College, an institution for higher education, is a place for those wish to further understanding within their particular field and truly advance in their life. When I was a kid, my dad would always tell me about college and how great it was: he would tell me that it was a place where you truly find yourself and prepare yourself for the future, he would also tell me how there is nothing better than a higher education and how it set him up for a fruitful career at Citibank as well as Transit Authority. Even when I was in high school, my teachers would often tell the class about all the benefits that college would offer as well as the ease of college loans and scholarships. However, times have changed how college is handled, as well as the costs associated with it. Today, many college alumni graduate with loans equal to that of a mortgage and well as lower job prospects, which prevent them from paying the loans off.  With a lack of financial opportunity as well as high debt, I ask is college really worth it. 

First off, what is college? College is a post secondary education institution that focuses on advancing one's knowledge and intellectual capacity in the hopes of helping advance one's career or life either through liberal arts or through trade schools that teach the mastery or at least the adept knowledge of a vocation or occupation. The terminology for college in the U.S is interchangeable with the term university though this differs if you go to another country where  college and university may have two or more separate meanings. This concept was originally pioneered by European colonists in the thirteen colonies in the 1600 and 1700's because they believe their people in the common wealth states should have an easier time going to institutions within the "New World" rather than sailing six months overseas back to Europe.  

This brings us to college in the 1970's. In the 1970's and 1980's college was not too expensive, being a fraction of the cost today. In that time period the average college cost around the price of 6,000 and 10,000 plus room and board, compared to today's college prices being around 20,000 to 40,000 on just tuition alone. According to Gordon Wadsworth, author of The College Trap, " ... if the cost of college tuition was $10,000 in 1986, it would now cost the same student over $21,500 if education had increased as much as the average inflation rate but instead education is $59,800 or over 2  one-half  times the inflation rate." Those who had gone to college in the 1980's had a larger variety of financial aid instead of just loans. This is due to the fact that colleges were given more financial assistance by the state and federal government however; nowadays states have started cutting aid to colleges. Colleges in turn, have raised tuition to combat this all the while forcing college student to pay more but, to where inflation has raised wages, it hasn't raised wages fast enough to catch up with college tuition. The inflation as well as reduced government aid will bring future financial unrest to more students. If federal and states governments continue dropping financial aid many families will find it difficult to combat the rising college prices.

Secondly, there can be some arguments made against the college tuition issue; Like how some people don't do enough to save up for college, or how some college kids don't want to work while in school, However do bear in mind it is difficult to keep with school and maintain work especially during heavy testing weeks without your grades fluctuating, and many families can't consistently save thousands of dollars per year because they have other expenses like a mortgage, medical expenses( inoculations, prescription medication, medical insurance etc.), school supplies, repairs, auto insurance, students loans and so on. It is all the little expenses that slowly eat away at what little surplus many families. Some would Debate that college graduates are more productive members of society as stated on" is college worth it" on procon.org. This true as those with higher degrees take on more demand jobs, however if college is too expensive for many median level families, which makes up at least 60% of the US population, then their children cannot become more productive and if any college grad has too much debt following them then they cannot or will have trouble with: Getting a better job, getting a house or apartment, traveling, and saving enough for things like marriage and kids. Others will say that college degrees are a very high valued, but the number of people that have bachelor degrees dilutes the value of a college education, this is mainly because of the wage premium, stated on for jobs being at around 80% and this even for jobs that don't require a degree as quoted by Federal reserve bank of Cleveland. Now in order to maintain a decent living for a job you will have to get a bachelors degree or risk receiving 80% less than some who has a four year degree. To sum everything up, college debt has long term effects on milestones and can even prevent people from becoming more productive members of society.


Let's say for instance, you believe college is a good investment, the 30,000 to 50,000 per year (20000-40000 tuition+ 10000 room and board.) is going to be worth it. The question now is: What are you paying for when you got to a traditional school? If you are going the traditional route you are paying for an internship for semester, 2 1/2 years of lecture halls and maybe for some assignment heavy classes, and one year of specialized classes that are applicable to your major. This does not include the costs of joining a fraternity or sorority, which itself costs between 2000- 5000 a semester, medical insurance, vehicular transportation, maintenance of said vehicle, etc. This also doesn't include clubs or organizations that are not covered in the initial costs. From a consumer stand point, college requires a lot of money and gives very little for the asking price and most people are not able to pay $30,000-$50,000 a year. This also does not account for books, school supplies or online class resources which can cost up to $200 per resource, however these resources do not carry over into other classes in the future which means that a student would have to buy $200 books and resources individual for the next few years (a student with four classes can easily spend $1000 dollars per semester.) There are some people and organizations that claim that these costs can be mitigated by scholarships, websites like Fastweb.org, scholarship experts, unigo, and scholarship America, claim that there are millions or even billions of dollars in financial aid available to students. However, they do not tell how well of a chance an individual has at receiving any amount of financial aid. In addition to this, the increased attendance in college has caused tougher competition for scholarships which makes many sites and resources like these unreliable at best. Because of this, one could say these sites operate more like a lottery system, everyone can enter but only a mere fraction will actually receive help. So more than likely, student loans will make up the largest portion of financial aid and students would pay for several abstract classes and an internship to get just one year of specialized classes that are applicable to your major.

