Is Going to College Still Worth it?

Posted by MoneyThinker in goals | 1 comment

My brother called me the other day. He’s 18 and just finished high school, and he called to tell me that he had decided not to go to college. Before this, he’d been planning to go to my Alma Mater, where I had received both my Bachelor’s and my Master’s degrees. Now, to be honest, I wasn’t totally shocked. We’d been talking for the last year about what he would major in, and he literally had no idea.

Now that he’s made his decision, my brother and stepdad are now looking into starting some farm business (my stepdad’s dad used to own a farm, now they’re looking to start again), and my brother is talking about working toward becoming a mailman. Neither of these things requires a college education.

I was reminded of this today when I was looking through my newsfeeds and two of the major finance stories asked a question similar to the title of my post: is going to college still worth it? My answer to that question? Not necessarily.

My bachelor’s degree is in sociology. Now yes, I learned a lot of valuable things during my time in the major, but I got out of school and could only get a job in either social work (which, if I wanted to do social work, guess what, I would have majored in it!) or fast food. Talk about miserable. So, I went back to school and got a degree in journalism. Do I wish I’d just gotten my bachelor’s in it? Kind of, but now that I have a Master’s in it, I found it to be worth it.

Here are three questions that you should ask yourself if you’re even on the fence about going to college:

1. Do I know what I want to do?
2. If the answer to that first question is yes, does what I want to do even require a degree?
3. Can I really afford to go now?

That’s really what it comes down to. College has become a “rite of passage” into adulthood in American culture. So much so, in fact, that psychologists have pushed adolescence as far as age 25, calling 20-25 “late adolescence.” But, that’s not how it has to be. I know plenty of people who are successful in life who never went to college.

Now, I’m also not saying that you can’t go to college. I’m a huge advocate for education, to the point that it’s almost absurd. I used to be the type of person who told everyone that they should go to college. Since the downturn in the economy and my own experiences struggling to get by with a bachelor’s degree that didn’t do much for me until I got my Master’s, I’ve toned that down a lot. An education is a great thing, but if it’s going to hurt you financially more than help you, maybe you should reconsider your options. Do your research, spend smart, and save smart!