Is college a waste of time/money?

[jcd11235 0]

It's interesting that the author chose the CPA as the model to be followed, since a baccalaureate degree is typically required to sit for the exam, often with 150 hours minimum course work, much of which must be in specific areas of study.

My area of study, Actuarial Science, uses series of professional exams for different qualifications. Certifications do require a baccalaureate degree, but the major is not important, since competence in the subject matter must be demonstrated with exams.

While some degree programs offer specialized knowledge in high demand in the job market, others offer general knowledge that is also very valuable, especially when couple with a working understanding of a more specialized field. I don't worry much about competing with other Actuarial Science majors with the same exams passed when looking for a job after I graduate. What I worry about are liberal arts and philosophy majors with the same exams passed. Fortunately, since such comparatively specialized knowledge is necessary to pass the exams, I don't anticipate encountering many of such people.

The only regret I have about going back to school was starting back at a community college instead of a university. Sure, the tuition was less and the professors quite competent, but the inability to take upper level classes before moving on to a university resulted in lost time and lost money (FAR more money than I saved with the lower tuition).

The one not so obvious area in which I think college might be a waste of money is computer science and IT. I've known too many unemployed CS graduates, as well as quite a few successful IT workers with no IT related college education. Of course, the situation might be much different at companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sun, etc.

Overall, I think a college education is well worth the time and money. The process can always stand to evolve to better utilize new technology and prepare students for an ever changing world, but the value of the education is as valuable as ever.

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[PLFXpert 0]

NO.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[kbordson 8]

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NO.

Agreed.

[Misternatural 0]

>>Agreed.

Said the physician.

Beware of the collateralizing and monetization of your desires.
D S #3.1415

[PhreeZone 14]

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The one not so obvious area in which I think college might be a waste of money is computer science and IT. I've known too many unemployed CS graduates, as well as quite a few successful IT workers with no IT related college education. Of course, the situation might be much different at companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sun, etc.

I work with peers at a lot of those locations. It comes down to what you want to do for the most part. A lot of our coders have CS degrees but none of them are still writing Cobal or using punch cards like they did in college, most are onto C# or something else that they learned post graduation. All of the crypto guys use their math majors everyday where the support staff doesn't usually need degrees.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Croc 0]

Yes, unless you have already decided on a career path that requires a degree. I am a plumber, and I can tell you that after 29 years in the trade, the engineering skills in the US of A are going to hell. My theory is that the "good students" (i.e., the well behaved) are encouraged to go to college and steered towards engineering and the sciences without any real aptitude for it. Thus we have engineers that have spent their childhoods with their noses in books rather taking things apart to see how they work. Sorry for the rant.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[happythoughts 0]

There are different flavors of this.

Kind of like, "I'm going to buy a truck."
"What kind?"
"What do you mean?"
"What are you going to do with it?"

The first two years are basics. Some good math skills to develop critical thinking skills. Some English to develop writing skills.

After that, you need to take classes to enhance the career path.

At some point, writing skills will become important, unless you stay at the bottom. Eventually, someone will expect a coherent email with logical paragraphs and flow. Communicating information at a higher level.

I work in IT. However, I have a business background.
It is necessary because I have to make the computer "do something".

I have to communicate with non-technical people and understand a business application.

I also have an Oracle DBA certification and a stack of other certificates. Those are "continuing" education.

So, I did all routes - 4-year, 2-year, cert courses.

I recommend a 2-year background to everyone.
After that, courses that directly apply to a chosen goal.

[Andy9o8 0]

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>>Agreed.

Said the physician.

Yeah.
You clearly don't realize that you've just validated her point.

[Andy9o8 0]

There is no such thing as a wasted education. Education is the silver bullet. It's the difference between feudal peasantry vs. aristocracy and what actually exists today. A healthy, vibrant middle class would be nonexistant without education.

To Dumpster and Shropshire: Some things are valid "equivalents". Each of your military service gave you a degree of training and polish which most definitely counts as "education".

Having said all this, I agree that university education can be obscenely expensive.

[PLFXpert 0]

I thought it might be then (I'm 28, now) and my elders insisted it wasn't and thus I finished. I thought it was easy. And then it became more difficult and I made it easy (no, not by cheating).

I get it now what "those people" were talking about.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[Misternatural 0]

>>You clearly don't realize that you've just validated her point.

Just a little friendly mental jujitsu, I have no beef with the time invested in college as long as the individual applies themselves and puts the information learned to use. Karen did well with her education. It's the cost that enrages me, especially right now that I am battling my town over education property taxes- but thats another fish to fry.

Lets examine what the tuition dollars actually pay for, I say its mostly for the facility and staff.
I posit that the internet could save people many thousands of dollars in educational expense through home study.

In college if you spend all your time drinking and watching porn you've wasted your parents money. If you do that using the internet.... not so much.

Beware of the collateralizing and monetization of your desires.
D S #3.1415

[SBS 0]

ANYTHING can be a waste of time and money. One must take the most value from the time and money spent as possible. Personally, I do not believe that "children" at 18 years old are always ready to take the value that is available to them. In fact, I think it is the relatively lucky few who do.

I did not go to college, and am now taking online classes at 29. Working 60-80 hour weeks it is challenging, but I believe I am getting far more now than I ever would have before (and in the meantime am lucky enough to have an awesome job and make significantly more than many of my friends with degrees).

For those who are lucky enough to pick what they will do for the rest of their lives, fantastic. For me, I cannot regret the path that I chose.