    However there are problems with the classes students take because many of the classes don't prepare students for the workforce or professional development. Many of the classes' college students' take are just basic lecture halls and electives that directly give the information but often fail to show real world applications. An article by Linkedin.com, a well known business networking site, states "only one in four employers truly believe that college graduates from a traditional school are prepared for the work force". Why is this you might ask? One answer could be that colleges still teach writing skills that are obsolete such as writing lengthy papers instead of shorter concise pieces that explain the relevance of a topic while saving time (a skill that is valued highly in the business world). Another answer could be that universities give students useless classes that stimulate no interest and just waste a student's time. A common trend nowadays is that traditional universities will bog students down with classes they may not use or are not applicable to their major such as mutli year language classes, computing classes, advanced math classes etc. For example, a biology major may be required to take a computer science class in order to graduate, but the computer science class has very little real world application to biological sciences which will confuse the student and, in the long run, waste their time and money. Whereas, if the biology student wants to take an advanced chemistry class because they find that chemistry will allow more career opportunities  then allow them that opportunity because this will actual help them professionally develop and they will not feel they are wasting their time on a useless class. Overall, If a student wants to take a class, whether applicable to their major or not, they should be allowed the choice to take it because he/she finds it applicable and relevant to their lives and or careers which will help with develop knowledge within fields that the stimulates the student.

With all of that said, college is not a bad choice for some; in fact college can be worth the debt for those who go on to be engineers, medical doctors, pharmacists, and so on because of the high demand and high wages these occupations have. For example, a student who leaves college with an engineering degree and a decent internship will have a plethora or of jobs and opportunities open to them as well as having a good starting wage after college is over to start paying off loans. The Bureau of labor statistics, website that graphs the projected growth of jobs and the wages they pay based on education level and residency location, shows that a mechanical engineer with a bachelors degree has a median wage of $84,560 (65,000-70,000 on the low end and 100,000+ on the high end) per year and that the job growth is projected to be high for the next 10 years. Even jobs such as physicians are worth going to college for because of the high pay out at the end of eight plus years of school, one is guaranteed employment because of the high demand for doctors. I will refer back to my father that I mentioned earlier, he when to Colligate University in New York in the 1970's and majored in economics and received his bachelors in economics. After he graduated, he was head hunted by Citibank and he pursued a fruitful career within the banking industry, he even rose to the position of division manager (he was right below the director of operations for the Northeast division) because of his college experience and knowledge. Overall, College is not a bad decision for some, in fact it can be one of the best decisions one can make for one's career.  

 

Career choices don't always have to be made in a traditional college; one could join the military and expand their knowledge within various jobs and vocations. Those who have gone to the military have had the benefit of being alleviate from student debt, have a decent source of income, and veterans have a place to learn new skills for different jobs without incurring debt. Veterans also are able to take advantage of various programs and benefits in order to pursue a post secondary education. In fact, according to educationbug.org, veterans are able to take on jobs that can easily be transferred to civilian life such as culinary specialists, linguists, and air traffic control to name few. There is even a push for vocational schools instead of traditional colleges. Originally in the 1980's, vocational schools were not to highly coveted by many people because most people ended up as regular laborers, as loosely quoted by the Manchester Journal, however vocational schools are transitioning into something that many people are starting to desire over traditional schooling. Many vocational schools train students to be ready for the work force by giving hands on direct training with activities within workshops or classrooms to further solidify the knowledge and many vocational schools cost far less than traditional college. According to Gocollege.com, a website dedicated to displaying factual information about institutions and trade schools, there are a lot of benefits when considering a trade school over a traditional school; immediate job training in a technical school versus the lack of training for four years in a traditional school, better chance at entry level jobs versus more competitive chances at mid level jobs,  and more marketable skills in a technical school versus the generalized knowledge in a four year college. In total, traditional college is not always the answer for everyone; there are many benefits for joining the military or heading to a vocational school. 


Overall, traditional college is not worth the costs to most people unless you are going for a doctorate, engineering degree, or medical degree in which college is worth the debt and long years of study because of the large payoff at the end. However, for those who are going for other degrees, traditional college is not worth the money as it will lead to high amounts of debt can be financially crippling to those who have it. There are other solutions for post secondary education like trade schools that can give a lot of hands on practices and help prepare students for the work force, or the military that gives training for both combat and civilian jobs as well as good benefits for addition post secondary education.

