While you might not think of student debt as a crisis that’s taken a hold of our nation, it clearly is. It’s affecting hundreds of thousands of families with no end or plan in sight. Is the prospect of a career worth untold years of debt? Do you need to go to college to find a quality job? Even if you do find a great job, you still may find yourself in the throes of debt and unwavering interest rates.
Several years ago I had the privilege of hearing my sister moan on about how she wasn’t happy with her current job working a bookkeeping position at a music school in Boston. Attending business school was the only way she could see getting ahead, and she was consumed by that idea she saw as fact. I always thought to myself, wait, she graduated from an Ivy League College and can’t get a job she’s satisfied with? That’s craziness. What was the point then? While she successfully evaded student debt the first time around, she’d be on her own going forward, as my parents would not be helping her out if she went for her MBA. And she did just that.
Everyone has a strong opinion about college debt, but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer. Being the most powerful illustration of the “no guarantees in life” expression, is college even worth all the time and money you don’t have? Why not intern or apprentice to get your foot in the door? Network until your fingers are calloused from typing emails and your jaw is sore from introducing yourself at events. College isn’t the only option, and it’s far from a failsafe. There’s plenty of information about burgeoning markets needing skilled laborers out there, you just have to be resourceful and find them.
My sister took the business school leap and reaped the rewards. Sort of. She was able to nab a coveted internship because of her MBA and subsequently busted her hump to demonstrate her value. Fast forward seven years and she’s the Vice President of Finance for a major record label in NYC. She may have had some unseen intangible force on her side (besides her work ethic of course), but she’s still looking at two decades of debt. Plus, that Manhattan lifestyle of hers wasn’t doing her any favors. Treadmill stasis if you will, but her rise to career glory is a fractional minority in today’s world.
My research for this article turned up a bruised fistful of horror stories about people who had no idea what they were doing when they accepted college loans. Many of them just salivated at the idea of what a degree could do, and didn’t take the time to figure out what they’d make post grad against what loans they’d be taking on. Talk about obstructed short sightedness. I saw too many articles of people defaulting on private loans that didn’t allow for deferments or forbearances, and web design students that found their curriculum antiquated upon graduation, all the while still owing heavy on private and federal loans. And they were unemployed to boot! Suffice to say, it’s messy as hell out there for some people. It’s a shame because all they want is to get on with their lives, work hard, and leave their dollar shaped shadow of regret behind them.
Unfortunately for them, college degrees, much like our currency, are in a state of high inflation. Employers value work experience as much, if not more than a degree etched into a piece of 32-lb. resume paper. However, through all the criticism about college debt and the value of education, the institution stands tall, especially as a sweater over-the-shoulder adorned status symbol. Harvard is going to trump ITT Tech all day long, but might there ever be a time where your place of study has no value at all?
Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame recently expressed his disinterest in the societal pressure of college by saying that kids should “work smart, not hard” and learn a skilled trade as opposed to selling their souls to college. Paypal CEO Peter Thiel even offers 20 kids a year $100,000 to not go to college, and to start their own businesses instead. Over in Germany, college isn’t traditionally thought of as a default mandatory, but more of as a consideration along with technical and vocational training. And their economy has the efficiency of a bratwurst factory in October.
Interestingly enough, Wikipedia has a list of billionaire college dropouts. Many of them are household names like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ted Turner, etc. All of them have their own tales on why college didn’t work for them, including Mexican Drug Lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera (I’m sure his parents understood). So take what you will from their stories, but at some point sooner than later, you need to think long and hard about what you want and how you’re going to get it.
Acclaimed writer Ray Bradbury has said he spent three days a week for 10 years at his local library, reading every book that they had. Emerging from that cornea bulging decade, he had educated himself for free. Now, while that amount of ambition and fortitude is an anomaly by most accounts, there must be some more viable solutions for us common folk. While the answer certainly won’t be a blanket statement that works for everyone, the best you can do for yourself today is to reflect inward to find out what you’re truly capable of and where your passions lie.
Slightly off kilter, but absolutely worth mentioning, is the college experience in itself. Millions of people cite their college years as life changing and priceless. In the United States alone, college is easily the most important coming-of-age tradition we know. Just watch a college football game for five minutes. But are all these experiences worth the uncertainty that follows and the debt it incurs? I’ve known many friends who viewed college as this never-ending isolation chamber that has kept them from the real world for as long as possible. If they were in school they were safe, thus keeping life’s brutal realities out of striking distance.
If we were to start pointing fingers, where would we begin? Colleges are in the business of selling you degrees that are supposedly worth something yet to be defined. Couldn’t there be some sort of accountability clause that allows you to get your money back if you can’t find a decent job? Most every product and service has a refund policy, so why should college be any different?
It’s not our fault the economy is in shambles, we can thank the government for that, but we are accountable for the choices we make about our future. Mistakes are nature’s way of teaching us valuable lessons, but I highly doubt any of us want those lessons to be in the form of an interest bearing sum that shackles us for years come.
Maybe it’s like trying to convert the world to electric cars and come off fossil fuels? It may take another 100 years for the world to completely phase out academia as both sides lobbying for and against. And in this theoretical future looming in the distance, someone someday might be proud to say “I’m the first person in my family not go to college,” while beaming a huge smile on their face and an even bigger paycheck in their pocket.