Is College The Right Choice For Everyone?

This is an interesting question that can be answered in many ways.

 I look at college as if it were an investment taken to try to build a foundation of learning that will be used in the “world of work”. When you look at it this way, you may tend to think twice and ask yourself “why is this the right choice for me?” There are people out there with all types of degrees and prefixes to their names and still find it hard to find a job. Whilst you have others that go straight from high school and find a well-paying job because of someone they know. Is this fair?

Louis Menand stated that,  "College is, essentially, a four-year intelligence test. Students have to demonstrate intellectual ability over time and across a range of subjects. If they’re sloppy or inflexible or obnoxious—no matter how smart they might be in the I.Q. sense—those negatives will get picked up in their grades.”

So from that I think we can come to an agreement that college is here to help build the skills and aptitudes of students that would be hard to obtain without it. While in college you are not just developing your academics, but you are learning how to socialize with others, which is a big part of being a citizen anywhere.

I personally think that being able to communicate efficiently and clearly is definitely needed in our time. With so many expansions in technology, if you lack these skills you may find it very difficult to interact with others and express what you want.

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What is college good for then?

When we look into this, you will find there are many good reasons to attend a college or university. In these years, students will meet many people and develop not only as a person, but as a citizen. Bobby Fong stated in one of his articles that, 

"The goal of a classical liberal arts education was to prepare students to live in a community as a suitably prepared responsible citizen. In our time, you will need to be citizens not only of a local community, state, or nation, but also citizens of the world.”

If you agree with this statement then we can conclude that college does not only focus on academic success. It also focuses on the overall success of being a good citizen.

There are many other reasons why college can be a good investment. An advantage one could have over another is the fact that you will be offered more opportunities in college if you look for them. No matter the size of the campus there are many faculty and staff that can help students along the way. If a student was seeking leads for a job they could utilize a faculty member for the information, and even get recommendations from them.  There are also career colleges that one can attend to further these opportunities by placing themselves in a school already focusing on their career track.   

Now all of this may sound good, but there are some bad things when it comes to looking into a college degree. It is really expensive to pay for college, and many think it is just a complete waste to attend it.

Debt is a big problem in our country and a big portion of it is caused by loans to attend these institutions. 

The NPR Staff’s article “College Student Debt Grows. Is It Worth It?” really gives vivid detail about how bad debt can get for graduates.

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An example Kantrowitz says is that if you're going to borrow $10,000 a year for four years, you should hope that the field you've chosen has a starting salary of at least $40,000. If you are going to be borrowing more than that, he suggests looking for a less expensive school.

That might make some people wince — especially those who focused on liberal arts in college. Kantrowitz says it's not that those majors are worthless, but that students have to face the reality of how they're going to pay back the money they've borrowed for their

 Even though there may be negatives to going to college I still think it is a good choice. It is here to help develop skills that might not have been obtained through going straight into the work force. Students have a chance to become more sociable and interact with people of different backgrounds, culture, ethnic, etc. that can mold them into responsible citizens. College is more than just academics; it is what makes the next generation better than the last. If one works hard and utilizes all the resources in front of them, they can achieve many things.

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