“I have to go to college.”
“Why?”
“It’s what you do after high school.”
Orange County 2002
The idea is ingrained in our pop culture. Parents, teachers, high school guidance counselors, financial aid officers, and students all understand that if a high school graduate wants to achieve success she will have to go to college. This is the conventional wisdom. Thirty years ago it was true. Today the conventional wisdom is wrong. College is not for everyone.
Of every four students enrolling in college only one will graduate and get a good job. The other three are just wasting time and money. This amounts to billions of dollars and millions of man hours squandered every year. Our government and the universities blissfully ignore this fact. The government’s unwritten policy is, “college is for everyone regardless of cost.” They provide “free” money in the form of loans to anyone who applies without any concern about the borrower’s ability to repay. The university administrators live a posh lifestyle and have little or no concern about operating costs. They understand that they can raise tuition every year and, if the students fall short financially, there is always that government money to fill the gap. Even better the administrators get paid whether or not their students learn, graduate, or get a job.
It didn’t use to be this way. Millions of jobs have just disappeared from the American landscape–particularly the good jobs. Competition for the remaining good jobs is intense and global now. The return on investment calculation for a college education has been invariably altered by the ever escalating costs. And, lastly, the college education of today doesn’t compare with the product of thirty years ago.
In addition to the risk of investing lots of time and money into a college education and not getting a well paying job there is another danger. Seventy percent of college students take out student loans. Many of these students, whether or not they graduate, or whether or not they get one of those elusive “good jobs,” may well end up in trouble financially. This trouble can vary from being under monetary pressure for years to being fiscally ruined. Everyone has read the student loan “horror stories.”
The decision of what you will do after high school marks a critical stage of your life. For a high school graduate to enroll in college is a risky business. Paraphrasing an old proverb, “the wise man carefully considers his next step.”
