Kids, don’t go to college
Posted
May 5, 2009 at
4:07 pm by
Jessica
Photo by Justas Cekas
Currently around 65% of high school students are college-bound and some experts are calling for a re-examination of college level education and what it actually gets you these days. Furthermore, as more and more jobs are now being outsourced overseas, a college degree creates a certain dichotomy — while corporations expect and require degrees for jobs in which college degrees aren’t even necessary, like sales positions, conversely, skilled laborers or technicians only require more expedient training through trade schools. One clear benefit of these tradesmen skills is that most of them can’t be outsourced overseas.
For example, I’m an Account Manager for a hospital. Nothing in my 50k waste of a college education prepared me for what I’m doing. What it did do is get me a foot in the door for an administrative position some 17 years ago, where I worked my way up. The rest has been on the job the training. Never have I had to pull from my college textbooks, lectures, assignments or tests to understand how to manage coordinating people’s health benefits in my current position. One has to wonder, what is the point of a B.A. if all you need for is to weed out people that are perhaps more qualified but couldn’t afford to go to college?
Often times I regret not just going to a trade school or becoming a nurse, medical technician or even a paralegal. I could have completed many of those certifications in 2 years or less, instead I wasted 5 years (yes, I was on the 5 year program) of balancing missing classes to hang out in Grant park with my friends while still meeting the minimum requirements to get passing grades.
Welders, electricians, carpenters, plumbers — they’re all jobs that can’t be outsourced, yet my job can be. So who’s the real chump here?
As www.bluecollarandproud.com points out, these tradesmen are not your grandparent’s skilled labor workers. Many of these trade schools require some critical thinkers, like welders, who deal with complex mathematical equations to figure out trajectories and angles.
While not all kids are cut out for the trades just as all kids are not cut out for universities, the future of the tradesmen just might translate to job security and skills that seem to be lost on younger generations. When and if my children want to go to college, I will be there to support them emotionally and financially (as much as I’m able), but I won’t make them go. I hope they understand all their options, unlike my parents, who pretty much said, “Go to college or I’ll never speak to you again.”
Tags: college, trade school, whether or not to go to college |
17 Responses to “Kids, don’t go to college”
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1. Rita
May 5, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
I think it’s really sad that the value of a college education is measured by what kind of job it lands you when you’re done. I did use the academics from my college education in my profession when I was a social worker. I’ve been a SAHM for the past 10+ years, but I wouldn’t trade the wealth of knowledge I gained from college for anything.
2. Jessica
May 5, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
Well, of course, we’d all like to be like Ghandi and just study and live in a hut and not have to punch the clock, but the reality of it is, most parents aren’t going to shell out 100k, which will likely be the average cost of college tuition when our kids go, just to gain some knowledge without having a vague idea of what career path their going on.
I enjoyed my college years because it was a big party, but seriously, I barely went to classes and still graduated with a 3.4 average, so in all fairness, I could have just gone to the library and saved my parents a lot of dough.
3. Rita
May 5, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
And, well that was your experience. Mine was different.
There is nothing wrong with trade school. Some people have NO interest in pursuing a college education and wish to just get trained in a skill so they can have a secure profession. That’s absolutely cool. If that’s what my kids want to do, I’m really fine with it.
But… I do think that there is more to be gained from college than just learning a trade, which is exactly what turns some people off (especially right out of high school), and if my kids don’t want to pursue a college degree in their 20’s, then I’d hope that they would enter into a continuing ed program sometime in their adulthood to pick up those liberal arts core classes that make a well-rounded, well educated adult–the literature, art, sociology, history, music, math, and science classes–just for the sake of having the experience of those classes. I know that education is expensive, but it’s worth every penny, IMO, whatever use you put it to.
4. Jessica
May 5, 2009 @ 8:18 pm
It’s worth every penny if ‘you’ decide to stay home, do nothing and collect welfare checks after college?
5. Rita
May 5, 2009 @ 8:25 pm
I really don’t understand the question. I know you have some deep resentment of people who get government assistance, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with an education. It’s like asking if all the food I fed my kid was worth every penny in the end if he does nothing but collect welfare checks after he moves out. It’s part of an investment we make in our kids for them to be well-rounded, educated people.
