Is College a Ludicrous Waste of Money?

Another path is needed for those who don't fit

Robert Reich: College is a ludicrous waste of money - Salon.com

For one thing, a four-year liberal arts degree is hugely expensive. Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years if not decades to pay off.

And too many of them can’t find good jobs when they graduate, in any event. So they have to settle for jobs that don’t require four years of college. They end up overqualified for the work they do, and underwhelmed by it.

Others drop out of college because they’re either unprepared or unsuited for a four-year liberal arts curriculum. When they leave, they feel like failures.

But we can do far better than we’re doing now. One option: Combine the last year of high school with the first year of community college into a curriculum to train technicians for the new economy.

Affected industries would help design the courses and promise jobs to students
who finish successfully. Late bloomers can go on to get their associate degrees and even transfer to four-year liberal arts universities.

This way we’d provide many young people who cannot or don’t want to pursue a four-year degree with the fundamentals they need to succeed, creating another gateway to the middle class.

Too often in modern America, we equate “equal opportunity” with an opportunity to get a four-year liberal arts degree. It should mean an opportunity to learn what’s necessary to get a good job.

But College isn't just to get a job

Making College Pay - NYTimes.com

It seems logical: College graduates have lower unemployment and earn more than less educated workers, so, the thinking goes, the fix for today’s anemic growth in jobs and wages is to make sure that more people earn college degrees. But that’s a common  mis-perception, deflecting attention from the serious work that has to be done to create jobs and improve incomes.

Demanding More From College - NYTimes.com

Now more than ever, college needs to be an expansive adventure, yanking students toward unfamiliar horizons and untested identities rather than indulging and flattering who and where they already are. And students need to insist on that, taking control of all facets of their college experience and making it as eclectic as possible.

It could mean a better future — for all of us. And there’s no debate that college should be a path to that.

College is still well worthwhile for those who fit

Why You Should Go to College | Brookings Institution

“In most respects,” The Hamilton Project has found, “a college degree has never been more valuable.” Even with rising tuition costs (which as scholars have also pointed out are not borne in full by many students), “the bottom line is this: while college may be 50 percent more expensive now than it was 30 years ago, the increase to lifetime earnings that a college degree brings is 75 percent higher. In short, the cost of college is growing, but the benefits of college—and, by extension, the cost of not going to college—are growing even faster.”

College is Not a Ludicrous Waste of Money | Brookings Institution

There are many good reasons to be disappointed with the current state of the job market. Americans with just a high school diploma have a lot more reasons for discontent than those who have graduated from college, however. The big current payoff from a college degree is not due to the soaring prospects of the average college grad. It is due instead to the worsening prospects facing youngsters who fail to enroll in or complete college.

College Is Not a Ludicrous Waste of Money | RealClearMarkets

 With steadily higher tuition and stagnant or even declining wages for new college graduates, how can it be that the economic return to college may be near an all-time high? The simple explanation is that the prospects for twenty-somethings who do not complete college are much worse than those of the ones who do. What is more, the economic prospects of the young adults who do not complete college have worsened
over time, and much faster than the prospects facing new college grads.

2014 Faculty Convocation- Garanzini speech.pdf

Frank Bruni, in the New York Times editorial section, began his piece with the line. “I am beginning to think that college exists mainly sothat we can debate and deconstruct it.” Among the more severe attacks he cited was a recent piece by Robert Reich, President Clinton’s labor secretary. His criticisms of the cost and use fullness of a liberal arts education were so caustic that Salon’s headline read: “College is a ludicrous waste of money. ”You may also have read or heard about a recent report from two sociologists, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, called “Aspiring Adults Adrift.” These authors claim that fully two-thirds of college graduates are still depending on their parents to support them two years after graduation. (Pretty soon, we’re going to feel that people don’t like us any more!)