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Agreed.

After all you've been through, you should finish! As my dad once told me, "It's something no one can ever take away from you." Even though you've been through hell and back, you'll be proud of yourself for finishing, if nothing else. Plus, you never know when that piece of paper will come in handy. I am very glad I have mine, even though I currently stay at home to raise my kids. I can always use it in the future.

College = get laid...often.

There's a lot here that can't be addressed in one, short comment. For example, is the purpose of college to prepare you for a career or to prepare you to think critically, etc? In America, college used to be for the later. Now, it is more focused on the former. As a result, fewer and fewer people are entering the the trades. Why not become a plumber, carpenter, etc?

After many, many years of education and a number of years teaching undergrad and grad school, my recommendation is that you don't bother finishing unless you know your specific path and you know it will lead to worthwhile employment.

Regarding writing skills, most of my adult graduate students can't write. Both high schools and undergrad programs are failing in this area.

As soon as I left my earlier comment, I received a memo from a highly educated colleague that was filled with typos. I shouldn't have generalized so much in my post, and I apologize for that.

I didn't intend to come across as hostile, I am just telling it like it is in the workplace.

The attitude in the workplace of "educated only" was made by the educated, and you can either choose to join them, or sit back and continue to complain about how others perceive you. I believe we are all given the same 24 hours in a day, and it is up to the individual to choose what to do with those hours. Some people choose to persevere and make the most of themselves, and college is the first place to do that. Julia, it's never too late to go back to college and make positive changes for yourself.

For more insights and wisdom on the workplace, please stop by my blog :)

I think the biggest problem you allude to in this post is the lack of guidance you were given as an undergrad. If you were given the resources to figure out what you were best interested and suited for, you would not have wasted time and money on majors that didn't mean anything to you and ultimately dissuaded you from continuing on to get your degree.
As a current undergrad myself, I deal with questions like these every day: did I choose the right major? Am I in the best place I could be? Am I wasting my time and money? Luckily for me, for the most part I believe I am getting a fantastic education I wouldn't trade for anything. I have found that the experience of college is irreplaceable: the organizations, meeting with professors, having the advisers to guide me through everything has been the most valuable and worth every penny that has been spent. These aren't lessons I'll just use in my career, they are also ones I will be using throughout my life. Not to mention I am very interested in all my classes.
I also think that this is a good time to mention the benefits of a quality liberal arts education. My school has a great core curriculum that encouraged me to take classes in all disciplines while still working toward graduation. I have gotten to take some pretty random classes without ever wasting time or money.
However, I say all this as a very optimistic sophomore in college who was lucky enough to know what she wanted to do and have the opportunity to be at the right school. I think the bigger problem, which you talk about, is the insane expense of school today. If I hadn't been able to afford college, I would be a drastically different person. I am very thankful I can afford it, but I am aware that many, many people cannot, which I think is a huge failure of the system. Everyone should be given the opportunity to gain higher education without worrying about going into thousands of dollars of debt and making sure they are majoring in something that will put them in a corner office (whether that's what they want or not).

I have an advanced degree and a daughter attending Brown, yet I agree with a lot of what you have to say. There is much wrong with college education today. It's too expensive and too many kids are going to college and coming out without any marketable skills. Only 2 areas of our economy have not benefited from any productivity gains in the last 20 years and that's higher education and health care. Something is wrong.

In a world in which the body of knowledge doubles every ___years it's just-in-time knowledge that matters now. In other words, you have to know how to learn on your own. The vast majority of what I know today I learned after I graduated from college. College is becoming obsolete - at least in the traditional sense. If you want to thrive in this world you better know how to do a Google search and figure out what you need to know by 8 AM tomorrow morning so you can apply it.

Let me give you a perfect example. Search engine optimization didn't exist 10 years ago. Neither did social media. Yet anyone in business today had to learn how to apply that stuff and there is a 95% chance they didn't learn it in school.

