Beyond the Numbers: The True Value of a College Education
As a junior in high school, I took a Myers-Briggs career indicator test, which matched aptitudes and interests to possible career paths. Counselors used them, still do, by linking aptitude and personality inclinations to direct students toward major courses of study in college or to apprenticeships in technical schools. Nice boost for student development, right? Such aptitude and personality tests are used to filter career paths for a student who has no vocation in mind.
Without remembering details, I vaguely recall the findings on my test suggested I would be well suited using verbal abilities (radio announcer, preacher, journalist, technical writer, et cetera). In some ways, the analysis underscored what I already knew, suggested I liked what I liked. Though such results may be obvious, sometimes we need to be reminded what we favor, what we don’t. In my case, I didn’t need a nudge toward anything because I found satisfaction in doing lots of different activities.
I never had a problem finding work that I enjoyed. Though I did not follow directly the suggestions put to me in that aptitude test, I always landed on my feet doing what I enjoyed: waiting tables, messengering, delivering flowers, selling eggs, freelancing, hard labor, reporting, and teaching.
Financial Considerations and Misconceptions
Those obsessed with bottom lines and financial spreadsheets have recently underscored the notion that the value of a college education can be expressed as a math problem. Bottom line thinking wins the day. How much time and money does getting a college education cost? Got it. Okay, now figure how much money one may earn opting not to go to college? Let’s do the math. Say you spend 200,000 dollars and four years getting a degree in social psychology at a respected university. Now how much might you earn if you opted to go to a trade school or simply took a job out of high school? Time and money. Work the figures and you’ll find, as most career counselors claim, the gap is closing. A young person might be smart to choose a short span in a technical school to learn wielding rather than opting for a four-year stint learning core requisites in a university. Then, too, we witness an entrepreneur mounting a start-up enterprise, someone who chose to start a business right out of high school and soon became hugely wealthy. It happens. A life, however, is far more than wealth and fame. Equating one’s purpose in life to a figure at the bottom of a spreadsheet reduces one’s post high school life to a number rather than a passion.
We have always believed a college education paid off in the long run. Now we discover the gap is tightening, and in some outlier cases, the financially enriching choice turns out to be opting for a future without a college degree. So be it. But even with the bottom line favoring a college graduate earning more over a lifetime than the person choosing no college at all, so much of the discussion lies with money, and only money. The smarties often figure money isn’t everything—it’s the only thing.
More Than Just Money
Well, that’s wrong, isn’t it? Distilling a college education versus no college education to one and only one outcome—lifetime wealth—serves only a small dimension in measuring a young person’s value. The question repeated so often: Is a college education worth it? How much does it cost? How much will a graduate earn? True, expenses for college have recently increased at inflationary rates, and fresh graduates, especially those with large student loans, have found tight job markets and difficulty in justifying their choice in choosing college education over skipping higher education altogether. But there, too, the measuring scale comes down to money spent and money earned.
Personal Growth and Fulfillment
Counselling a student to grow beyond high school development ought not be solely a job training decision. Schooling ought to be more than preparation for a job. How about life training? What about one’s interests and personal fulfillments? The value of a college education cannot be equated merely to dollars and cents.
Following Interests Over Expectations
An acquaintance of mine recently quit his job as a primary care physician to start his own lawn care business. He told me that he became a doctor because his parents were doctors, and they wanted him to become one as well. So, of course, he did four years bachelor’s degree, four years medical school degree to reach his goal (or his parents’ goal), and then three or four more years of residency training. After all those years and training, he confessed he didn’t like medicine. He didn’t appreciate the pressure, the time away from home and family, the liabilities and legalities. So, he quit and started a business he could enjoy, working outdoors and as his own boss. He spent years of his life pursuing a dream and a good paying job that he neither desired nor enjoyed.
Going to college should be an experience of discovery, not job training. It should expand one’s potential intellectually, socially, and ethically. It should teach independence and understanding of global issues.
Think of it this way. Say, every young person left school without the need to earn lots of money. Every young person could choose what to do with his or her days. What would the occupation become? How should one spend a life?