Matt Baldwin 1

Matthew Baldwin

Professor Sharyn Hunter

ENG 1201 A51

14 February 2019

Is A College Education Worth The Time and Money?

Most students do not know what exactly to do after high school graduation. High school

graduates quickly realize that it is a large and scary world to try to succeed in. There are multiple

different paths towards a successful life, and there seems to be one popular choice: College.

Students are highly encouraged to attend college and obtain at least a bachelor’s degree in order

to land a well-paying job. However, is college truly worth the time and money of these young

adults in order to achieve the goal of a successful life and career? College is no longer the best

route to success anymore; in fact there are different paths that lead to a well-paying job just like

college, minus the atrocious amounts of student loan debt.

There are two different sides to this argument of whether college is worth it, or if

different routes like a vocational school is more worth it. Some people believe college is better

because statistically college graduates make more money on average than non-college graduates.

They also believe college opens students’ minds to different career paths and choices along with

the fact that a lot of good jobs in the economy require a bachelor’s degree. On the other side of

the spectrum college is more detrimental than it is beneficial. It’s unnecessary to have to pay off

such high amounts of student loans while obtaining a degree that may not guarantee success in

your future. Vocational schools equip you with the skill and ability to launch yourself into the
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workforce almost immediately; bachelor’s degrees are slowly losing their value, and college has

become a business now more than ever.

High school students and young adults do not know what path to take once walking into

the real world. Most end up obtaining a meaningless degree in something that does not please

them or work for them, so they end up dropping out. Ellen Shell from the New York Times

article titled, “College May Not Be Worth It Anymore,” says that forty percent of the students

who attend college end up becoming college dropouts, and they only earn a little bit more than

people with just a high school education do. People with a dropout-college education earn about

thirty-eight-thousand and three-hundred-seventy-six dollars a year versus a high school

education salary of about thirty-five-thousand and two-hundred-fifty-six dollars a year. That

advantage is hardly enough to compensate for their college debt (Shell).

This shows that a very large percentage of college students end up leaving the college,

and dropping out. This leads to them having loads of student loan debt without much more

advantage than those who did not go to college at all, and decided to just join the workforce. The

debt that drowns these college dropouts (which there are many) makes it extremely difficult to

climb out of that financial hole. If the average salary of these college dropouts is thirty-eight

thousand a year, then it is not very feasible to think that they will ever get out of debt on their

own. A vocational school subtracts the debt load from the equation and just sends the students

straight into the work world and they are able to begin building up their savings sense they are

free from massive student loans. The figure below is an image depicting the burden of debt that

college students have to carry around with them even after graduating (“Growing Number of
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Georgia Students Have Debt”).

This leads to the next point. Vocational school education is much more practical when

training and teaching students for a specific profession. The training is hands on, and teaches

practical ways of problem solving through experience. Vocational schools teach trade secrets or

tips and tricks for the specific profession a student may be training for, that the student would not

have learned anywhere else. Vocational schools also send the students out into the real world

much quicker than college can. This helps the students to have a head start towards building up

their own savings accounts, and being much more financially stable than college students who

are wading through incredible amounts of student loan debt.

Julianne Dueber who wrote the book “The Ultimate High School Survival Guide,” said

this.
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Here's a few ideas of careers you can be trained for: dental and medical assistant, pet

groomer, administrative assistant, medical records technician, computer programmer,

computer-aided draftsman, welder, travel agent, office administrator, computer network

administrator, health information specialist, bartender, veterinary assistant, furniture

reupholsterer, auto mechanic, occupational therapy assistant, massage therapist, and a ton

of others. (Dueber)

It is very apparent that there are multitudes of great possibly successful career paths that can be

obtained through a two week to two year program through a vocational school educational

program. These programs can definitely lead to very successful careers if work ethic is learned

through the process. Any success in life requires work ethic, but vocational schooling is the

better route because it lacks massive debt loads, unlike college education.

The economy is also just about filled to the brim with jobs that require bachelor’s

degrees. This means that job opportunities are dropping for college graduates expecting to

receive a well-paying job. This also means that the value of the bachelor’s degree is dropping, so

the massive investment that students make seem to be turning into a trend of a lower return rate

on their investment. Billitteri from CQ Researcher said that plenty of really good jobs do not

require of their applicants to have a four year college degree. He says that nearly fifty percent of

all jobs are in the, “middle-skill,” occupations, which he describes as being occupations that

require a little more than a high school education, but still less than a bachelor’s college degree.

He states that the demand for middle-skilled workers will stay up because of the plentiful amount

of such jobs (Billitteri).

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This is saying that most jobs do not actually require a bachelor’s degree. However, most

students and young adults believe that a bachelor’s degree is the gold standard of society.

