Is College "Worth It?"

In a recent article by Jeffery J. Selingo, written in the Wall Street Journal (April 30, 2013), the idea of whether or not college is “worth it” is discussed in “The Diploma’s Vanishing Value.” Mr. Selingo wrote:

“With unemployment among college graduates at historic highs and outstanding student-loan debt at $1 trillion, the question families should be asking is whether it's worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for a degree from Podunk U. if it's just a ticket to a barista's job at Starbucks. When it comes to calculating the return on your investment, where you go to school does matter to your bank account later in life.”

Calculating the true value of college should take into account more than career earnings. © Can Stock Photo Inc. / jeremywhat

I submit that there are several “investments” one makes in college. Your bank account is but one. More on that later. He went on to say:

“Not surprisingly, research has found that a degree from a name-brand elite college, whether it's Harvard, Stanford or Amherst, carries a premium for earnings. But the 50 wealthiest and most selective colleges and universities in the U.S. enroll less than 4% of students. For everyone else, the statistics show that choosing just any college, at any cost for a credential, may no longer be worth it.”

Not worth it?

* * sigh * *

Here we go again. Right in that current lock-step era of “what will I get for my efforts?” If I work this hard and walk through the maze and then pull the lever, the cheese will come down right? Right into my eager little paw right?

Oh American politics – what you’ve done to our mindset! Does anyone see beyond the guaranteed payoff and/or the immediate gratification anymore and invest themselves in plain simple issues of integrity? Good things sometimes take time to evolve and develop. Is the only reason you go to college about monetary compensation?

I grant you college degrees are not for everyone. I further honor and respect people of the trades and labor positions. Heck, my carpenter father-in-law and steel mill, barber grandfathers are three of the most honorable, inventive people I ever knew. My best buddy the blacksmith, my bricklaying uncles, my pizza-making cousin; all are wonderful, hard-working, dedicated people who raise solid families and lack nothing in the thinking department. They didn’t go to college and that’s just fine.

But……

But when you have the smarts, skills, opportunity AND DESIRE to get through college, no matter how you do it, there is value there that extends way beyond your bank account. And I don’t for a second believe it has to be a Yale or Harvard type of situation for success. The measure of a man comes from the way he expresses what’s within and the priorities he sets for himself going forward. The way he respects others and carries himself requires no education at all other than the school of hard knocks. In fact, give me a city college kid that is putting himself through school as opposed to an Ivy Leaguer who’s riding his parent’s bank account right into his silver spoon future any day. You want to tell me the former hasn’t already learned a lot more than the latter? The fact is there are some harsh realities in the adult, post-college world that you may be a heck of a lot more prepared for if you did your college time and did it well.

Yeah that sounds like a prison term and that’s exactly what it will turn into if you just sit there for 4 (or 5 or 6 or 7 these days) years until college is over. But others may have caught on and realize they have more opportunities with an education than without. This is not exclusive to job advancement. It has to do with your walk through life. College affords a young person the opportunity to try things out, to see what fits, to make mistakes and reinvent themselves. It is a time of discovery and self-actualization. Personally I think “going away” to college is very important too. Although harder and harder to afford, that break from home is a real test of maturity. I recall my first dormitory was loaded to the gills with kids stuffed into rooms and even study halls that September. I mentioned to one of the floor counselors that it looked like overcrowding. He said, “Wait a month or two.” Sure enough all the homesick people, the party-too-hard people, the I-can’t-be responsible-for-myself people were all heading home by Thanksgiving. They weeded themselves out and provided the first measure of their adulthood. “NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.”

Then there were the people who just went to class, hurried back to the dorm, turned on the TV, ate at the same time every day and wrapped it up in 4 years without ever meeting anyone, trying anything new, learning about other people. Should have stayed home and got an online degree. Their future was already being experienced. Nothing wrong with it but the implications were huge. I mean college is the absolute litmus test for the future. What kind of person will I become? Likely a version of the one I am learning I am now; away from mom and dad and teachers that say, “Don’t forget – there’s a test tomorrow.”

There are other factors. The technology of today is changing by the hour. Do you think you can get away with not learning how to use some of these tools in the next few decades? A college education teaches you how to learn, how to break large concepts down into smaller ones and achieve results.

Children are learning things today that college kids were learning 15 years ago. How far ahead of you do you want your children to be? Sure they will motor right past you as they learn the newest gadgets of this modern time, but don’t you think you’d like to have a basic grip on some of this before they just talk around you because you just “don’t get it?” And please understand I am not saying to put in time for a college degree just so your kids and peers don’t get a leg up on you it is merely this. There was a time when a man with an education stood for something. He had studied and achieved something unique that he would soon be sharing with the world. Just like the kids in the neighborhood would ask Billy’s dad, the mechanic, to fix their bike, kids in my neighborhood asked Mr. Livengood, the teacher, about history, Mr. Theibolt, the naturalist, about birds and squirrels and Mrs. C, from the conservatory, about music. They had studied. They had learned and they had skills that people recognized.

No college degree will ever replace the need for common sense or clear thinking, but there is honor to mastering any skill and for those who cannot craft steel, build homes or chase the bad guys, an education helps a man/woman find their place and legitimize their lives.

Yeah, no doubt, it’s worth it.

Ron Ciancutti is the Purchasing Manager for Cleveland Metroparks. He is not on Facebook, but he can be reached at rdc@clevelandmetroparks.com.