Is it more costly to go to college than drop out?

Question

In a world filled with low grade service jobs, is a college mis-education really all that valuable?

Yeah, I know the corporations claim to demand it. But by thirty, you are leveraged out of the workforce to low pay jobs anyway... and the truly bright and creative are squeezed out of business to make room for the privileged and the *** kissers.

Maybe at this point college education is just another corporate and bank scam.

I meet college grads every day who are dumber than piles of hay. And I see plenty of wealthy and successful people who came from behind in this regard.

Is it just another feature in our class fractured society?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070930/student_loans_the_spiral.html?.v=3

worker bee, as usual gets it. The business policies of the land have utterly killed the value of your degree. That combined with the usurous price of the mediocre education, the usurous rates of the loans, and, oh yes, did I mention the mediocre levels of the education derived, have made this a product without much value.

I worked for ten years with a guy who has a very expensive education. I have no such thing. I floated his company for ten years, but when he dumped me in a greedy fit, I took all the truly skilled workers with me (many of whom had no particular degrees to brag about), and his high priced education did not save him from his own ignorant ideas, and his company went through the floor.

In the end, he tried to rape the brains of kids who were struggling with their college debts. He underpaid them and never ever came through on his end of continued training, because it saved him money.

The justice is, he ended up sad, despised and bankrupt. His greed, his loss. Justice.

Answer 1

I think it depends on the degree you get. But honestly I still remember all the talk about getting a high tech education. In the end outsourcing killed many of the jobs that these people were promised.

Answer 2

One could make the same arguments about a high school diploma, a master's degree, or even a doctorate.

While it's very likely that there are indeed some people with degrees who are dumber than a bag of rocks (I know some); statistical research is pretty clear on this topic. The higher your education, the more you earn, on average.

It's that "on average" thing that messes some people up. Some of those people are making massive big bucks and some are making near nothing. But, on average, the higher your education the more you make. It's been that way since, forever...

We can point to exceptions and aberrations and say things like "Bill Gates didn't graduate from college and he's rich" but we have to remember that most of us are not Bill Gates. Most of us aren't destined for homelessness either - we're average American and that rule of the averages applies to us.

I think you've made an observation here that is worth not missing. 50 years ago about half the population had a high school diploma and that credential was sufficient to enter middle class. These days, almost everyone has a HS diploma and the number with a bachelor's degree is climbing rapidly such that a bachelor's degree is needed to enter the middle class and a high school diploma is nearly insufficient to gain employment.

The professions that people entered with just a bachelor's degree 50 years ago now are requiring a master's or more. To compete today, you need a graduate degree. That's just the way it is. And without talent, even a graduate degree isn't going to help the bag of rocks folks.

Maybe the mis-education has to do with the prevalent idea that degree title needs to equal job title thereby making many people's college "education" nothing more than "vocational training". I've observed that liberal arts grads (while paid less initially) earn more over time because the liberal arts education never outdates.

The ROI on a college education at all levels is still a better return on average than any other investment available.

Just my opinion and observation, for what it's worth.

Answer 3

well you make a point the value in college has lowered a good amount since
A) it costs so much to go
B) everyone goes to college now to get a low paying entry level job then works there way up.

to this there are many answers... For one dropping out is not the answer once you've went for a year or two or three finish dropping out is a huge waste of money.

Now whether to go or not? It depends what exactly you want to do with your life. It's something we ask kids and they think they no but they don't, it's why half of the kids that do go to college switch majors then once they graduate many of them move to fields that have little to do with what they studied. There's a lot of value to getting a degree if you use it correctly. But if you don't leverage it to your advantage than you're right you're just putting yourself in huge amounts of debt for nothing. It depends on the person, if you never plan to own your own business and plan on working for somebody forever college is pretty necessary because higher ups will look down on you forever. Really nowadays you have to evaluate on a situation by situation basis whether college is necessary. College is no longer one size fits all in our society.


Though I still think I'd recommend some form of post highschool education to most members of our society. But a four year school isn't the answer for everyone.

Answer 4

it will be expensive in college but on the long run you will save more and will be able to pay off your debt because since you go to college you will have a better chance to get a good job as you know lol so in the long run droping out will cause alot of struggles