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Higher Education?

Is College worth it?

  • Yes higher education is a must!

    Votes: 10 35.7%
  • No most people got to college to party or put off real work!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Its a great life experience

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • Schools should be focusing a lot more on apprenticeships rather than sending everyone to college

    Votes: 16 57.1%

  • Total voters
    28

Higgins86

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I wanted to get your thoughts on how important you think going to University is?
My wife is about to finish her masters and is hopefully going to get a half decent job too reward her hard work, her coming to a finish as got me thinking should I go and get my degree? I got good grades at school but decided to join the army instead of going to uni, I used my experience in the Army and my good school grades to land myself a pretty decent job. However I feel a lot of pressure to go and get my degree because most of my freinds and peers have theirs and in todays society it is almost expected that you have a degree. I look at a lot of my freinds who have degrees and I would say 70% of them have done nothing with them and it makes me wonder " why all this expectation"?
Is the fact we are almsot forcing out kids to go to college playing a big factor in our ineffective workforce and is it costing us thousands of blue collar jobs? Obviously for some professions you need the degree doctor etc, but are the rest of us going to college for all the wrong reasons?
Your thoughts?
 
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I want to go to college. I want the experience, the maturity that I'll hopefully gain from going. I'm not ready to live on my own yet, and I'm not ready to be completely financially responsible. I also want to be an Engineer, so going to school will be helpful for that lol
 
Interesting that you fail to mention what either you or your wife are majoring in and that you are feeling pressure from your friends and peers. My thoughts are that you go to college for two reasons. To acquire skills that others may find desirable, and therefore you are in demand, or you go to school to learn things you want to learn. The two may or may not be mutually compatible. One of the Occupy Richmond protestors was interviewed and her complaint was that she had graduated college and could not find a job. Her major, Women's studies. OHTH, if you acquire skills in an in demand field, it will most certainly help and may be a requirement. There are still jobs out there where starting pay is in the high five figures and up.
 
Interesting that you fail to mention what either you or your wife are majoring in and that you are feeling pressure from your friends and peers. My thoughts are that you go to college for two reasons. To acquire skills that others may find desirable, and therefore you are in demand, or you go to school to learn things you want to learn. The two may or may not be mutually compatible. One of the Occupy Richmond protestors was interviewed and her complaint was that she had graduated college and could not find a job. Her major, Women's studies. OHTH, if you acquire skills in an in demand field, it will most certainly help and may be a requirement. There are still jobs out there where starting pay is in the high five figures and up.

im not not in college, my wife is majoring in intelligence studies. You cant learn things you want to learn by reading books?
 
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having at least a BA in something, seems to be the minimum requirement for most non-manual jobs in the USA.
 
having at least a BA in something, seems to be the minimum requirement for most non-manual jobs in the USA.


but is that right? Why go and spend 4 years studying history ( for example) and then sit in an office selling insurance for the next years.
 
but is that right? Why go and spend 4 years studying history ( for example) and then sit in an office selling insurance for the next years.

right? what does this have to do with morality?

for many people, having a college degree means that someone is minimally intelligent. and many folks want a minimal amount of intelligence for their workforce.
 
right? what does this have to do with morality?

for many people, having a college degree means that someone is minimally intelligent. and many folks want a minimal amount of intelligence for their workforce.


I think 30 years ago a degree showed intelligence but now with all the community colleges and onlince classes its far to easy to get one to be deemed a sign of intelligence.
 
im not not in college, my wife is majoring in intelligence studies. You cant learn things you want to learn by reading books?

You CAN learn things from reading books...but good luck convincing your first employer of that, unless it's in a field where your skills are easily demonstrable (e.g. web developing). The bachelor's degree is evidence to many employers that you actually learned what you claim you learned, and that you had the perseverance/intelligence to stick it out for four years.
 
but is that right? Why go and spend 4 years studying history ( for example) and then sit in an office selling insurance for the next years.

I can tell you that the postal service does not require college degrees to be successful. The district manager of the Cincinnati District has 13,000 people working under her and she is an immigrant with no degree. IN fact some of the top executives in the area don't have college.

now that is not rule for most management positions but the USPS gives lots of preferences to veterans though I believe you noted you served in the UK?
 
Whether college is worth it or not depends entirely on what one is studying and why he/she wants to study that subject.

If you're someone who believes that knowledge and understanding of the world is more important to a happy life than money and success, then it's worth it. If you're pursuing a major in most maths/science fields, it's worth it if you're earning good grades and can get work/research experience at your university, and still often worth it if you're not and can't. If you're pursuing a major intending to attend a graduate/post-graduate program (law, medicine, etc.) and you're someone actually capable of achieving such a high level degree (meaning you're a nearly straight A student), then it's worth it.

It's certainly less clear in other scenarios, and I suppose whether college is worth it for most depends on whether our job market requires employees to have degrees or not. In my experience, a business that requires employees to have a college degree does so mostly because of a belief that the college educated have a higher quality floor than those with only a GED/high school diploma, not because performing the duties of that employee's job is impossible without a degree. Take a brief glance at our economy and you'll see plenty of successful salespeople/entrepreneurs who never graduated from college, but the perceived risk in hiring someone uneducated means that getting a job is likely much easier with a degree.
 
