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Topic: Is College Worth it? So many graduates In Debt/Underemployed - page 5. (Read 4897 times)

legendary
Activity: 3598
Merit: 2386
Viva Ut Vivas
College is a lazy way of proving that you have some understanding of the job you plan on taking.

The price of college is following the same progress of the housing bubble for the same reasons that housing prices skyrocketed.

Wait until the prices crash or build a portfolio for the kind of work you plan on going into.

Personally, I work for the government and they have formulas they use for salary which uses college degrees to determine your salary. So I used my work tuition payment to get my Master's degree. I did not choose my degree for gaining any knowledge but on getting through it easily so that I can get a higher salary because I have a higher degree.
legendary
Activity: 3416
Merit: 1912
The Concierge of Crypto
I've always wanted to take up the sciences. Theoretical physics. ... Those are almost not worth the money you pay, unless you become the next Einstein or something, or unless you are a scholar (in which case, you're not paying.)

But, if there is a job offer, and there are two candidates: one with a degree, one without. ... Depending on the actual job, the one who gets it is usually the guy with more formal education.

Manual labor jobs like electricians, plumbers, and miners (the ones in dark caves) don't usually have college degrees.

Office workers, like attorneys, lawyers, doctors, accountants and engineers, usually are because of the college courses they finished.

If you have the money, it's not a bad idea to actually finish a course and get one degree. If you don't, well, what choice do you have?
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1001
It depends on how you define "worth it."

College graduates earn more and the money you spend on a degree will get a better rate of return than any other investment.  In those terms, its worth it.

If you have the right family background, some private colleges plug you into the elite networks that make the money in certain professions and you will earn far more as a result of having attended that college.  For example, Princeton and banking.  In those terms, its worth it.  

US private college fees have shot up and the extra money is spent on facilities like luxury accommodation and gyms rather than on academic facilities.  These add nothing to your earning potential.  In those terms, its not worth it - go with a state college.

Some degrees are not designed to be financially "worth it."  No-one studies Anthropology in order to have the money to buy a Porsche.  I would still argue that a degree in Anthropology is worth it if you are fascinated by the subject.  If you are aware that you are spending money to follow your intellectual passion, then it has to be worth it.
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
Cryptocurrencies Exchange
It depends.

Going to college for something you can just learn from books is not worth it.When you need something more practical that is hard to learn from books smaller courses are cheaper, take less time and are much more useful.

Still if you want to be doctor, civil engineer or something like that, college is kinda must have.
legendary
Activity: 1078
Merit: 1003
College is a massive waste of time; there was a time where the barriers mattered and you had to get a degree, but the barriers have been nullified due to our economy and your only hope for a good job is to create it yourself, e.g. entrepreneurial work--which is, of course, made difficult for the very reasons why the economy is in such bad shape now.

To make an analogy, if the economy is a bird, and regulation is oil, then our bird looks like this:



It's not going to take flight until we scrub it clean, but it's only going to get worse if we put it off.  Anyway, the more oil that's stuck to our bird, the fewer jobs we're going to have, fewer college graduates are going to find good positions (even though we're nowhere close to being satisfied as a species and those jobs are just waiting to happen), the more worthless college degrees are and the more government subsidizes college tuition to get people to go despite their better judgment, which of course only tackles the effect, not the cause.
sr. member
Activity: 325
Merit: 250
There is a new documentary showing the latest statistics on federal funding, loans, student debt and college attendance. It compares how the system has changed over the last 50 years.

You can view it at the link below:




or direct youtube link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XfJBgaIrxiQ

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