Is College Worth It?
Level 2 - Admissions 101
Welcome!
Today’s post is about the current social opposition to college. In our conversations with parents, we typically find that many are repeating points they hear from others. Namely:
College is not worth the cost
A college degree does not have the value it used to
Colleges are places for students to be indoctrinated
You do not need a college degree to “be successful”
Some of these points are valid, or at least coming from a place of validity, But as usual, people tend to go to extreme positions that are only going to undermine them.
It is similar to when colleges went test optional in the COVID pandemic - people believed that colleges would never go back to requiring SATs. As we stated, we thought that they would return to requiring standardized tests over time, and therefore recommended students continue to plan as if they need to take the exam.
We do want to be upfront - college is not for everyone. We do not recommend college to students that it will not help, and we encourage every individual applying to college to actually be sure that they know what outcome they are looking for before they apply.
When you have a goal, you can design a path. And with a path, you can know what you need from college to be successful in your pathway.
Our position has always been consistent - If college is not required to achieve your goals, do not go.
That said, let’s dive in.
College is not worth the cost
This is an incomplete thought. What is the “Cost” we are referring to?
If it is the financial cost, then it is a bit of a flippant statement. Whether a college is worth the cost is really a matter of ROI. If I told you that you could pay me $10K to receive $100K, you would take that deal, right?
Of course you would. And that is fundamentally the assumption that is being made in college - that you are attending a given college in order to earn an outsized return on that investment.
What most people miss in this is that most of the data needed to make some key assumptions are readily available to the public:
The cost of college is publicly available
The salary range for a role is fairly easy to find
Whether a role requires a college degree is publicly available
If you put all of that together, you know how to evaluate the cost.
If we are referring to the opportunity cost, the question is, what exactly is it that you are giving up by going to college? Starting a business can be done from a college dorm (ex. Facebook), so suggesting you are missing out on an opportunity is a bit off.
Instead, the focus has to be on understanding what is the return that you are getting for the cost.
This is where college criticism is fair - too many people go to college to get a degree in English with no clear plan on how to monetize that moving forward. An Ethnic Studies degree may be interesting to you, but how do you monetize it?
Taking on a lot of debt to get a degree with on earning potential is what sets you up for financial ruin.
A college degree does not have the value it used to
In the 1980s and 1990s, a college degree was a prerequisite to any serious corporate role. But because college degrees were not nearly as popular as they are now, there was a significantly lower number of college degree holders.
In 1990, approximately 21.3% of the population had a college degree or higher. In 2020, that number had grown to 37.5%.
There were 127M jobs in 1990. In 2020, there were 160M jobs in the US. That is a 26% jump in jobs. The percentage of the population that has a college degree or higher has grown by over 76%.
That means that, overall, there are more college degrees competing for the same jobs. So inherently, a college degree does not have the same value it did if you think that a college degree instantly earns you a job.
But here is the other side of it - that is a categorical statement across all college degrees. And the reality is - not all college degrees are created equally.
Do you think the competitive landscape for applicants is the same for sociologists as it is for engineers?
Of course not.
Having certain degrees are far more valuable than others. So when someone says “a degree has lost its value,” then at best they are saying that a college degree is no longer the automatic gateway to a job. At worst, they are exposing their lack of knowledge.
Colleges are places for students to be indoctrinated
In our opinion, this comes down to college selection.
Is it true that some colleges tilt a certain way politically? Yes.
But you have to know the right school environment for you and your family. If you want to go to a Christian college, that can be arranged. Just like you can attend college in the South, in an urban environment, or a historically black college.
All of this comes down to proper selection of colleges.
Most people who apply to college are lazy in evaluating colleges beyond US World News reports. They go to school and then hope that the college is a good cultural fit for them.
It does not have to be as far as “liberal indoctrination.” It can be something as simple as going to a college that is a dry campus or in a dry town - if you know that you want a college experience with drinking, don’t go. Do your research and eliminate that from your options.
The same goes for political views. In our experience, most of this is overblown - college campuses come with a variety of students - you just have to find your tribe. But if you want the university to reflect your views, then be thorough in your search, and you’ll avoid these issues.
You do not need a college degree to be “successful.”
Let’s start by saying this is absolutely true. Going to college does not make you successful. If you want to build your own landscaping business, go ahead - that does not require a college degree.
But let’s go with the numbers:
According to Pew research, in 2021, full-time workers ages 22 to 27 who held a bachelor’s degree, but no further education, made a median annual wage of $52,000, compared with $30,000 for full-time workers of the same age with a high school diploma and no degree, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This gap has widened over time. Young bachelor’s degree holders earned a median annual wage of $48,481 in 1990, compared with $35,257 for full-time workers ages 22 to 27 with a high school diploma.
Pew research also shows that non-college degree holders have a higher unemployment rate than those with a college degree.
Now, as we stated before, that is likely to vary significantly based on the type of degree someone. But the point remains the same - college degree holders are more likely to be employed and they make more than their non-college degree counterparts.
What does this mean?
The reality is, if we are defining success by income, then the story becomes even more slanted toward college degree holders.
In 2021, the top 5% of households earned at least $286K in income. For those with just a high school diploma, the top 1% of earners earned at least $200k in income. For those with a college degree, the top 1% of earners made $470K or more.
In all situations, a college degree holder will, on average, make more than a non-college degree holder.
Even if you are exceptional, you are still better off with the college degree, if you are playing the odds.
To beat the college degree earner, you would need to more than double the top 1% of non-degree holding earners. And that’s just competing against college degree earners. If you compare against professional school degree holders or PhDs, the numbers are off the charts.
Does this mean that college is always the answer? No. But it does mean that the argument that college degrees are on their death bed does not measure up with the numbers we have seen.