Alex has a trumpet, he’s in band, we’ve spent a lot of $$ on his improvement in music. I don’t think for a second that he’ll pursue that as an adult. All three kids are in taekwondo, and I can’t even imagine the tons of money and time that we’ve invested in that, but again, it would really surprise me if any of them did anything with it professionally. It’s something we give to them for them, it’s not training in a trade. I see a college education the same way, except that in a lot of cases (mine, my husband’s and tons of other people we know) college does train you for a career as well.
6. Sara
May 7, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
The answer is not to discourage college. But we have to redefine what “college” means. It isn’t necessarily a four-year institution with ivy-covered walls. I think the real push across America is raise expections so every kid gets some kind of postsecondary education, whether it’s a bachelor’s degree, an apprenticeship, a trade school, etc. A high school diploma alone is a ticket to nothing so it has to be the benchmark, not the goal. What we really need are requirements for a high school diploma that actually prepare you for postsecondary ed. Because the fact is, about 3/4 of family wage jobs require some kind of postsecondary training, if only to get your foot in the door.
7. Rossy
May 13, 2009 @ 10:20 am
There’s no need to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to become a well-rounded, educated person. How well-rounded and educated you become is solely a matter of your own personal motivation to be such. This is something a lot of parents want to believe they can control in their children, but the truth is nobody can. Many of the young people I know who have obtained college degrees are completely immature morons. Most are now working in coffee shops, retail stores, or delivering pizzas. Very few of them managed to land some really boring entry-level office jobs that most likely could have been obtained with nothing more than a positive attitude and well written resume. It’s unfortunate that more and more I’m seeing what the author mentioned, where employers are only looking for college grads for dumb jobs that really don’t require degrees in any way. It’s almost like there’s a conspiracy of some sort.
8. AmareStar
May 13, 2009 @ 10:47 am
When my son gets to that point in his life(he’s only in Kindergarden now), I will hope that he will research what he likes and what he needs to do to get where he needs to go in his life, I think it should be up to him to decide if College is the best plan of action for him or if something else is better for him. I am happy with whatever makes him happy.
9. Ian
June 24, 2009 @ 12:04 am
I understand that college is not really the most efficient thing in the world as far as return on investment in time and money. The real problem, though, is this attitude that the only reason to go to college is to get a job. I’m glad the poster had a good time at college, but it sounds like she never really got the point of college. If you treat college as simply a means to a good job, then most of it will be wasted. I know plenty of people who graduated with high GPAs but didn’t learn anything. That is their fault for trying to cheat the system by focusing simply on grades and not the actual point of college which is to produce thoughtful, well educated citizens. Students who blow their parents’ money by treating college as one big party are doing a disservice to themselves, their parents and their country. Our nation relies on having an educated electorate and our society depends on having educated members. Our education system fails in that people can get by with high GPAs without putting in the requisite effort. That means that we need to change focus on what college is about. It is about exploration and learning. It saddens me that so much of what we focus on here in the US is the bottom line. We seem to have decreasing regard for the value of knowledge and learning. Hopefully people more persuasive than me will come along who will be able to turn the tide.
10. Rita
June 24, 2009 @ 10:12 am
Thank you, Ian. That was exactly what I was trying to say! I’m glad to hear from someone who shares the same philosophy on the subject.
11. Jessica
June 24, 2009 @ 11:07 am
Ian, I think it’s you that missed the point of my post. My point is that there is no shame in not going to a traditional university and there is absolutely no shame in going to college or trade school or self study to prepare for a specific trade or career.
I appreciate education, but I prefer self study myself as I’m not a traditional classroom person myself, but I love to read and research. I have an innate curiosity to further my own knowledge. There are many brilliant people who never went to college.
And, most people don’t have the privilege to go to college just to expand their horizons and math aptitude without any thought of how that applies to making a living.
And a side note because I happen to think it is tangential to my point — the last two people working in the U.S. cannot support the entire country and/or pay for everyone to go to college. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hard work and having goals to get a job that you’ve specifically trained for in college. How many people go to college to become a teacher without a goal of getting a JOB as a teacher?
The learning and expansion of knowledge is a given but that can be had outside of college. You don’t have to be a University graduate to be knowledgable. I would hope that most people are naturally curious, but not all people are.
12. Rita
June 24, 2009 @ 11:26 am
There is no shame in going an alternate route, Jessica. Nobody’s saying that.
