Does Everyone Need To Go To College?

Posted by ERUDIO in Inspiration on Dec 14th, 2009

“Does everyone need to go to college?” This is a question that is asked more and more now. We are deep in a recession. The job market is rough.

He who opens a school door closes a prison.--- Victor Hugo

Is the cost of a college degree really worth it? Or how about the life-earnings value of knowledge?

NPR asked its “All Things Considered” listeners (including me) this very question last week, “Does everyone need to go to college?”

The responses were fascinating, and highly revealing of present attitudes regarding whether higher education is essential, or a level playing field at all.

Some were from educators, some from students, some from non-students.

One that spoke to a critical need was from Rachel Holtz, a community college teacher in Dekalb, Illinois.

“No, not everyone should go to college, but I feel that the ones who fall into that category end up being African Americans and other minority students. There is still a learning gap between minority students and their Caucasian counterparts in high school, and I’m afraid if we don’t encourage them to pursue higher education, that gap will continue to widen. How can African Americans and minority students get high-paying jobs if they don’t go to college?

Another listener, a chorus teacher, argued that the cost of a degree is prohibitive, and a degree in itself can ill prepare a person to survive in our world. That you need a trade that’s in demand.

“I myself have frequently asked how much of whether my college degree prepared me for my career. I think about how much nicer it would have been to be a plumber, machinist, or landscaper. I could have achieved more financial security much faster, and I would not have had to give up any musical efforts.”

Chris Charig, in Acton, Massachusetts, talked about human potential and the need also for real job skills in the real world.

“The fact is we disregard those other opportunities because my generation has been fed the idea that those jobs are only for people who lack potential to do anything else. I believe I have been alienated from this college truck system, which seems to feed off of people’s need for credentials rather than their potential.”

Another listener got fed up with all the talk of training and tuition, job, job, job.

“College is not all job training, and it is certainly not all connoisseurship. It’s also critical thinking, in general, or it should be. The whole question of worth allows the audience to focus nearly totally on jobs. It’s school. And we asked what we learned instead or at least in addition.”

So, Grad2B people… which is it?

Do you go after a degree to enhance your perceptive and intellectual abilities, to try to enlarge your horizons and aptitude?

Or do you go after technical training, to try to assure a future employment in a skilled industry?

It’s a class consciousness dilemma. It’s all about perception.

Which do you want, the prestige of a diploma, or the prestige of solid income?

You can and should expect to have it both ways. First, decide what you really want to be.

Then look at the best path to take to get there, to the place you see far ahead on your path.

Make sure the path goes there— use counseling, use GRAD2B resources, use everything you can find to make your life map, to trace your path into the future.

But never NEVER allow others to define who you are, or who you are determined to become!

And ask yourself this, “Will it cost me more to educate myself? Or will it cost me more not to educate myself?”