Can You Relate?
3 real reasons college is a bad investment...
Are you not thriving in college? Maybe you are doing okay but it feels like such an uphill battle. Does it feel like you're put in a box, and there are no other options? It was expected of you to go to college by your parents/family, and after all you didn't really have any other options. You gather at the holidays and everyone can't wait to hear about how it's going, and when you're going to be a ____. You in turn get to tell them how much you aren't enjoying it, and how it really sucks... or you just fake through it with a "yeah, it's good..." If you're done with school, great, is the new job everything you've wanted it to be?
It wasn't long ago that young adults were sent to college for the purpose of becoming educated, and socially aware members of society. The overarching goal was the learning process itself and taking in beneficial knowledge. BUT, something changed.
Few are looking past the temporary issues and discerning that a complete uprooting of the formal educational system is needed.
Here are real reasons why college is a bad investment:
- It's debatable whether colleges even offer valuable information anymore.
The course hours a students invests in a degree is divided into thirds: major-specific courses, mandatory courses and electives. For the major-specific third, courses are based on information required to prepare you for a career in that field. Those courses are offered later on in your college curriculum (no wonder students change their major for an minimum of 3 times). Outside of a job context, the information has little value. "You can find offerings on everything from insect anatomy to dinosaur history. And while taking that Web design class is probably the most productive thing you'll do in school, it's going to be difficult demonstrating how your History of Rock and Roll elective has transformed you into a more valuable member of society" (Life). Choir was one of my favorite things in my college career, singing and making music with friends, but sadly that too is hard to argue that it makes me a more valuable member of society.
The final, mandatory third is composed of the courses your institution requires all graduates to complete. This is where the bulk of your educational value is supposed to be derived. With everything in life, follow the money. These courses are no longer the breadwinners for their universities. Most of them are taught by graduate students, and if you're lucky enough to get an actual professor, s/he is likely using the university as a research grant and completely uninterested in being an effective instructor. You will likely end up reading bullet points from a textbook or learning from a powerpoint that was written 10 years ago.
2. The educational value you do receive can easily be acquired elsewhere.
The value of a university lies in the professors. You're paying people to teach you because they have experience, and you don't. If every course was taught by a quality professor, there wouldn't really be a reason for this article. Don't get me wrong, I had great professors, but I also had some that were some of the worst human beings I may ever come in to contact with. For three quarters of the courses I took, not a single piece of beneficial information was provided by instructors that couldn't be found in textbooks. If the professors aren't providing the educational value, there is none, because everything else can be acquired via the textbooks or with a simple online search. I can confidently say I have learned more in life by listening to podcasts and watching youtube videos more than anything else. It is one weird digital information era we are living in, and it is leaving us confused.
3. For 90 percent of careers, all required skills are learned on the job.
"We're attending college to get a job, so aren't the major-specific courses worth the expense?"
For a handful of careers, yes. If you plan on going into engineering, public accounting or psychology, those undergraduate courses are essentially required training. For most careers, however, job-related skills are learned through an entry-level position. Ok, is there any reason to get a degree?
For the last few decades, college degrees served as a guarantee for mediocre employees to make middle-class money. But the middle class is on the decline. Those who have acquired and perfected a skill set are rising to the top, while those who put their trust in the pay-to-be-hired system are finding themselves with nowhere to climb. What's more, many people don't end up using the degree they went to school for. I'm one among many.
If you must go to college, there's still a chance at stability with a college degree. The economy will pick back up and more mid-level jobs will open up, and many will fool themselves into thinking the system works until the next downturn, when the value providers will further separate themselves. "Degree holders across the country will watch their savings deteriorate as they wait for the next upswing of mediocre jobs" (Life).
If you don't want that to be you, use your time and money to learn a marketable skill and then spend the rest of your life working at it.
In closing, I wanted to include a small story from a book I'm reading, about a new skill I'm learning more on, that I could have started years ago:
"I grew up in the cotton fields of South Texas in a tin-roofed shack with no running water or electricity. I lost my only brother to suicide at age thirty-three. I worked my way through Junior College in a kitchen cabinet factory and finished my B.S. degree in dental hygiene. I achieved the American dream/nightmare by busting my chops, working with a bunch of neurotic dentists for $50,000 a year. Finally, I realized there had to be a better way. That day in 1988 when I saw Mark Yarnell's video explaining network marketing, I knew my prayers had been answered, and that I would do this business for the rest of my life. Quitting was never an option. Today I have a life about which many people only dream, and I am able to take care of my aging mother who was responsible for giving me the dream to rise above our early situation. I've taken some time to enjoy life and touch other people's lives, while building my business. I am so grateful for having been turned on to this marvelous industry" (Yarnell, 56-57).
Sometimes, climbing out of your circumstances requires you to climb out of your comfort zone. It requires you to keep going when quitting is so much easier. Kathy Coover, Co-founder of a billion dollar company that empowers people everywhere to take control of their lives both physically and financially, has a unique way of looking at things in life. She exclaims "To help me say no to the good, so I have time and energy to say yes to the great, there's a mental checklist I use:
- Does this opportunity fit with my overall life purpose and passion?
- Is it more hassle than it's worth
- Have I gathered all the information I need?
- Could I test it out with a small amount of money and time?
- And most importantly, has someone else done this successfully?"
With this checklist in mind I could have saved lots of time, energy, effort, and money. These are all worthy components to keep in mind before doing something in life. She encourages everyone to "simply start, make mistakes, ask others how to do it better, modify your approach, and keep going" (Coover, 24-25).
If you're in school now but don't know where you're headed, if you're struggling to find a career, if you've worked your way into a job but are unhappy with how it has turned out, or are just looking for something new and exciting, it may be time for a change.
Especially if you:
- Think outside the box
- Value your independence
- Prize practical experience over book smarts
- Love education but not the institution (or workplace)
- Know that success is more than just getting an A
Let's chat. Let's work on your plan to escape the rat race, and work your way towards making a residual income. Let's work on building our way to financial freedom, so we can have more time for the things we love in life.
IG: @huttonwes
(I don't want this to be taken the wrong way and I must say: School is great for certain people. But for most, things are needing to change. Everything is outdated, and technology is changing the way we learn faster than ever before... I'm not sure where things are headed in 5-10 years, but I do know that they are changing. I also don't want to discredit my college degree I'll soon have. Although it took longer than it should have, I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity I had to go to college, and I worked my butt off for it. It was hard not to get senior'itis a second time around, and push through to the end. I kept going because I was close enough to the end, and I had enough support from friends and family. I'm still learning, and always will be, but I'm so thankful network marketing was introduced to me back in September. I'll soon be putting my story out about how it came to be!)
Coover, K. Resilient: Lessons learned, Lives changed. Co-founder of Isagenix International, LLC.
Life, B. (2013, August 12). The Real Reasons College Is a Bad Investment. Retrieved December 06, 2020, from https://www.huffpost.com
Toren, M. (2017, June 30). 5 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Don't Thrive in School. Retrieved December 06, 2020, from https://www.entrepreneur.com
Yarnell, M., & Yarnell, R. R. Ch 3. In Your first year in network marketing: Overcome your fears, experience success, and achieve your dreams. Petaling Jaya: Advantage.