Go To College, What's The Point!?

9 min read

Hi everyone, I’m Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to my podcast, That’s Life, I Swear

Are you tired of hearing that college is the only path to success? Today we're going to challenge that notion and explore why going to college might actually be pointless for some - not to mention the burden of debt that often comes with it. Yes, you have other options.

Let’s jump into this 

The value proposition of college may not be what it once was, and has come into question. When COIVD hit, it gave people a lot of time to reflect on what was important to them.  Life’s priorities were in need of a reset and the necessity for a college education was high on the list. A desire to prepare more thoughtfully for finding and securing meaningful work is a fundamental change in values happening now.

The idea that college is the only path to success is a common misconception that many people believe. We need to take a step back and understand that going to college may not be the best option for everyone. With the rising cost of tuition and the increasing burden of student loan debt, more and more people are questioning whether college is worth the time and investment.

College Tuition Debt cartoon. Courtesy of: Google

It’s time to reflect that the idea of going to college may not be the best path to success and why pursuing a career in the trades could be a better option.

In 2019, Americans ranked “preparing for college” tenth on a survey conducted by Populace, a nonpartisan think tank. In 2022, the results to the same question, were somewhat staggering to believe. Preparing for college now ranked 47 out of 57 items on the survey.

Let’s be clear what the data is reflecting. The data is not saying college has no value but rather a prioritization of careers, and the pursuit of meaningful work has surpassed it. People want college to be on the menu, but not to be the menu. Today, kids [Zoomer-Gen X/1997-2012] want college to be an option, but not the option. As Todd Rose, co-founder of Populace, indicated, “kids today want more opportunities, and want a wider range of outcomes.”

Why does this matter?

First, let's consider the cost of college. According to The College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for full time students during the 2022-2023 academic year was:

• Public two-year in-district: $3,860, $60 higher than in 2021-22 (1.6% before adjusting for inflation)
  
  
• Public four-year in-state: $10,950, $190 higher than in 2021-22 (1.8% before adjusting for inflation)
  
  
• Public four-year out-of-state: $28,240, $620 higher than in 2021-22 (2.2% before adjusting for inflation)
  
  
• Private nonprofit four-year: $39,400, $1,330 higher than in 2021-22 (3.5% before adjusting for inflation)

Again, the numbers I gave you is per year! Many families simply cannot afford this significant amount of money. Numbers like this force many students to take out loans, which can leave them with significant debt after graduation.

Top priorities for Americans today when it comes to higher education is affordability and employment.

According to the Federal Reserve, in 2021, the total student loan debt in the United States exceeded $1.73 trillion, with the average borrower owing around $32,731. This debt can significantly impact a person's financial future, making it harder to save for retirement, buy a house, or start a business.

Trade positions. Courtesy of: CMT

Second, consider the job market. While many believe a college degree is necessary to secure a well-paying job, this is not always true. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many of the fastest-growing jobs in the United States do not require a college degree. For example, jobs in the healthcare industry, such as medical assistants, dental hygienists, and physical therapists, often only require certification or an associate degree. Similarly, jobs in the trades, such as electricians, plumbers, and carpenters, can pay well and do not require a college degree.

In fact, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, workers in the trades can earn as much as or more than college graduates in certain fields. For example, the median wage for a plumber is $55,160 per year, while the median wage for a communications major is only $50,000 per year.

We’ve gone from pursuing the American Dream to pursuing more doing, perhaps because the act of doing different things helps us to better understand what kind of work we want to do. 

College is a necessary and valuable pathway for many careers.  

But just as not everyone is cut out to be a doctor, or an electrician, not everyone needs to spend two or four years hitting the books. Students’ interests vary widely, and their flourishing will require more recognition by all of us that human variation is a feature and not a bug. 

We see various advertisements promoting  higher education as a way to work “smart” rather than “hard” with images of a dirty plumber next to a shiny college graduate. However, the viewer gets blind-sighted by the fact that the tuition price and the time and skills needed to complete a college degree would come at a very high cost.

Zero to One by Peter Thiel. Courtesy of: Amazon

As we’re experiencing today, we’re seeing that even those with college degrees are being laid off in the thousands. That said, an unusually tight labor market means employers look at college degrees as not a ‘must have.’ When Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, proclaimed that everyone should ditch college and become a billionaire like him, people thought he was nuts. 

Well, guess what? That notion of skipping college is now escalating even into the public sector.

Things to know:

• Pennsylvania being the latest state to drop the college degree requirement for most state jobs. 
  
  
• Harvard Business Review last year [2022] estimated that 1.4 million jobs will be available to workers without college degrees in the next five years.
  
  
• The Harvard report reflected that decreasing degree requirements will open opportunities for a more diverse and inclusive workforce, especially in the middle-skills positions, which many non-degree holders are well-qualified to occupy through experience.

Options for learning have improved due to getting creative with choices when we dealt with COVID. Before the pandemic, Coursera added about two million new learners a quarter; since the pandemic, that’s increased to five million per quarter, with 113 million registered learners. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, certifications, and degrees in a variety of subjects.

Now get this data point, according to internal search data at Google, over 50% of degree searches in 2022 were for non-traditional pathways.

Colleges are excellent at developing many of the power skills that employers want to hire for: including analytical thinking, active learning and complex problem solving. Graduates advance science and build knowledge. 

Data shows that college graduates earn more, are employed at higher rates, and tend to have a stronger sense of identity than those with only a high school degree. A 2016 Pew Research Center report states that 77% of workers with a postgraduate degree and 60% of workers with a bachelor’s degree believe their jobs give them a sense of identity, versus just 38% of those with only a high school diploma or less.

A staggering 38% of students who start college or university do not finish, leaving them saddled with debt and no degree. The main reasons for leaving include costs, stress and uncertainty. One-fifth of college students are parents, and around 40% work, making the balance of work and study tricky. Plenty of people will still flock to university but those universities can certainly help those who start a degree to finish it. They could also offer a broader range of credentials and in a more compressed time scale.

What can we learn from this story? What’s the take away

What COVID offered was a rethinking of people’s priorities. What’s an education for and at what cost?

As a society, we should offer this younger generation broader opportunities and options to realize their future. If college is made affordable only for the elite, then college is no longer a place of learning, it’s strictly just a business. 

As the cost of college continues to rise and the job market changes, people are beginning to realize that college may not be the best choice for them. Ultimately, it is up to each individual to decide what path is right for them, but it is important to let them know, there are other options to a fulfilling life. 

Well, there you go. That's life, I swear.

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes, movie info clips, and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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