I agree with this 100 percent. I work in public relations, and while my undergrad classes (in Communication) certainly taught me how to write and think critically (among other things), the internet has greatly changed how we communicate. I could take a class on Online Communication (in fact, I did as an undergrad), but it changes so fast that whatever I learn will be obsolete in a year or less. But the fact that I know how to find information online, and I keep up with the changes by following industry experts (usually through their blogs) has given me very marketable skills that make me stand out from my peers, all of whom have virtually the same degree I do.

I

Julia, I wonder if it might be a better plan to focus on getting a certificate in the skills you need, rather than getting a degree. That way you have a piece of paper to prove the skills that you actually need for your line of work, and don't spend money (and time) on classes that are more or less useless.

I've been thinking about getting my masters degree, but with all the student loan debt my husband and I have, the thought of taking on more debt is downright scary. So I've been looking at graduate certificate programs to see if that is a better option for me right now.

True. But, she's just two classes away.........

All you people are taking life way too seriously

A degree doesn't mean necessarily mean that someone is smarter than someone who doesn't have a degree. However, a degree does prove that someone was able to absorb material and process it. Without that degree, you can't prove that are able to do that, and it makes more sense for employers to gamble on someone with that proof than it does on someone without it.

I'm a recruiter. I work in the food industry. I spent 30 years as a very successful salesperson in the industry.

From my biased perspective

- Colleges and universities are probably one of the most deceptive groups when it comes to the values of their degrees. Unless you are pursuing a degree in history to teach, or something very closely aligned to that, your degree in history isn't going to do much for you in the business world. Colleges and universities do NOT tell their students this. They gloss over it by telling students that college graduates make $XXXX.XX more than high school graduates over their lifetime.
- I was lucky. When I finished my dual major (Chem.&Bio.) at U of I, I had no debt because I had the GI Bill. Seeing nephews and nieces coming out of schools with debts in the tens of thousands of dollars I truly feel sorry for them.
- The job market is horrible and isn't going to get any better in the near future. Unless you feel that you're going to significantly increase your chances at getting a job by staying in school, or going back to school, I suggest that you re-think that idea. To spend another year or two in school is one thing. To be adding up more debt with student loans while you're doing that does not make a lot of sense. Even if you're working at Starbucks.
- Again, very biased opinion. Colleges and universities don't need to turn out everyone with business degrees, etc. but their systems only allow so many students to enter into those majors. Add to that the fact that students can only get so many of their needed courses due to the college's scheduling. Sorry, but supply and demand in the real world needs to temper all of these degrees in history, art, 3rd century literature, etc.

A good friend of mine will disagree with you. She works in IT project management, having majored in history and political science. Her first job out of college was with a tech company, which wanted non-tech people to test their software. The company specifically wanted people in English, economics, policital science, and such, because computer science majors don't think like the typical consumer buying software for a Mac or PC.

As was stressed to her by her alma mater, a small liberal arts college, a liberal arts degree will teach you how to think. If you can think rationally and logically, you can do anything.

I know a number of people who went to small liberal arts colleges (as well as a few Big State Us) who are in very successful careers that have nothing to do with their degrees.

ckfred,

Let's see you have a friend and you know a few people. Okay, I'll buy that.

Now.

Would you like to guess how many people who have just graduated, or will be graduating in the near future that I see in a week? These days it's probably close to 200 a week.

I'll admit that we are slanted because we handle a lot of science (read food related) tech jobs. But, we also get tons of jobs for sales types, manufacturing types. We dabble in IT for the food industry.

The number of companies in the food industry who would ask for someone with a degree in English, economics or political science for their IT department is next to zero.

I have a degree with two majors. I understand the concept of teaching people to think. Coming out of college with $80,000.00 in debt also makes you think.

Five years ago a degree in a non-business or non-tech area, might have made the difference between getting a decent job, or not. In today's market it makes little to no difference.

And I know tons of people my age who are doing very well outside the area of their college degree. Not today.

I see this post went away, so I am re-posting it. I saved all my posts, at least the long ones. One of my good work habits. :-)
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I’m so excited by all this discussion! Thanks everyone for your posts! (can you tell I’ve never done this before?) :-)

OfficeOracle, thanks for your apology. I apologize for including you in my “hostility” comment. I shouldn’t have.