However, in your original post, you seemed to suggest that kids would be better off avoiding college so they could go a different route to get a good job. That college is unnecessary for getting a good job. That may be true, however, MY point is that a college education is more than just a means to getting a good job, it’s a different path completely. For those who want a college education, it should be for the purpose of being educated, not for the purpose of being trained for a job. It’s a different philosophy completely.
I also think that cost should not be a factor in who gets to receive a college education and who doesn’t. I think that anyone who wants to pursue it and is willing to work hard to become educated should have the opportunity. Our country needs to value education for its own sake again, like Ian stated. Not everyone is interested in becoming educated and there’s nothing wrong with that, but for those who DO, they should not be discouraged.
13. Amber
February 5, 2010 @ 5:32 pm
Person A= dumbass with a degree.
Person B = qualified, good, responsible, smart employee without one. Guess who gets the job.
14. Lynda
February 7, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
Unless you are substantially well off, I can’t really see how any average middle income family can prepare to send 2 or 3+ kids, close in age, to college. The financial gurus will tell you your first savings investment priority should be for your retirement. Having said that, I don’t ‘get’ the argument that if someone wants to go to college, he can’t because of lack of money. There are loans out there (or there were when my 3 went to college, ‘87-96) and they incurred the debt for their education, as I couldn’t. I will say, if they are going through college on their own dime, it tends to make them a bit more responsible.
But, in answer to your ‘question’ I agree, not everyone is meant to go to university. Hopefully though, we have raised our kids to be curious about their world and to seek out whatever it is they are passionate about. I am thankful that all of my daughters truly love what they do for a living. As for me, I plan to be a plumber in my next life. (PS, Rita, I said the same about my youngest dtr. who was in band all through high school, she’s not going to be a flutist…guess what? She’s a high school music/band director.)
15. mully
February 7, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
I can raise my hand here since I went to college and studied English. At the time I wasnt really sure that I wanted to teach, but because I was expected to go to college and it was the early 70’s, I wasnt sure what to do and I DID have an aptitude for the written word as well as spelling and grammar, so I spent 4 years in college learning how to correct other people’s grammar and writing short stories.
My point is this: Not much has changed in education since I was a college student if kids are still expected to go to university for all the wrong reasons. On that note, I tend to agree with Jessica.
Both of my sons went right into college immediately after graduation from high school and both summarily dropped out within 2 years. I might as well have opened a window and thrown that money out of it.
I believe the reason they dropped out has to do with not knowing, at all, what they really wanted to do after high school, but because it’s what’s expected and there DOES seem to be a stigma attached to not going to college, they both caved.
Luckily, they got their heads around the idea of going to college a few years later and went back and both graduated.
I DO think college is important and a needed tool in today’s world if you want to survive. However, I wish that our educational system spent less time pressuring kids and more time finding out what their specific needs might be.
How many of us know men in their 40’s/50’s who went thru a 4 year program in their early 20’s, graduated, landed a job in said chosen field and now are miserably unhappy?
Its a lofty assumption that in today’s world, people can choose college simply because they love learning. I guess if one is independently wealthy and can be a full-time student, then fine, but for the overwhelming majority, its an incredibly expensive proposition and one chosen in order to enable someone to basically support and maintain a family or at the barest minimum, themselves.
In today’s world, a college education or the equivalent of one, is a necessary tool in order to compete for jobs and that is the primary reason most people seek a college education.
16. Anthony Beckum
March 4, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
I understand this very well, in some ways i also feel that college is a complete waste of time. From the run around of people Not knowing or bosltoring there awards to the struggle money just to stay school i am navy veteran i am going to devry universty and most of the course that they offer i already took. I feel that one of best the colleges that is out there is unversity of phoneix, which is a online college, but they had there stuff together, from finances to having a veteran respresentive there which help you in your purse of your career.
17. College Grad Musician
March 15, 2010 @ 12:26 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMpjQ5P880Q
I graduated College with a 3.5 in Criminal Justice/law program, while picking up a minor in sociology, (the classes worked out so every CJ/L student was one class away from a SO minor, might as well get it) and I cant find a job to save my life. I travel around the country writing music and sharing it. topics range college, to American tyrany on its citizens. Enjoy