Multitudes of college graduates end up graduating with a bachelor’s degree. When they graduate

they expect a good job. They are then met with the reality that the supply of bachelor-degree-

level jobs are running low, because the youth of the economy is so geared towards four year

degrees, that space is running out. While space is running out for bachelor’s degree level jobs, a

large quantity of the graduates with bachelor’s degrees are left out of the loop without a job

while holding massive amounts of debt. The increased demand for these jobs coupled with the

decreasing supply leads to the bachelor’s degree having a much lesser value than originally

believed. In conclusion students that pay large amounts for these degrees often times end up

being let down, and they end up not gaining any advantage over their debts in the long run.

College is also becoming more like a business than an actual place that cares about your

educational needs. In the documentary titled Ivory Tower directed by Andrew Rossi, touches on

this topic. It says that colleges and universities have become feeding frenzies of competition

against rivaling colleges. In a sense it has created an “arms race,” amongst colleges, or in this

case a race towards a larger student population, and student enrollment (Rossi). This leads to the

fact that colleges and universities do not quite have the personal interests or educations of

students in mind, but rather they have the selling of their product (college degrees) at the

forefront of their mind, and agenda. If college administration does not care about much of

anything other than growing their institution, then college prices are only going to keep going up,

and quality is going to keep going down. The façade of college education being the pinnacle of

success in society is going to keep increasing, while high school graduates and young adults are

taken advantage of on a massive scale.

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While universities focus on competing with one another for more enrollments, the focus

on actually valuable education nearly goes down the drain. This is why many personal anecdotes

of college graduates who did manage to find a job actually say that they had to relearn most of

their profession, and most of their education from college went out the window (Baldwin). This

speaks to the testament that college administration and ownership has become hyper-focused on

competing with rivals, and treating it like a business rather than a high quality school

environment where students can learn in-depth about their professions. The more business

focused colleges and universities become, the less likely it is to provide valuable information and

skills for students to learn.

Colleges back in older days used to be able to provide educational resources that were not

presently available to the public. The libraries, databases, and internet sources that were provided

by colleges were one of the major drawing points towards a college education. However, now

that the internet has become globally accessible to the public, these resources that used to be

almost exclusively provided by colleges and universities are now easily accessible at a person’s

very own home. This is also a point touched on in the documentary, Ivory Tower (Rossi).

This means that people who really want to learn can easily do so themselves by educating

themselves through the resources available online. They can skip the college debt, and just use

the resources at their disposal and still educate themselves in almost the same way. They will not

gain a degree out of this; however, they can still educate themselves to be capable of the

profession. This takes away the unique quality that college used to have. The draw and appeal

that colleges had had been primarily because of their access to resources, but now that has

changed in modern times.

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College degrees also do not guarantee that you learn adequately or prepare for your job

adequately. ProCon lists a few statistics concerning this matter in their article titled, “Is a College

Education Worth it?”

36% of students demonstrated no significant improvement on Collegiate Learning

Assessments after 4 years of college. In 2013 56% of employers thought half or fewer of

college graduates had the skills and knowledge to advance within their companies… A

2011 Pew Research survey found that 57% of Americans felt higher education did not

provide students with good value compared to the money spent. (ProCon)

This shows yet again that college degrees and education is not very solid. There is actually a very

high risk involved with investing in a college education. More than half of employers reported

that college graduates within their companies did not have the skillsets learned in order to

advance within the career. Vocational schools can combat this because it is mostly hands on

learning experiences that teach students how to solve problems practically and adapt to their

situations more efficiently within real-world circumstances.

Another concern with college education is that colleges are also turning more towards

strong political positions, and seem to indoctrinate students within their views rather than

educate them with honesty and integrity. ProCon provides another statistic in their article here:

A 2010-2011 UCLA survey of full-time faculty at 4-year colleges found 50.3%

identified as "liberal" compared to 11.5% who identified as "conservative." David

Horowitz, MA, conservative activist and author, asserts that university "curriculum has

been expanded to include agendas about ‘social change’ that are overtly political."

(ProCon)
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This has become very prevalent within recent years as political tensions have risen, and while

this goes on within the background of college administration and curriculum; students are not

receiving the high quality education that they deserve for their money. Instead they are being

caught within a political game being played throughout the college and university scene. This

also goes along with the idea that colleges have become much more of a business in recent times

rather than a school.

Many people can and have become very successful without a college education. ProCon

has a statistic concerning this within their article.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 30 projected fastest growing jobs

between 2010 and 2020, five do not require a high school diploma, nine require a high

school diploma, four require an associate's degree, six require a bachelor's degree, and six

require graduate degrees. (ProCon)

Almost half of the projected thirty fastest growing jobs do not even require that you have any

better than a high school diploma. The economy is growing in the area of “middle-education”

jobs. This means that the salaries for these jobs and careers will be growing in the upcoming

years. The students that end up deciding to get a head start on their careers with a vocational

education will be blessed with the increasing trend of growing, “middle-education,” jobs.

