College has been oversold. It has been oversold to students who end up dropping out or graduating with degrees that don’t help them very much in the job market. It also has been oversold to the taxpayers, who foot the bill for these subsidies.
Alex Tabarrok
College has been oversold
Marginal Revolution
My son, although just 14, seems fairly clear on what he wants to do as a grownup. He wants to run a small manufacturing concern that builds custom firearms and designs and builds firearms enhancement products (like better triggers). To do this he will need to know machining, welding, CNC programming, plastic injection molding, as well as math and spreadsheet/analysis skills. He will also need to design brochures, write business documents, magazine articles, negotiate and build relationships with vendors, customers, and employees, and know how to interpret a balance sheet/income statement.
There is no “college” degree for this. So is it better for me to drop $40K (or more) on some college degree, or $10K getting training in these fields, and $30K on machinery to start the business, while arranging mentors on some of the business specific things?
Note that paying $40K for an extended adolescence, or letting him borrow for the same, isn’t part of the plan.
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:08 am
Those four years would be better spent in the military learming a related skill and some discipline and people skills. Skip the 4 year traditional college. Its waste of time and money.
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:46 am
Certainly true for many degrees, art, english, women’s studies, for instance.
But a CS Degree, or a Civil Engineering degree, those are worth something. Maybe not $50K, but worth getting at $10 to $15K range.
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:57 am
What happened to the Army?
College is oversold for the arts and technical skills. For hard sciences where high-schools fail completely but the theory still needs to be taught, I would call college valuable and necessary, if perhaps a bit expensive for everyone.
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:59 am
The Army presumes a country worth dying for. I recommend it for adventure, but not skills.
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:59 am
In that you don’t have to give up 8 years of your life to learn to be a mechanic or weld.
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:00 pm
I hope friendly and varied advice will help the teens discover for themselves what college is about in a way that they can make a sensible decision about what to seek as support for their goals. The question of college’s value-for-money is much broader than discussed here.
November 2nd, 2011 at 5:37 pm
What does commenter Carl suppose that college is about today? As parents and employers on the front lines, we have a much clearer view as to its value, both monetary and non-monetary. What is the assumption of what they will be missing that only a college experience can provide?