Is a College Degree Still Worth It? >
College Is a Safe Bet
The return on a college investment is more than that on almost any alternative
November 17, 2011
About Julie Margetta Morgan:
Julie Margetta Morgan is a Policy Analyst with the Postsecondary Education Program at American Progress. Prior to joining CAP, she worked as an adjunct faculty member and teaching assistant at Boston College while completing a doctoral program in higher education policy.
Plenty of evidence suggests that, on average, a college degree is worth it. College graduates make an average of 84 percent more over the course of a lifetime than those who only attend high school. The unemployment rate for young college grads is under 5 percent, compared to more than 13 percent for young people with only a high school diploma. And a recent Brookings Institution paper showed that the return on a college investment is more than that on almost any alternative, including stocks, bonds, gold, or the housing market.
Still, it's reasonable to question a college degree's value, and the media focus on this topic every few years is not a bad thing. Rising college tuition, combined with slim job prospects due to the economic recession, leave families with the impression that the risks associated with attending college are beginning to outweigh the rewards.
[To Keep America Great, Students Must Be Taught to Innovate.]
Adding to these suspicions are a few outstanding examples of college dropouts who are wildly successful, such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Students begin to wonder whether they might have been better off working instead of racking up debt for a college degree.
The high cost of tuition, the uncertain job market, and the Mark Zuckerberg phenomenon are not enough to outweigh the ample evidence that college is a safe bet. But they are enough to suggest that individuals, policymakers, and colleges should all be working to shore up a college degree's value.
The calculation of a degree's value is very different for each student. Families must examine the skills the student needs to achieve his or her goals and whether those must be acquired in college. Students can choose high-earning majors like engineering over lower-earning ones like psychology. Or they can also choose to attend less expensive public colleges or institutions that offer significant scholarship and grant aid.
State and federal policymakers can increase the value of college degrees by investing more in higher education through state subsidies to public institutions and grant aid that goes directly to students and families.
[Lack of Jobs for Young Workers Spells 2012 Trouble for Obama.]
Colleges can help students get more value for their money by offering quality, low-cost educational alternatives. They also should consider strategies to lower tuition, including offering online courses at lower cost to students or putting greater emphasis on competency exams to help students cut down on their credit load.
The bottom line is that we should still be encouraging students to attend college. But that doesn't mean we should stop questioning the value of college if it encourages students to make more thoughtful, informed decisions and pressures policymakers to keep all colleges high quality and affordable.
- Congress Should Put a Stop to For-Profit College Rip Offs
- President Lays Out New Student Loan Rules
- Today's Young Adults Suffering More Financially than Older Generations
- Other Arguments
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#115080
No — Four to six years of partying do not equal an education
CRAIG BRANDON, Author of 'The Five-Year Party: How Colleges Have Given Up On Educating Your Child' and 'What You Can Do About It'
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#310955
No — We now have nearly 80,000 bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor's degrees
RICHARD VEDDER, Director of Center for College Affordability and Productivity
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#48440
Yes — Like any smart investment, the pursuit of higher education requires effort to explore the options
PETER KONWERSKI, Senior Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at George Washington University
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#55932
Yes — Students and their families should not simply assume that college will be "worth it"
ROBERT B. SCHWARTZ, Francis Keppel Professor of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration at Harvard University
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#67757
No — Put more courses online and limit federal student loans to four years of undergraduate work
LINDSEY BURKE, Senior Policy Analyst in Domestic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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#75337
Yes — Encouraging students to go to college is the right choice
ANTHONY P. CARNEVALE, Director of Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
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#85946
No — What's the message when grads can't write a simple E-mail?
NAOMI SCHAEFER RILEY, Author of 'The Faculty Lounges ... And Other Reasons Why You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For'
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#94837
Yes — College often provides the first opportunity for students to direct their own education
TOM CARROLL, President of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future
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#104746
Yes — People need to go to college in order to have a fighting chance at a well-paying career
KEVIN CAREY, Policy Director of Education Sector
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#113945
Yes — The return on investment in postsecondary education remains compelling
CHRIS FARRELL, Economics Editor of 'Marketplace Money'
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#123870
Yes — Tuition and student debt have not grown "unmanageable"
CECILIA ELENA ROUSE, Katzman-Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University