I appreciate your encouragement, but I still see some bias here. Is my only option to join the people who set the standard, even though I don’t agree with it? Am I, and the many others without degrees, not allowed to make a decent living without doing that? What if that life would make me miserable and I don’t want to live that way?

Is the only way to “make the most of myself” by getting a degree? What if it’s not? What if in fact the way to make the most of myself is to have the activities and relationships for which I would not have time if I spent all my free time for the next 5 years finishing the degree? In that case I would miss out on the right life path. And the stress would age me 10 years or more and I would be miserable. School has been mostly a nightmare since kindergarten, and I get stressed just thinking about going back. :p

Then there’s the financial aspect also – I’m still paying my loans from before. Is it a smart financial decision to go further into debt to get a degree that might not help? Would Suze Orman like to give her opinion on this?

Karis raises a good point that college might be considered preparation for the corner office. I don’t want that office. People at that level work around the clock 24/7 and deal with a stress level I couldn’t handle. I like being an assistant, and all I want is enough money and control over my life to be comfortable. I tried trade work when I was young, but I’m not especially good at it. My talents happen to fit office work. I’ve never wanted the corner office or millions of dollars.

Gary makes the point that the most important skill is being able to learn on the job. I’ve learned much of what I know on the job, including my advanced computer skills, analytical skills, and internet research skills.

It’s interesting that most of Lisa V.’s students can’t write. My brother and I are both good writers. We grew up in a houseful of books with the example of reading and the children’s book club, and as a child I read all the books in my grade school library. I remember in sixth grade I was combing the shelves looking for books I hadn’t already read – but I did re-read my favorites several times! Both reading and writing come naturally. Maybe this indicates the best way to learn writing is by practicing, like speaking a language – which is another thing you can’t learn exclusively from college classes. :-)

I was thinking about this comment:

“College is a FOR PROFIT business. Nowhere in a college or university's charter will you ever see anything remotely close to the word "fair" or "free" or "at a reasonable cost." They are there to make profits, and education is a business.”

When I was young I had been taught that college is supposed to educate, and advisors/counselors are supposed to help. I believed this and this is what I expected.

If I had understood this then the way I do now, I certainly would have done things differently! I would have taken my current advice to undergrads: finish as quickly and easily as possible and get out. And still learn all my job skills on the job, like I did anyway! Employers please take note of this!

That’s all I have to say for now. I’m so happy about the way this is going, because my goal was to draw attention to these issues. I hope they will get better now instead of worse. Please feel free to add more comments!

Thank you,
Julia :-)

I'll only tackle your 3rd point.

I went back to school after I had been in the AF '67 to '71.

I was 21 when I went back.

I applied for graduation and was told that I needed one more course by a "counselor". I grabbed the documentation I needed and went back to the "counselor" and eventually to the head of the department and showed them what their various documents said. At that point, I told THEM that unless my degree application was put through, they'd be hearing from my lawyer (who I didn't have).

Funny. Things went right through after that.

These folks aren't gods. In a huge majority of cases, they're paperwork shufflers with an oversized view of their authority.

First of all, there are jobs that require a degree, such as accounting. If you don't have a bachelor's degree, you can't sit for the CPA exam. If you don't have a degree in educaiton, you can't teach in any elementary or high school, public or private.

Second, to get any kind of an advanced degree, you have to have a bachelor's, whether it's a law degree, medical degree, or a master of divinity.

Third, many large corporations will only promote you so far, before you stall out, unless you have a college degree. Granted, Bill Gates quit Harvard, because it was interfering with his starting Microsoft. But there is a perception that if you want to supervise people at a higher level of management, you need a degree.

As for the idea that colleges are trying to screw you, read the academic guidebook. I knew exactly how many classes I needed for my major, as well as the number of classes in science, social science, and humanities, along with classes that fulfilled the writing requirement. In fact, I had my class schedule loosely mapped out before the first day of my freshman year. Obviously, the schedule was revised some, as some professors only teach a class once every other year, rather than every semester.

Even if your college work doesn't help you on the job, it just helps you understand things better. Whenever someone brings up the Great Depression, I always wind up quoting my professor how taught U.S. History, 1933-present. Having taken economics classes, I can make sense of what Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanckie say, when they testify before Congress or give a speech. My religion class has come in handy, when I've gotten into arguments about Luther and Calvin.

