This concept has been drilled into our heads that a college education is a must in order to live a normal life in America today.
Every Presidential speech or State of the Union always includes that old cheer-leading pep talk about how “folks should be able to send their kids to college” and many other platitudes.
Debt be damned! What me worry Alfred E. Newman? The college loan program (that went bust decades ago) is a way of taking away personal responsibility for students and their families. Attend now, party today, pay later, live the collegiate life now.
No, I think we've come too far, made too many promises, attached too much importance to an undergraduate degree to call the whole thing off now.
How can we alter this monstrous concept in an age of entitlements? It's worse now than when I graduated in 1982!
How can the clock be turned back. This is like asking the government or private sector to stop over spending, stop living the good life when you do not have the funds to back it up. Nope, we're used to “having it all”.
Try taking away these “rights” and you'll get full scale revolution similar to what we saw at the Wall Street rallies - the Left, unhinged.
We are paying high priced progressive socialist reprogramers to undue what we have taught them at home through thier eary years and to program them into following instead of leading, those who do want to lead must follow the agenda or be cast out
Actually, if I had it to do over again, I would have not gone to college. I would instead have learned a trade like plumbing and started my own business.
Today, if you are not enrolled in college in a worthwhile science-based discipline, your chances of employment and worth are diminished and the effort is likely not worth it. Your only option is a government job - as long as that option still remains.
Education viewed as an economic proposition does not always win the calculation.
What if you pulled Gannon Leblanc’s analysis back 4 years and had everyone enter the workforce at 14? Then you could get four more years of work in the mills, and present value them from an early age.
Society would save all that stupid education expenditure AND get taxes from the teenaged workers who would have a lot of energy.
Education viewed as an economic proposition does not always win the calculation.
What if you pulled Gannon Leblanc’s analysis back 4 years and had everyone enter the workforce at 14? Then you could get four more years of work in the mills, and present value them from an early age.
Society would save all that stupid education expenditure AND get taxes from the teenaged workers who would have a lot of energy.
$35,000 for a college education? What community college is that? Try $160,000... if you make it through in only four years.
Well it was worth it to me and my wife. When I got out of the Army in 72 I went to work for the Sheriff’s Department I also pumped wells on the side and started working towa5rds a degree as a Petroleum Engineer. After 5 1/2 years I went to work full time pumping wells for my buddy who is now my business partner. It was hard with a wife and a child but I got my degree in 79. In 80 My wife went back to school and got her BSRN. Both of these degree’s have worked well for us and to be honest I might have been able to get to where I am now with out it, but it would have been a much steeper hill to climb. I’m also proud to say we never took a loan or a grant, we just did what we could afford, it takes longer but when I look around at what the kids are going through now, it was the best decision we could have made.
I’d say that would depend on the degree.
As an engineering graduate of Virginia Tech, I find that sad. I think there should always be room in our society and our economy for those with a liberal arts background. Although, I suppose when the economy has been destroyed by corrupt nanny-staters and "progressives", we must take a back-to-basics approach to things. The average person can survive without novels, poetry, philosophers, the theater, etc. It's much tougher without such things as food, drinking water, medical care and electricity.
And of course, there IS the fact that it is currently almost impossible to find a classic university at which to seek said well-rounded classical education. Political correctness and "progressivism" have seen to that.
I think it is incredibly ironic that the classic 'liberal arts education' has, over the last 50 years or so, been all but eliminated from higher education in this country by the very Liberals who allegedly cherish it. They have virtually destroyed the ability of the average liberal arts major to make a good living in their field of interest by assuring that the overwhelming majority of people graduating our universities with liberal arts degrees are progressive- indoctrinated, mush-brained automatons, incapable of independent thought and unable to formulate a logical argument.
My advice for young people is always the same. Go to school and learn how to do something. Don’t go learn about something. Liberal Arts are by in large a waste of money. I believe they will become even less relevant as the socialism squeezes out capitalism. Less of other peoples money to spend and all...
If you are “book smart”, go learn Computer Science, Medicine, Engineering, etc.
If you are “hands on” gifted, go learn welding, fabrication, plumbing, HVAC, manufacturing technology, etc.