-S

_____________
I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

[cocheese 0]

yes. College is a scam. Almost as bad as religion.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4

[DescensionX 0]

I hate the direction this society is heading. I really don't get it. All I can say is my opinion.

I didn't go to college because I had to. I went because I wanted to. I studied what I was passionate about, and what I wanted to focus my mind on. I never once had the thought "is college worth the money". Will this make me rich? If that is your motivation, you surely won't be a History major now will you?

If people would follow their hearts and minds instead of obsessing about money and material posessions, we would be a lot better off as a society.

Having said that, it is outrageous how expensive college is right now. Education is traded like a commodity folowing supply and demand principles. This is a big mistake in my opinion. There will come a time in the near future that people cannot afford it. When that buble burts, it will make the current financial markets crisis look tame.

[DJL 232]

It's as good as the school, the degree, your grades, but ultimately it's only as good as you make it.

The problem isn't the quality of our education it's that American want to be given everything and don't understand how they didn't end up with a Porsch.

That's why it's so easy for hardworking people from other countries to take our jobs.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[mpuettman 0]

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No.

Sure, you can be successful without a college education.

But the odds are that college will improve your chances of being so.

imo, the only reason a college degree (outside of science, medicine, or engineering) improves your chances of success, is that it has become a baseless requirement for many jobs.

I have both a BS degree and an MBA and personally, I do not see the value (time & money invested) in either. I got my undergraduate degree straight out of high school because my parents expected me to go. I received my MBA when I was 40 and I pursued it only because it was a policy at work that a masters degree was a requirement for further advancement – and the sad part was that it didn’t matter what the concentration was (mine was finance)…the only requirement was that you had that piece of paper. I could have gotten a masters in some obscure field of music and I would have still met their requirements even though I was working in the natural gas industry.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. Book learning is a whole different ballgame than actual work experience, practical knowledge, and street smarts.

Just my opinion…

[DJL 232]

Where did you degrees come from?

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[mpuettman 0]

University of Tennessee - Knoxville

GO VOLS!!

[wmw999 2,117]

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Is college a waste of time/money?

It all depends on why you go. If it's just to get the best-paying job, probably. If it's to have a livable job, probably. But if you want to understand something that takes more learning than you're likely to pick up on your own, maybe not. And if you want to be my doctor, dentist etc., then definitely not.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[skybytch 259]

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I didn't go to college because I had to. I went because I wanted to. I studied what I was passionate about, and what I wanted to focus my mind on. I never once had the thought "is college worth the money". Will this make me rich? If that is your motivation, you surely won't be a History major now will you?

I'm about halfway through my quest for a BA... in History. Even if I have to say "would you like fries with that?" when I'm done, it will have been worth every thing-not-bought, minute-spent-studying, hour-spent-in-class, hours-spent-on-the-bus...

But - there is one thing that a BA in History can do for those who only want money... it's great prep for law school. Which is where I'm headed in a few years; not to make the big bucks but to work in social justice - i.e. try to do something that really matters with my life.

[kbordson 8]

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try to do something that really matters with my life.

That's what is important.

[rehmwa 2]

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First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BS", those that don't meet the goal will be stigmatized by being given the fallback label of "BA" to carry in shame

fixed it for him

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Andy9o8 0]

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Is college a waste of time/money?

It all depends on why you go. If it's just to get the best-paying job, probably. If it's to have a livable job, probably. But if you want to understand something that takes more learning than you're likely to pick up on your own, maybe not. And if you want to be my doctor, dentist etc., then definitely not.

Wendy W.

Good points. If I might add:
There is tremendous value to education as something other than a fungible commodity. It all has to do with the overall growth, development and finishing of the complete person. Look, for example, at people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and their contemporaries. Any one of them was fluently conversant in Mathematics, philosophy, the Classics, the hard sciences, agriculture, government, law, engineering, etc. John Quincy Adams's first application to Harvard, at a time when his Harvard-alumnus father was already very prominent, was initially turned away because Harvard required him to have several more months' worth of intense tutoring in advanced Greek.

Yes, I know, they came from families of financial means. The obscene cost of a university education is obviously a great impediment to this. But the point I'm making is still valid. In the U.S., fortunately, there is a good (and in some states, excellent) system of "relatively" affordable (compared to private schools) community colleges and state colleges/universities. The financial aid matrix in the US is mediocre, but it's there. There is no way in hell that a person with a college education, even "just" from a community college and/or small state school, no matter how rough his/her upbringing might have been, does not have a measure of polish to his/her thinking, understanding of the world, demeanor and manner of communicating that is the direct result of his post-high school education.

P.S. - I write this way because I'm trained to, and I do it for a living. But what about that engineer in San Diego? The physics professor in Chicago? The optometrist in Pennsylvania? The physician in Kansas City? The air traffic controller in Washington State? Or even that rocket scientist in Houston? Look at how cogently they consistently write on here (well, usually), not just in their own fields, but well outside their professional fields or academic majors. Do you think they'd be able to do that but for their educations? Not very likely.

[Reginald 0]

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I think the moral of the story could be better said as "Don't get a useless degree!"

Thanks for writing this post it saved me from having to say the same thing.

I think the article just goes to show that even the WSJ can get it wrong sometimes.

Education is the most valuable thing a person can get. I advise people to choose wisely though and get one that will provide tangible benefits on the other side. However, the world does need a select handful of PhD’s in obscure liberal arts fields. Who else is going to transcribe ancient scrolls of dead languages for pennies a day?

"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

[Nightingale 0]

History is wonderful! I'm working on an AA in history right now. Try to take as many political science classes as you can as electives. Those will also serve you well in law school.