Making sense of Greenspan or getting into arguments about Luther doesn't get you a job.

BTW. Some time we can discuss pre-destination and whether you should then bother to worry about anything.

Colleges trying to screw you.

Don't know what your major is and if you work in that area, or not.

DID your college talk to you at all about what your options are with your degree once your finish? It's great if you've got your CPA. How many times do you think colleges tell incoming freshman that their degree in ancient Roman languages isn't going to do them a lot of good if their plans are to run a manufacturing plant.

I agree with Jonathon. What I find most interesting is the people who complain the most and loudest about the worthlessness of college degrees, are usually the ones that do not have one....

I have a bachelors, and I am well aware that in order to get the job I want in my field I will someday have to get a masters. If you don't like the rules, you can't play the game.

I have never commented on a blog before, but this one really got under my skin for some reason, and here is why:

1. I have never even heard of this "problem" and I have never heard of this "myth" about college. I see you haven't cited any sources for your myth, so I will just assume that this is completely your perception of the world, which I vehemently disagree with. Just because you are having a hard time finding a job without a degree, doesn't make the degree any less valuable. There is no myth. There is no perception. Plain and simple; a person with a degree has more opportunities. Think about it. No one goes to college with the unrealistic expectations you think they have. A degree doesn't "automatically" make someone a better employee, but it PROBABLY does. You aren't "automatically" a better person, but you PROBABLY are better then before you had a degree. You proved you could meet deadlines, follow instructions, work in groups, HAVE PERSEVERANCE, articulate your thoughts and other functions which are vital for anyone looking to serve a meaningful role in the corporate world.

2. You mention colleges promote degrees and careers that are unattainable. Like Jonathon says, college is a for profit business. It appears you are blaming the different colleges you went to for your lack of direction. You ultimately make your own decisions. You mention you went to different colleges and had a hard time transferring credits, well excuse me for not shedding a tear. If you knew you were indecisive and didn't know what career you wanted to chose, then you should have bowed out gracefully and took some time to figure out the career you wanted. No one would have faulted you for that. I admit I am a little confused about how you calculated your hours, and how after 94 credit hours you had no degree. Correct me if I am wrong, BUT classes usually are 3 credits, and if you take 94 credits, divided by 3, you get 31.3-- which means you took 31.3 classes. Most students take 15 credit hours per semester, so 94 divided by 15, gives you 6.2 semesters (full time) of college, which roughly equals 3 years of college. How you couldn't manage to get an associate degree with that many credits is confusing to me.

3. You say colleges use "unethical" practices to get students to pay tuition and that your adviser lied to you about what you needed to graduate. I know for a fact when I was in school I checked and double checked around 4 times to make sure I was graduating on time, because of stories like this. I did my research though and never relied on others to tell me what I can easily find out myself. You said "I cried for hours, but he did nothing to help." Well, that is usually the case.

4. I have many successful friends who I went to college with, none of whom required a lawyer on retainer to help them complete their undergrad.

5. "Then there was the teacher who worked for 11 years on his master's degree while teaching full-time and raising a family - and as he was finishing up the college told him he had to take his first class again!" 11 years to finish a masters degree is a really, really long time, considering it takes most people two years. I get the whole working, raising a family, etc, but ELEVEN YEARS? That is like half a class a year. What probably happened is by the time he went to graduate, the degree he was seeking had some changes to the requirements. (Not at all uncommon) By taking a masters program you are becoming a master in your industry. I doubt a class you would take ten years ago holds much weight now..curriculum change, industries change, etc.

6. I feel really bad for your business owner friend who is constantly harassed by someone trying to sell her education. I am sure, as any business owner, she has fielded many, many sales calls in her career. Telling an admission adviser you aren't interested is certainly not the end of the world and not even noteworthy.

7. Your best reasons for going to college are the reasons why you SHOULD NOT go to college. "If you are young and your parents are supporting you in going to college. In this case, get your degree in something you enjoy as quickly and easily as you can and get out." What you are saying is it's perfectly okay to be loose with your parent's money, but not your own. Good one.

