College revisited

Going to college is undoubtedly the biggest financial mistake I have made in my life thus far.


I am a 21 year Finance major at the University of Illinois and I am one semester away from graduation. I have spent $75,000, and four years of would be salaries in order to get my education, which might land me a 50,000 dollar job next year.


Now if I hadn't gone to college, and gone straight into the job market after college, I would have 75000 plus I would have four years of salary and advancement. Now, I know statistically this money is made up in terms of higher salary. However, I believe the only reason that this difference is made up is because the people that generally go to college are smarter than those that don't, and they have more ambition and are thus more valuable to employers. I was the valedictorian of my high school and had a I chosen to take the seventy five thousand dollars and invest it, gone to workplace, I would not only have been able to acquire a job at about the same level that I am going to get coming out of college but I now would have four years of experience under my belt, and who knows what possibilities. Does anyone besides mike l think college is a mistake for smart individuals? I personally think college is a good route for individuals who need a degree to counteract their lack of ambition or aptitude. I shudder to think how much money I would have if I had played poker for this time and saved the college money.

if its strictly money you are right. but college isnt all about just getting the highest paying job. its a social skills builder and it teaches you how to think. two things that may or may not make you more money but will add greatly to the quality of life. plus it kept some of us from having to die in a stupid war waged on for lyndon johnsons ego.

I disagree that you can get a job "at about the same level" coming out of high school as college in a competitive field such as finance. Firms such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley will not recruit high school seniors. For better or worse, many employers use credentials such as a college education from a quality school as a way to screen candidates. Even as an entrepreneur, I've found that my educational background has opened doors for me. Furthermore, at a good school such as the University of Illinois you have the opportunity to make a lot of contacts that can serve you well in your professional life. In the short run I agree with you, your 75K would have grown and perhaps you could have added to that with poker winnings. But over the longer term, I believe you will see your college degree as a good investment of your time & money. Best wishes.

Unfortunately I can't quote any sources but the argument you are making has been made before. I think there is merit to it. A lot depends on the individual. I'm certain I would have benefited from a university education a lot more at age 25 or 30 than at age 18. I went to college right after I graduated from high school and spent another 4 years in college getting my degree. At the time it seemed like another educational hurdle to overcome albeit a much more difficult one. That's me though and for others it may have been different. I wasn't mature enough at 18 to fully appreciate the experience although I realize your post as economically based.

Including the war for LBJ's ego. It's worth reading Robert McNamara's near-deathbed autobiography, in which he essentially admits that the administration (he was Secretary of Defense) blatantly lied to the American people about the war, how it was going, what its goals were, etc.


Those of us who grew up in that era have never quite trusted the government since.


But his points about "learning to think" and "social skills" are right on.


Regards, Lee

"if its strictly money you are right. but college isnt all about just getting the highest paying job. its a social skills builder and it teaches you how to think. two things that may or may not make you more money but will add greatly to the quality of life."


how do you figure it teaches you social skills? by going to lots of parties and nearly drinking and screwing yourself to death? well i guess those are good social skills in our society so you got me there.. or by standing in line for hours at the student loan office or to sell back $50 books you later in the semester found out had nothing to do with the class? yep, waiting is a good social skill. or going to a pep rally or game and shouting go team go? learned that in high school ray. or sitting through hours of pointless blah blah blah lectures from some know-it-all who's so completely out of touch with reality in his stuffy turtleneck-sweater job? no relevance to me or making my life better, didnt teach me a thing.


i guess my college training did teach me how to analyse and solve problems better than most. sure comes in handy when i have to call the bank later today and talk my way out of $56 in bounced check fees.


"plus it kept some of us from having to die in a stupid war waged on for lyndon johnsons ego."


youre living in the past old man. good for my omaha 8 future that youre not dead, but how bout getting with the program and understanding what the kids coming up are telling you: college aint what it used to be. it's a decaying institution run by the banks to make them fatter.

From my post below I obviously disagree with a lot of your points, but I do agree with a couple of your points here. Higher education has a lot of problems, and there are many idiotic professors in many fields. Even law school which should be a hard-core trade school in my view is getting to be an exercise in applied left-wing emotion. But I still think education has a lot of value.


I think you make a good point about the costs of education and student loans. Student loans being so widespread have artificially increased the cost of college. I think there would be cheaper good schools if there was a bit more economic pressure on the schools to compete for students. My wife gets mad at me when I say this because she needed student loans and benefitted from them, but I think she would have been able to get about the same education if student loans were not so widespread. I am not against student loans entirely, but a lot of colleges are encouraging students to pile on the debt and sometimes misleading students on whether they will really have to pay back that 80K.


This is also why I get mad that public universities have sports programs. Students get stuck with a bigger bill, despite the arguments that TV revenues make so much money for the schools. There's a juco where I live that has very good juco basketball and volleyball programs. Single moms and working students have to pay extra fees so kids from outside the state get a free ride. Not an intelligent use of taxpayers' dollars, not fair to broke students.

I believe the UM football program graduates less than 30%. Many in my community care more about a silly win than the caliber of education the the students receive.


I held this view even before I was the broke parent of a broke student.

I disagree with your posts on so many levels, but I'll just address a few specific points. (And just so my post won't get dismissed as irrelevant because I belong to the wrong generation, you and I are roughly the same age.)