It takes the equivalent of as Associated Degree to run a manufacturing robot anymore. HVAC - all controlled by programmable electronics. Welding has advanced to the point you can weld two razor blades together. But you have to learn the machines and techniques.
A 2 year RN program at a community college is the best bang for the buck out there. Same pay as a 4 year grad, lower cost of a community college and jobs are available.
As a bonus, if your employer wants you to have a BSN, they will usually pay for it.
For some people it is..
College isnt for everyone, but the school system says otherwise...
I didn’t go to college...
When I metion that my daughters may not go to college I get the calf looking at a new gate look from anyone I say that to.
Is college the best for everyone I don’t think so.
If you wanna be a doctor, lawyer or indian chief I reckon so...
I saved so that all three of my children could go to college without borrowing a cent.
Employers do like employees who have proven job skills needed by those employers. Perhaps for small, fledgling startups, no one is going to lose sleep over an employee's credentials, provided they can do the job.
However, in mid-to-large companies, having credentials in the form of a college degree is still very important. It's a deal-maker or breaker for some positions, particularly in management. At larger, specialized companies such as those with R&D, you can't be promoted to management without a degree. Why not? Because those scientists and engineers reporting to you won't work for a non-degreed person.
There are legal implications for some roles--think of a job in Quality, for example. You sign off on documents, you oversee your company's CAPA, but why are you qualified to do so? Because of your role? Because you've read books on "quality" processes? Because you've always been told you have a "good eye for detail" by your mother? A related degree is at a minimum, the cornerstone for establishing such proof.
In the end, it comes down to "proof" of what you have the potential to do. If you're a plumber or electrician with 15 years' of experience, being in "Angie's List" with good ratings might be all the proof you need. If you're in your early 20's and new to the job market, you need something more than just anecdotal evidence that you'd be a good worker if you expect to be employed by anything more than a small company.
That said, I don't advocate going grossly in debt for a college degree. Your expected college debt should be commensurate with your expected average salary, or less. I would be conservative in this approach. If I was an advisor and had students "falling into" degree programs like Philosophy, or any of the "Studies" programs, I'd advise them to get their degree cheaply, and get out. I'd also tell them to consider a double-major in something useful, or something that would complement their first degree. I'd definitely tell them NOT to double-down with a graduate degree in the same profession, not unless a company was paying for it, or they had a guaranteed promotion upon completion.
It is when it's free. My kids qualified for scholarships that made the whole thing most affordable. In fact, my younger daughter will make money going to college this year.
The more appropriate question is, “Can you afford not to go to college”...Considering that nowadays most jobs require some form of college degree?
—There are great Internet courses.
—Join local art societies for networking and learning about the business of art.
—Look for workshops done by artists that you admire.
—Take **very** carefully selected individual courses at the community college.
—Take **very** carefully selected individual courses at your local state university. ( A degree is entirely unnecessary!)
—If you go to an Atelier use **extreme** caution!!!
Find out how many have graduated from the atelier over the number of years they have been in business. If there are graduates ask how many are financially successful with art. (In my state the master of one atelier has been teaching for 15 years. He has had **ONE** person graduate from his program and this**ONE** person is flamingly unsuccessful.) Ask how long did it take on average for students to graduate. In the case of this atelier it took that **ONE** person 10 years.
Today’s kid should be labeled: Generation DEBT!
Both of my sons graduated from college with ZERO debt... thanks to a little scholarship money and a LOT of sacrificing from their mother and I. We’re PROUD that we were able to do it.
Now, however.... as they are working and going about the business of trying to find wives, they keep running into roadblocks. They meet a cute girl, buy her a few drinks, and then ask, “How much student debt do you have?” (Boy! Have the questions changed since I was young!)
The answers, are amazing.... very often, $30- 50k. Many of these, girls now working in retail. My oldest son USED to say he wouldn’t consider dating ANY girl with debt. Now? He’s raised his limit to $10k. I think, we’ll be LUCKY to find one with less than $20k.
All our hard work, to get them started in life without a mountain of debt, will be undone when the right pheremones hit their mid-20 brains. :-(
Today? Yes, as companies want to see the paper, even if it means the idiot know nothing.
Tomorrow, I suspect companies will want to pay less so they must let go that paper.