Is a College Degree Still Worth It? >
Some Career Pathways Require a Four-Year Degree, Many Don't
Students and their families should not simply assume that college will be "worth it"
November 17, 2011
About Robert B. Schwartz:
Robert Schwartz has been a faculty member at Harvard Graduate School of Education since 1996, and he is currently the Francis Keppel Professor of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration. From 2006-2011 he served as the school's Academic Dean.
Generally speaking, more education is better than less. The lifetime earning gap between those with a college degree and those with only a high school diploma is estimated to be close to a million dollars. Earnings aside, there is powerful evidence that those with more education do better on a variety of other measures that we associate with the opportunity to lead a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life.
[Average Student Debt Reaches All-Time High.]
That said, the question of whether a college degree--especially a four-year college degree--is still "worth it" is not so simple. As with many other things in life, the answer in today's economy is, "it all depends." Here are some facts to consider. First, the unemployment rate of young four-year college graduates today is nearly 10 percent, about the same as the population at large. More seriously, some estimates suggest that the percentage of young college graduates working in jobs that don't really require a college education might be as high as 30 percent. And these numbers mask the fact that nearly half of those who start out in a four-year college do not finish. The point about statistics like these is that in today's economy what you study matters more than how many years you study. Recent data from Florida tell us that 2009 graduates with a technical degree from Florida's community colleges are outearning the average graduate from the state's four-year institutions by over $10,000.
[Today's Young Adults Suffering More Financially than Older Generations.]
These data suggest that young people need much better information and advice about the labor market before making decisions about what kind of post-secondary education or training will be most relevant to their talents and career aspirations. Too many young people go off to college with little or no purpose or information about the relationship between what they might study and what careers will then be open to them. Consequently, they become "academically adrift," in the words of a powerful recent study reporting that 45 percent of students attending a representative sample of four-year colleges show no significant increase in such core academic skills as analytic reasoning and writing between the beginning of freshman year and the end of sophomore year. Given the high costs of college and the average $25,000 debt burden students leave with, students and their families should not mindlessly assume that college will be "worth it." Some career pathways require a four-year degree; many others don't. Schools need to take more responsibility to help students choose wisely.
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- Other Arguments
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#18030
Yes — The return on a college investment is more than that on almost any alternative
JULIE MARGETTA MORGAN, Policy Analyst with the Postsecondary Education Program at the Center for American Progress
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#26029
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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#34317
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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#44322
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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#64128
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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#72919
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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#82316
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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#92218
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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#101816
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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#111720
Yes — The return on investment in postsecondary education remains compelling
CHRIS FARRELL, Economics Editor of 'Marketplace Money'
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#121627
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
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