I can tell you that the postal service does not require college degrees to be successful. The district manager of the Cincinnati District has 13,000 people working under her and she is an immigrant with no degree. IN fact some of the top executives in the area don't have college.

now that is not rule for most management positions but the USPS gives lots of preferences to veterans though I believe you noted you served in the UK?

Yeh British Army but fortunately for me my boss was an US army vet and appreciated my experience and gave me the job. If not for that I think I might of stuggled to get a well paid job and may have been forced into college.
 
University Degrees are a scam, plain and simple. In the US, we've convinced ourselves that getting a Bachelor's Degree is a must if you want to attain success? Really? Define "success". Does this mean making a million dollars before you're 25? Six-figure income? Management position with loads of responsibility? Respect among you peers and co-workers? Having a job that could make you heroic in the eyes of the public? Having a position which enables you to quietly influence countless others and their decisions? A job that is self-rewarding but not necessarily financially so? A combination of these? And on and on..... Find your own definition of "success", and you'll find the answer to the question in the OP. Is a University Degree worth the time and money? I suppose it's all kind of relative, isn't it?

So, back to my initial point. We've convinced ourselves that a college degree is essential to achieving "success" and we tell our kids this. Sadly, the Universities themselves are the biggest propagandists in this whole scenario. You see, ultimately, the Universities could really care less if you are working fervently on a degree in a particular field in which you have a snowball's chance in hell of landing a job in. The University could care less if you change your major sixteen times before your sophomore year. Whether the tuition payments come from Mom and Dad's retirement fund, federal grant, or subsidized/unsubsidized student loans.....they're going to get their money. Degree programs and professorships/fellowships are justified by enrollment numbers. It's all just a "numbers" game to them.

How many young people graduate from a University with a Bachelor's Degree in General Studies, Business, International Studies, Family Dynamics, Creative Writing, or some other useless field, thousands of dollars in debt from student loans, and unable to get ANY job that pays much more than minimum wage? I teach High School kids, and I'm sad to say that I've seen it happen to entirely too many of them. EVERY University should make career counseling a MUST.....but they don't.......I wonder why not? :shrug:
 
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I'm wanting to be in academia, so for me it is a natural fit.
 
I wanted to get your thoughts on how important you think going to University is?
My wife is about to finish her masters and is hopefully going to get a half decent job too reward her hard work, her coming to a finish as got me thinking should I go and get my degree? I got good grades at school but decided to join the army instead of going to uni, I used my experience in the Army and my good school grades to land myself a pretty decent job. However I feel a lot of pressure to go and get my degree because most of my freinds and peers have theirs and in todays society it is almost expected that you have a degree. I look at a lot of my freinds who have degrees and I would say 70% of them have done nothing with them and it makes me wonder " why all this expectation"?
Is the fact we are almsot forcing out kids to go to college playing a big factor in our ineffective workforce and is it costing us thousands of blue collar jobs? Obviously for some professions you need the degree doctor etc, but are the rest of us going to college for all the wrong reasons?
Your thoughts?

I beg you not to go to university because you feel pressured to.

Anybody who goes to university must go because they want to.

Otherwise, you're not really going to care how well you do, and therefore are more likely to fail, and therefore more likely to waste your money.

Now, I will say that statistics show that college graduates are 1) more likely to be employed and 2) more likely to earn higher income. So it would be a good idea for people to go to university.

But people should only go if they feel ready for it. If not, it's just a waste of time and money, and most people can't afford either of that.
 
im not not in college, my wife is majoring in intelligence studies. You cant learn things you want to learn by reading books?

My mistake. I read that you were not yet in college, the but the point is still the same. I don't know anything about intelligence studies, so will not comment. If there is a market for the skills, then the market will decide the value of the degree.

As to the learning from the books, I am 73 years old, no degree, and have learned from books all my life. Today due to the internet research is so much easier. I can learn more on a given subject in the time I can drive to the library than I can after obtaining the book. Either way, go for it.
 
I'm wanting to be in academia, so for me it is a natural fit.
Makes sense. But, obviously this path is what you find rewarding (whether financially, intellectually, emotionally, etc.) I try to tell my students that it is much more important to find your "niche" and to make yourself "marketable" in order to fill that place. It seems that we've attached "independent wealth" indiscriminantly to the idea of "success" in our society. There are many, many great paying jobs that don't require a higher degree, but rather, require specialized skills, training, and/or work experience. My Dad is a classic example. He NEVER attended a college. He was trained as an electrician in the US Navy. Upon leaving the military at age 26, he began working as a commercial electrician's apprentice where he broadened his skills in the trade and gained valuable work experence. By age 36 he started his own Electrical Service Company. By age 40, he was making over $300,000 a year and had a crew of 6 electricians working under him. By age 45 he'd had at least one year where he'd cleared half-a-million, and was routinely bidding, $10 million to $50 million construction projects. By age 50 he'd worked all over the world, from helping to design and wire water purification plants in Egypt to rennovating power and communication grids in Diego Garcia and South Korea.