Opposing viewpoints may say in contrast that most well-paying jobs in the world require

a bachelor’s degree. This is simply not true. While a lot of well-paying jobs may actually require

a bachelor’s degree; there are still plenty of great career paths that do not require a four year

graduates degree. Billitteri writes in his article that college costs have been soaring while there

are also middle-education jobs, like a welder, that are in high demand, and there are tons of
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young people that are simply not prepared for the grueling work that university education

requires. He also stated that even though after-high-school education is very important in our

economy, a four-year degree may not be absolutely necessary for everyone’s security, financially

or economically, and maybe even poorly advised. (Billiterri)

Four-year college educations are starting to become irrelevant, and they are quickly

losing their value to this economy, thus providing less high-paying jobs for college graduates. In

fact, it is much more beneficial to just learn a trade at a vocational school and perfect it while

gradually building up your career, because the tuition cost of colleges vastly outweighs the

income gained. ProCon in their article titled “Is a College Education Worth it?” states:

From the 1986-1987 school year to the 2016-2017 school year, the average cost of one

year of college (including room and board) increased for 4-year private schools (109.6%)

and 4-year public schools (125.7%), while median family income only increased 10.0%

between 1986 and 2015. (ProCon)

This shows an incredible disadvantage of going to college for a bachelor’s degree, financially

speaking.

The opposing viewpoint will also say that college graduates with bachelor’s degrees

make more money on average than non-college-graduates. While this statistic is true, most

people who graduate with bachelor’s degrees are different types of people than those who were

non-college graduates. Most people who graduate college have higher work ethics, and come

from better family environments, while those who on average usually do not go to college is

because they simply do not care about their future education or career. If we disregarded this

group of people, and looked more at the hard working students that invested in their future using
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the vocational education route, it will probably be found that they do just as well in their careers

as college graduates. Once again, this will be done nearly debt free, unlike college graduates.

Even so, it has already been previously established that many college graduates do not have

much more advantage in their salaries than non-college graduates, and when this is coupled with

the fact that they have heaping piles of student loan debt hanging over their heads, they are faced

with many financial troubles and woes.

Another opposing viewpoint is that college helps students open their eyes to different

career opportunities while learning their abilities and who they are in the process. To be fair, this

would be a fantastic attribute to college; however, the cost that it would require to change

majors, if a student chose to do so in the name of “exploring career opportunities,” would

skyrocket their student loan debt. If the said student did this multiple different times, then they

are only wasting their time and their money. If it did not cost so much more money to change

majors, then this would not be such a bad thing. In reality this is a horrible thing to do.

This also presents the point that students simply do not know what they are going to do

after high school graduation. They do not know their path in life, or their strengths and

weaknesses. It is a money machine that students get caught inside when they are consistently

changing majors throughout college, thus wasting more time and money.

There are multiple different paths towards a successful life and career. The route of

vocational education is a very beneficial and smart path towards future life goals, whilst staying

financially stable and debt free. College education is not the only way towards success, and it has

actually been losing its value as modern times are progressing. College is no longer the best
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route to success anymore and in fact the many more paths and routes towards good jobs and

well-paying jobs are becoming increasingly more appealing.

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Works Cited

Baldwin, Keith. Personal Interview. 2 Feb. 2019.

Billitteri, Thomas J. "The Value of a College Education." CQ Researcher, 20 Nov. 2009, pp. 981-

1004, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2009112000.

Cass, Oren. "College Isn't for Everyone." New York Times, 12 Dec. 2018, p. A27(L). Opposing

Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/A565334930/OVIC?u=dayt30401

&sid=OVIC&xid=71cedac1. Accessed 3 Feb. 2019.

Dueber, Julianne. "Vocational Schools and Apprenticeships." Education and College, edited by

William Dudley, Greenhaven Press, 2003. Teen Decisions. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context,

http://link.galegroup.com.sinclair.ohionet.org/apps/doc/EJ3010306227/OVIC?u=dayt304

01&sid=OVIC&xid=dc474c88. Accessed 3 Feb. 2019. Originally published in The

Ultimate High School Survival Guide, Peterson's/Thomson Learning, 1999.

“Growing Number of Georgia Students Have Debt but no College Degree,” PBS, 23 Aug. 2017,

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/growing-number-georgia-students-debt-no-

college-degree Accessed on 23 Feb. 2019.

“Is a College Education Worth It”. Procon, 1 Oct. 2018. https://college-education.procon.org/.

Accessed on 30 Jan. 2019

Rossi, Andrew. Ivory Tower. Directed by Andrew Rossi and acted by Andre Delbanco,

Paramount, 11 Aug. 2014.

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Solis, Oscar, and Ralph Ferguson. “The Relationship of Student Loan and Credit Card Debt on

Financial Satisfaction of College Students.” College Student Journal, vol. 51, no. 3, Fall

2017, pp. 329–336. EBSCOhost,

sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d

b=s3h&AN=125256414&site=eds-live.

Shell, Ellen. “College May Not Be Worth It Anymore.” The New York Times. 16 May 2018, pp.

A23, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/college-useful-cost-jobs.html