Isn't college a waste of time and money?
The average college graduate makes $570,000 more than the average high school graduate over a lifetime (Currier, 2018, n.p.). To achieve career success, people need to continuously enhance their understanding, job opportunities, technical and social skills. Tertiary education is the best tool for people, especially young students to have positive income thanks to its substantial benefits. I believe that college education is vitally important for those who still hesitate to choose their future career path.
Young adults get better jobs when they have college degrees. They are more likely to receive on-the-job formal or informal training, technology approach and internship programs. Therefore, they can easily and quickly find the jobs with higher salary than those do not attend college. Over a career, a study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce calculated that in 1999 the average lifetime earnings of a bachelor's degree holder was 75 percent more than the earnings of a high school graduate, and that by 2009 the premium grew to 84 percent. (Oreopoulos, P. & Petronijevic, U., 2013, p.9)
Additionally, these people have more and better employment opportunities. More and more jobs call for college degrees. "Only 34% of American jobs require a high school diploma or less in 2017, compared to 72% in the 1970s." (Carnevale, A. & Smith, N., 2017, p.2). According to a June 2016 study, 99% of job growth (or 11.5 million of 11.6 million jobs) between 2010 and 2016 went to employees with associate's, bachelor's or graduate degrees.(Carnevale, A. et al, 2016, p.1)
Besides, students have more chances to learn interpersonal skills in college. At colleges or universities, students will have the chance to interact with many people, including teachers and other students. All the lessons at higher education requires students to dig deeper into the problems by making discussions and debates at class. Students can also join clubs, associations and programs. These social organizations help them to improve their communication skill, teamwork skill, critical thinking and many others, because once students take part in these societies, they have chance to meet and work with a lot of people.
According to Arthur Chickering's "Seven Vectors" student development theory, "Developing mature interpersonal relationships" is one of the seven stages student progress through as they attend college.(Chickering, cited by Nancy, E. et al, 2009, p.68). Students ranked "interpersonal skills" as the most important skill used in their daily lives in a 1994 survey of 11,000 college students.(Doyle, T., 2012, p.93)
Many people said that college is such a waste of time and money, and students should spend those time and invest money in starting up their career. They claimed that many people succeed without college degrees, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. However, the reason why they did not want to keep going to college is that they had not found what they need there. Moreover, the number of those who were successful after having quitted college is just a drop in the ocean. Take Steve Jobs as an example, he dropped out of Reed College because liberal arts were not what he was passionate about. Hence, college education does nothing wrong, the key lies in the decision on the major that high school students make.
The advantages that tertiary education brings us are undeniable. The point is that every student must choose a major with their eyes open, which means it should have positive job prospects. After that, they will realize how important college is in their career and more crucially, their life.