He loved his work. He was good at it. He made some pretty good money doing it. He accomplished a great deal in his field, gained a great deal of experience and respect and......................did it all without a college degree. Funny thing is.......come hail or high water, he was bound and determined that I, his oldest son, would get a college degree. In retrospect, I suppose I'm glad he pushed me to do it.
 
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im not not in college, my wife is majoring in intelligence studies. You cant learn things you want to learn by reading books?

I'm in the 2 field. I can see where having a MA in that would directly impact my work - and in places where it does so, I can only heartily endorse continuing education. As far as a BA is concerned, it's a credential - unless you are going to a top tier school, it almost doesn't matter where you get it. For the vast majority of kids who go to school, the actual training they receive isn't worth the cost. You're an adult with discipline, so you're already ahead of the curve of the 18 year old kid - large percentages of whom drop out or take too long to get degrees. I would recommend knocking it out, but recognizing that unless you craft your studies to a particular job field, you are basically spending a bunch of money getting a resume bullet point.
 
Makes sense. But, obviously this path is what you find rewarding (whether financially, intellectually, emotionally, etc.) I try to tell my students that it is much more important to find your "niche" and to make yourself "marketable" in order to fill that place. It seems that we've attached "independent wealth" indiscriminantly to the idea of "success" in our society. There are many, many great paying jobs that don't require a higher degree, but rather, require specialized skills, training, and/or work experience. My Dad is a classic example. He NEVER attended a college. He was trained as an electrician in the US Navy. Upon leaving the military at age 26, he began working as a commercial electrician's apprentice where he broadened his skills in the trade and gained valuable work experence. By age 36 he started his own Electrical Service Company. By age 40, he was making over $300,000 a year and had a crew of 6 electricians working under him. By age 45 he'd had at least one year where he'd cleared half-a-million, and was routinely bidding, $10 million to $50 million construction projects. By age 50 he'd worked all over the world, from helping to design and wire water purification plants in Egypt to rennovating power and communication grids in Diego Garcia and South Korea.

He loved his work. He was good at it. He made some pretty good money doing it. He accomplished a great deal in his field, gained a great deal of experience and respect and......................did it all without a college degree. Funny thing is.......come hail or high water, he was bound and determined that I, his oldest son, would get a college degree. In retrospect, I suppose I'm glad he pushed me to do it.

:( so sad that your father is an evil rich person - doesn't he feel guilty for all the poverty he created by being productive?
 
:( so sad that your father is an evil rich person - doesn't he feel guilty for all the poverty he created by being productive?
Sarcasm noted.:thumbs: I don't ever remember "guilt" being one of his strongest emotions. :lol:
 
Depends what you want to do. I want to be an engineer, so yes a BA is mandatory. I have to graduate from an accredited program and also pass the FE to become an engineer in training. Then you have to work for 4 years under a professional engineer to earn the chance to take the PE and get certified yourself. You can work for some smaller companies or in some side fields without being an EIT but you are not really getting anywhere if you don't attend college. Plus, college is a great place to get your internships which eventually will turn into jobs for many people, especially for engineers. Its what I am doing now, and I think I will get hired where I am interning after I graduate, though I will also apply at other places to get the best offer possible. If you want to be an electrician as someone was saying above, you would obviously not go to college and would instead work as an apprentice to get your journeyman's and go from there, I actually almost took this route myself working for one for 4 years in high school. It just depends upon what you want to do what type of education you should get.
 
Sadly unless you want to learn how to be a whacked out Liberal follower a College education is worth about the same as the 8th grade of 40 years ago.
 
Your thoughts?

If you can not find a successful decent paying job with your college degree then that college degree is not only worthless but a huge waste of your time and who ever's money that was used to send you to college.

Personally I think if we are going to spend money on education after highschool then that education should be for what ever there is a big employer demand for and what will have decent pay. It does no good to have someone being in debt for decades in debt if that degree they are getting won't get them a job or won't get the higher paying job. So basically schools should be focusing on what there is a high demand for that pays good. College for personal enrichment is something no tax payer should pay for.
 
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I think for many people, it is stunningly true: they are being unnecessarily shifted to the traditional university rather than direct training to be professionals that we rely on everyday, that can make significant salaries.

But, from the area of society I am from, the opposite was true, or worse. For many students in special education or those covered in emotional disturbance, the shift was always on the lowest tier of jobs and if you were lucky, educate them to be those professionals we rely on that can make them a great living. Hardly any dialogue whatsoever is to discuss the traditional university or graduate study for these students. For many of these students, their disability or emotional problems would not prevent them from marching in that direction, but the expectations are or were so low, that the lowest tier of jobs was what was mostly focused in on. It was like the best one (a special education educator) could hope for was if they could somehow make it through any ordinary job interview or maybe be able to balance one's checkbook (or similar education in a post-check society). The push simply isn't there for those students who could benefit from a more focused academic setting.
 
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I believe college is a must today if your going to make a decent living...the days of being able to afford the basics as a working person are gone...the corps stole that off americans out of greed.
Unfortunately everyone cant get to college or are capable of succeeding in college for a variety of reasons...if you can go back and get your degree for sure
 
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