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college education

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

The debate over the value of a college education continues. If anything, it has intensified, with the answer usually given in relative earnings over a lifetime, as if we were evaluating buying a house compared to renting an apartment. While education has its economic side, there is so much more to consider on the subject.

First the obvious. A four year college degree has always been thought of as a ticket to a better life because of the financial advantages it is thought to offer. College grads, in the main, earn higher wages, suffer lower unemployment, and as a result of having more income, enjoy better health and easier access to home ownership, the traditional wealth builder.

However, today there are jobs that don’t require a college degree but do pay well. These might include those in construction, those that offer professional certificates in technology, bootcamp coding, in short jobs that come with trade school degrees, associate degrees or apprenticeships. This path works if the student already has such a goal and knows what he or she wants to do.

But what else do students get from a college experience besides, perhaps, a substantial amount  of debt? Student debt is the highest category of debt in the United States, totaling $1.76 trillion according to recent data. That is the result of private colleges averaging $223,200 over the course of four years, and even public institutions costing $104,000.

So what could make college worth the price? For starters, how many 17-year-olds know what career they want for the rest of their lives? College gives students a chance to discover themselves, be exposed to different disciplines and see what appeals to them. Those years are unlike any other, if the student is fortunate for the luxury of their focus on study without other responsibilities, like holding a job, caring for a spouse and children, paying a car loan or even a mortgage. So often, students enter college with vague ideas of a major only to switch dramatically by the third year.

College students often have opportunities for travel, for research and certainly to network professionally and socially. Just meeting others from different regions, religions and cultures provides enormous knowledge and often encourages friendships that last a lifetime. While those possibilities certainly exist for those outside a college environment, the bonding that results from sharing a campus and even a dorm increases those contacts. College is a privileged cocoon in which to grow up.

Some of the debate about the value of college has been brought on by the colleges themselves. While historically over the last half century prices have risen perhaps three percent, the annual cost of college has increased by six percent. There had to be a time of reckoning as a result of that disparity, and the time has now come.

College offers knowledge, which is not so say that people cannot learn outside of those base paths. College also offers education, which is somewhat different in my opinion. Anyone can learn facts. Just reading the daily newspapers or books conveys knowledge. A college education, however, is a more systematized attempt to show how different disciplines developed, leading to today. It encourages personal and intellectual growth in a structured way.

Education, and more is better, is a tremendous benefit not only to the individual but also to society. We have an example of that with the GI Bill after WWII. That legislation made it possible for millions of people of ordinary means to gain a college degree. What followed was an unprecedented half century of growth and prosperity for the United States. Education was the ladder that made such possible.

Today we are facing the opposite. As a result of the pandemic, education has suffered a substantial setback for our students, a gap we may never bridge. And further debate over the value of education in a college setting is further risk for progress. Other nations put so much importance on education that they make college free for all their members. We are going in the opposite direction at considerable risk to our national standing.

It would be nice if all youngsters experienced the tremendous satisfaction of learning. To attend college in order to get the diploma is one thing. For some of the reasons stated above, that can be a goal. But to learn for the sake of learning, and not just to do well on Jeopardy!, is another. 

To make that clearer, I would liken the brain to a muscle. When we exercise the muscle systematically and regularly, it grows and becomes stronger. It also feels good to experience that exercise, especially after a visit to the gym. The more we stretch the brain with knowledge, the more it will grow. And with growth, life becomes more satisfying. No one wants to stagnate.

My mother, who passionately valued education, used to say, “Someone might take away your possessions, but no one can take away your education.” In our world, with so much uncertainty, how clever it would be to build on something so secure as education. And to graduate from college is to acquire more of that great asset, for ourselves and our country.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to make our higher education free. 

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It actually makes me cringe when I hear discussions questioning whether a college education is worth the expense. Yes, college loans carried by students after they graduate are astronomical and unprecedented. The average student loan debt for the Class of 2016, for example, is $37,172, up 6 percent from the preceding year. Americans owe, in total, more than $1.48 trillion in student loans spread out over 44 million borrowers, more than the $620 billion owed on credit cards, according to figures obtained from the Student Loan Hero website. Average monthly student loan repayment after graduation, for borrowers 20 to 30 years of age, is $351.

Those are, of course, mammoth numbers that are hard to conceive. But how about this for comparison: Mortgage debt is $8.8 trillion. You can move out of a house, but you only have one head. And what you fill that head with can determine the quality of the rest of your life. Your house may contain your financial equity, but your knowledge base and critical thinking make up your life’s equity.

I know the stories about the college dropouts who become billionaires. Good for them, they don’t have to worry about money. But that is part of the point I am trying to make. Education is not only about money, about the job you will hold or the amount of toys you will own by the time you die. Education is partially about income, as statistics prove. College grads earn more in the course of their lives than high school grads. And while today’s auto mechanic, who goes to a vocational school and who is really a kind of computer engineer can earn as much, perhaps, as a doctor or lawyer, money is not the only value in life. Satisfaction, a key ingredient of happiness, is another.

So what do you get from a college education? Is it worth the price?

First let’s talk about price. In the United States, where education is viewed as the ladder to success, a traditional college education at a fine college has always been ranked at the top of the pyramid. Those schools are also the most expensive because they are mainly private. There are various scholarships to help, but for most without adequate resources those schools can be out of reach. Then there are public universities, many of which are exemplary and much cheaper, particularly if you live in state. And three cheers for the two-year community colleges that can carry you halfway to a college degree with truly minimum expense. There are also work-study schools that may take longer to graduate from, but who is holding a stopwatch on your life?

Anyway, what you get out of college is directly proportional to what you put in. Like the computer expression, it’s garbage in, garbage out. So what is the bottom line here? What can you expect to get out of a good, traditional college?

For starters, there is knowledge, knowledge about almost everything known to humans at the time you
attend. It’s there for the asking, assuming there is room for you to enroll in the classes of your choice. And if you go on to college reasonably soon after you graduate from high school, you can focus on acquiring the knowledge of your choice without the responsibilities of a spouse, a car, a house, children, a dog and making a living. In college, you have a roof over your head, your meals are prepared and the lawn is mowed for you. The knowledge you choose to acquire may or may not turn out to be directly applicable to the work that you eventually do, but it will certainly contribute to your understanding of your world — scientifically, culturally, historically, economically, politically, and that will give you profound satisfaction. If your job depends on what you know rather than how much you can lift, knowledge will extend your work life, at the senior end when those whose bodies can no longer respond to physical tasks may face uncertain “golden yea
rs.”

Learning, of course, doesn’t depend on or stop with a college education. But appreciation for the value of knowledge grows as we age. Boy, how I wish I could live again those college years. Now I would know why I was there.