Reply to Is a college degree the waste of time and money that some people say it is?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the conversation needs to be completely different.  Social uprising, please!!!

I graduated with a Fine Arts degree from a pretty good private college, but with the scholarships it didn't cost more than a State would have and it was a lot better, more personal experience.  I thought I was so unlucky graduating with 24,000 in debt (this was 2001) and couldn't fathom how I would pay it off, having never made more than minimum wage.  I am also the oldest child of a blue-collar couple who did not attend college - my dad just figured that if I got the degree I would be instantly middle-class.  Now that I am a parent, I'm baffled how my parents allowed me to be so disengaged growing up, and to major in art, not because I have/had great passion for it, but because I had zero confidence and could not really understand what else I could/should do.  I was one of those high IQ test scorers who never learned to persist at anything, [u]and my stupid parents thought everything would turn out right because the tests always came out well.[/u]  By the time I'd started figuring things out it out there was nothing I could do about it, I couldn't afford another year, or grad school.  I needed health insurance and had to start paying on the loans.  I felt like such a loser because it took me 3 months to find a job after graduation.   Oh, how times have changed!

On the other hand, a guy I knew in High School who did drugs and never finished HS is now making fantastic art and $$$.

Since then, I have never found it hard to find jobs.  However, I have never had a position that had anything to do with my major. I have never worked in a job that truly required a college degree, and I think that it is sick and wrong that such an expensive degree should be the prerequisite for any sort of life with dignity.

How about this?  How about, instead of "College for Everyone" we help make things suck less for people who do other work - people like the nice construction worker who offered to help me and my son catch up to the school bus; the hardworking restaurant cooks, the daycare workers, etc.  College for the sake of knowledge is a luxury I wish everyone could have at some point in their life, but can society support a system in which everyone is in school until age 22-26+, retiring at 62-65 (younger for certain favored workers!) die prolonged, medically intensive deaths at 85-90?  I don't think so; the math won't work.  It doesn't help that tax codes and preferences seem to concentrate money in the direction of medicine, law, banking & real estate, and higher education. I know this won't be popular on DCUM but you highly educated people aren't so special that others should sacrifice their dignity so that you and yours can have a privileged life.

Sorry I didn't help, OP.  I'm all for motivating our kids, but the stakes shouldn't be this high.  I don't know how anyone can answer your question without knowing your kid.
[/quote]

:shock:

Yes, it's all your parents' fault that you chose the wrong major.  You have some serious baggage.[/quote]

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