"unless you have a very specific career path in mind and really know what your doing (or have parents willing to foot the bill), college is one of the biggest mistakes a young adult can make."


I didn't know what I wanted to do when I went to college, and I don't now apply specific knowledge that I gained from my undergrad major in my career. But I do use general skills that I acquired all of the time -- problem solving and analytic skills. And I have a great alumni network.


I think that as with any opportunity, what you gain from college is a function of the focus and effort that you put into it.


"ill add this: my friend who is an excellent and decently paid video game programmer tells me that they get applicants all the time that he interviews who have nice BA degrees in computers and they just suck and he has to turn them away all the time."


Having a BA certainly doesn't guarantee you a job, but it gets you in the door. In software, the technical interviews are to see what the skills (problem solving and programming) that you've acquired are, whether it be through educational institutions, industry, or both.


I've worked in consulting and software and have interviewed quite a number of people. Although it's possible, I don't ever recall interviewing anyone without a college degree for a professional position (which means that non-degreed candidates don't even get past the first-round screening done by recruiters). So, all we ever turn down are degreed candidates.


"my two best friends, same age, 28, make in the high 5 figures and both only have a high school diploma. while i struggle to get by, selling stuff on the internet and playing poker, they have developed skills the smart way."


I think you're comparing apples to oranges. I think it'd be more appropriate to ask where your friends would be now if they had a college education -- perhaps they'd be solidly making a six-figure salary now.

i'm sure there is value to broadening ones mind and developing social skills


BUT there seems to be too many students there who are doing little else


as my son neared the end of high school and told me he wanted to go to college, I told him GOOD..I worked my way thru, but will be happy to pay for yours PROVIDED that you major in some specific area such as medicene, law , engeineering, etc


so he did--came out with some specific skills, as well as all that other stuff...happy to say he now has very good job, family, etc. has had two assignments in foreign countries which also helps develop that other stuff


about me--yes my specific degree helped get job, but didn't like working for other people...started own business which years later I sold to one of those big New York conglomerates,,,in my case AMBITION was the key.

A college education is worth its weight in gold. I sit in an air conditioned office, playing on the computer all day making 3 or 4 times what I could make without a college education. And by the time I am 30, I will be making 7 or 8 times what I could make without a college education. Not to mention stock options, 401K, yearly bonuses, and great benefits. I get 3 weeks of vacation a year (plus an optional 4th of unpaid, which I always take), I get to come in when I want, and leave when I want. And I get to travel all over the world FOR FREE! Life without a college education is a very scary thought.


And I paid my way through college by interning in the summers and working odd jobs throughout the year. When I graduated, the only debt I had was 2000 dollars in credit card bills, which I easily paid off with the signing bonus I got from my first job. So its not like you have to go into debt up to your ass.


I look at all these kids who graduated above me in high school who are working dead end jobs just to make ends meet and I realize how fortunate I was that my parents demanded that I go to college.

When you wake up one morning, and you are 40 years old, and not a wet behind the ears 21 year old, you will shudder at the thought of what your life would be if you hadn't gone to college.


You have just made all the sacrifices and paid all the costs, and yeah, everything isn't handed to you your first year out of college. But over the next 20 years you are going to start reaping the financial rewards at an ever increasing pace that that worthless sheepskin is going to give you.

I have a 3.3 gpa and haven't learned anything of value that couldn't have been taught to me in three months. Just give me a formula and tell me what the little letters mean, and I normal human being can get through life - without college.

what is your major? If that is all you got out of college, then maybe you need to try something more specialized.


That is why I got out of Math. To plug and chug, no thinking involved. Engineering was much more fullfilling. You got to actually solve problems instead of plug numbers into formulas.

I'm inclined to agree. If you're looking at

college strictly in terms of return on investment

then it doesn't measure up very well. However,

I think that if this is the way you're looking

at a college education then you're squandering

an opportunity.


Education as a financial investment makes a great

deal of sense in some contexts. However, this

should largely be the purview of community

colleges, trade schools, engineering programs,

nursing programs, etc.. These are skills based

programs where you pay money so you can eventually

earn money. There's nothing wrong with this.


However, going to an expensive four-year

institution in order to enter a career field that

does not require such a degree is probably a bad

idea. However, this is not to say that going to

such a school is a waste of money. There are

other, more important, ways to measure an

education.


Besides ROI, there is another reason to want to

go to college, and this is, quite simply, to

enrich your soul. While the benefits of this

do not lend themselves to financial analysis,

nobody should doubt its value. At a four-year

college you have the opportunity to interact

with your peers, avail yourself of cutting-edge

research opportunities, learn from some of the

brightest minds on the planet, broaden your

horizons, and just spend a great deal of

relatively worry-free time thinking about

whatever you want. This is an amazing

opportunity. The problem is that many folks,

like yourself, either don't value it or don't

realize it for what it is until it's too late.

Frankly, I think this is as much the fault of

our educational institutions as it is of the

students like yourself.


In any case, I'm sorry you feel like you've

wasted your time and your money. If you feel

like you have, you're probably correct in your

assessment. Me, I can't help but feel much

sadder that you've wasted such a wonderful

opportunity.


Good luck.