8. "I refuse to spend the rest of my life and all my money in college to satisfy the standards of people who will never consider me valuable no matter what I do." Will you please make up your mind? I thought you were arguing that you are worthless to employers because you don't have a degree, but now you say you will never be valuable. You confused me here. And if you thought it wouldn't help you get a better job, why on earth would you go back to finish your degree?

9. I manage the human resource function for a small business and I do all of the hiring. Yes college degrees are important. Whoever got you thinking otherwise is a moron. Does requiring a college degree automatically exclude some candidates? of course. Is having a degree ever a deal breaker? Maybe. Instead of whining about how you can't find a job because you don't have a degree, maybe you should get one. If you want to stand up for something, try a different topic, because the 'being pressured by society to go to college' topic is pretty irritating. Again, to cite Jonathon, you are exactly the type of employee who I would not want at my company.

I wrote a 12 page report on this very subject, so to try and sum it up in a few lines is nearly impossible. I

You bring up a good point. For a lot of people, just the experience of college is as valuable as the degree. I learned a lot of things in college (in and out of the classroom) that didn't help me with my job search, but made me a better person. Although I am really luckily in that I am working at a job that is exactly what my degree prepared me for (work in PR, majored in Communication).

Plus college was the best four years of my life (now I'm showing my privilege). It's the only time when you're old enough to enjoy being an adult, but without all the responsibilities. Never again in my life will my #1 priority be studying, my #2 priority be having fun and my #3 priority be paying bills. (If it even ranked that high.)

Thanks everyone for your posts. This is so interesting!

Just to clarify, I was told I was two classes away from an Associate

Let's put this in a different light. I'll use a business analogy.

Return on investment.

If your primary purpose of going to college is to get a better job, then you need to ask yourself what your ROI is going to be.

Some jobs, as in 99% of the ones that I deal with, require a minimum of a BS degree. If that degree is closely related to what you want to do, the more likely you'll get that beginning job.

If your intention is to follow your life's passion, then that's a totally different issue.

Since I'm 63, and my degree was paid for by the GI Bill, I don't know what a real number is for the amount of debt that a typical college student accumulates before they get done. You need to quadruple that amount (minimum) by the time you get done paying off those student loans.

Just a different perspective.

If someone wants to follow their life's passion and that passion is not something that is likely to lead to a good job, there are other ways to do it without going into debt.

1. They could volunteer in it
2. They could get an entry-level staff job in it
3. They could take relatively inexpensive classes at the community or state college as they can afford them. This may be slow, but they avoid the debt issue and still get the education they want.
4. If an organization they can work with doesn't exist, they could start one.
5. If it's an art thing, they can do their own projects independently. I recently read an article about a famous artist who has no education at all, he can't even read or write!

Now that I'm mature enough to understand these financial things, I would never advise someone to go into debt for college unless it is very likely to lead to a job which will enable them to pay off the loans. For example: doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, teacher...

BTW, I've been getting interviews with temporary agencies and I might get a temp-to-perm position soon. Some employers do appreciate my skills. :-)

Julia

Perhaps this person is unable to find a position due to her terrible grammar. This article is full of glaring errors. If she decides to return to school, a basic writing class is in order.

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for the excellent discussion on this thread! :-) If anyone is interested in further reading, I received some links:

Educated, Unemployed and Frustrated
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/opinion/21klein.html?_r=1

These are from a blog by an economist called Atrios. Be careful, his new blog program is a little buggy.

Against College
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2011/03/against-college.html

Cutting Higher Ed
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2011/03/cutting-higher-ed.html

Enjoy,
Julia

Here is another one about law schools and the unrealistically rosy picture they paint of the job prospects of a graduate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html

For further reading, Time magazine has an article in its May 9 hard copy issue about the deceptive practices for-profit colleges use to get students to take out loans. Unfortunately, only the first paragraph is available online or on ipad, but here is the link

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2068085,00.html

I hope when Senator Harkin is done investigating for-profit colleges he will do the same with not-for-profit ones.

Thank God somebody said what you did. I was dying throughout the entire college pity party.