that is designed to provide these opportunities.

If you need a skill to do your job, professional schools may be a better place for you.

If you own your own business, you may find that professional meetings and workshops that connect you with others in the same business meet many of these needs.

If you stop learning - you may not be able to make it economically or personally tomorrow or next year.

Are colleges expensive? Increasingly so. It takes money to provide the rooms for classes to meet, hire the staff to manage the day to day, and hire the faculty (who often make less than their graduating students.)

But take a look at the cost of a three day business seminar. (Several thousand dollars plus travel expenses.)

What is really expensive is going to college and thinking you can get everything it has to offer while putting in the minimum of effort. A 12 hour course load doesn't mean you just have to spend 12 hours a week on your classes. (A better estimate is 70 hours or more.) You have to read the books, do the homework, participate in campus activities, talk to your classmates and professors...

Put in the effort. Have an open mind that is ready to learn. A college education may not raise your salary to astronomical levels - but it should greatly improve the quality of your life.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Meadors on September 15, 2008 at 10:49am

This issue also has an very significant impact in the K-12 space. This notion that "everyone goes to college" has created the extensive failure rate we all lament. Forty years ago, high school counselors were just that - they counseled kids and their families with care and skill. They prescribed high schools paths not only for the college bound, but for the workforce directly, and sometimes the military. In our current state of ISTEP and Core40 graduation requirements, we're forcing ALL students into a college preparatory situation that is simply inappropriate for some students. Our society has created the "school failure" syndrome, not the schools. Vocational education tracks have either been eliminated or, at best, antiquated. What happens to the child who should be learning to balance a checkbook, but must take Algebra 3-4 because it's a graduation requirement? And they fail, and never finish high school? How have our tax dollars served that child?

College is not the answer for everyone, especially at the current costs and upside down position it puts students and parents in. More importantly, in my thinking, is that we're blindly creating a generation of the workforce that hasn't completed high school BECAUSE it was college prep or nothing.

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Permalink Reply by J.R. Lynch on September 15, 2008 at 11:01am

Well said.

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Permalink Reply by Suzi Shapiro on September 15, 2008 at 2:53pm

Failure and drop out rates were high before Core 40 too - AND students who wanted to go to college but didn't know it until they were long out of high school did not have the benefit or good preparation because they had been tracked as non-college material. Some of these "weak" high school students now have advanced degrees due to their efforts after high school.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Williams on September 15, 2008 at 11:16am

This is an interesting topic and one that I have discussed through my work. Recently, I have referenced a 2007 U.S Census Bureau report entitled, Educational Attainment in the United States. that states on the average, "adults with advanced degrees earn four times more than those with less than a high school diploma. Workers 18 and older with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $82,320 in 2006, while those with less than a high school diploma earned $20,873. The report suggests that a college degree is generally worth almost a million dollars over the course of a lifetime.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Williams on September 15, 2008 at 11:32am

As an add-on to my earlier post, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) recently posted a report entitled, Demystifying College Costs: What Consumers Want to Know. Within the report, there is a section listing three things colleges can do with regard to this topic: 1. Be Transparent 2. Demonstration of value 3. provide help and guidance. You can read the entire report on the NAICU web site.

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Permalink Reply by Tim Heidenreich on September 15, 2008 at 12:57pm

There is a great article in the Sep issue of Money magazine called "Is College Still Worth the Price?" One of the facts is a handy chart (using Bureau of Labor statistics) showing that since 1985: Energy has gone us 108%, Medical is up 251%, and College is up 439%.

I think many colleges are way overpriced and that there should be more public scrutiny of the annual increases via local investigative journalism.

Tim

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Permalink Reply by Suzi Shapiro on September 15, 2008 at 2:49pm

They should also include the value of decreasing support for colleges by state and federal government and private philanthropic organizations.

Anyone have those numbers?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Stuck on September 15, 2008 at 3:30pm

I can give one aspect that would save the university money, get off the tenure system for these professors. Many are forced to keep professors around that make pretty nice salaries and really nice benefits and their performance is terrible.

Teaching should be about performance and substance. If the university is receiving state and federal tax money, the professors should not have tenure. If a private institution wants to have tenure, that is up to them.

Take an investigation into some of these benefits given to professors that barely teach anymore and your mouth would probably hit the floor.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Magan on September 15, 2008 at 1:15pm

I know I wanted to write and communicate for a living and knew that meant college. I would not have received the jobs I did because they would not have considered me otherwise. If you are ambitious and know what you want to do there are many more choices today to devise a strategy to do it.

Career success is more than just your salary it's piece of mind and doing what you love if it turns out the way it did for me.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Deckers on September 15, 2008 at 4:23pm

College is worth the ROI in the sense that if a person doesn't have it, they are going to have a harder time making the same wage as a college grad. And if you want to get into the 6-figure income that a lot of the IT geniuses make, without college, you can forget it.

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