“Go to college.” It’s a phrase we’ve heard in every stage of our lives so it has been given little thought. We have given it so little thought in fact that as a society have come to accept it as an eternal truth. Playing devil’s advocate I would like to take a deeper look into a counter argument.
Let us look at a recent event historical event. The Occupy Wall Street movement can be described as a complete failure. After days of protesting no changes were made and the gathering was dispersed by law enforcement. An overwhelming majority of the protesters were unemployed college educated adults. Within that group, most were recently graduated and unable to find work as a new hire. Surely this is a product of the economic position. Even assuming this is true most people aim to have a recession-proof career. So we can safely say that a “good” job will have economic stability as a perk.
General Electric has one plant that has never gone red (their profit always exceeds their expenses). They are non-unionized and are a production facility. Based on these facts we can assume that employment is relatively consistent. At this plant starting hourly rate for a welder is over $30. This is about the same that a new hire mechanical engineer would make. Think about that for a second. Someone who goes to trade school can make as much as an undergraduate (for half the time and a fraction of the cost).
Student loans are very special in a few facets. First of is the beneficial aspect, they can have very low interest rates on a large principle for people with poor credit. That all sounds great until you look at the fine print. Student loans cannot be included in a bankruptcy file. This means that even if you are so broke that the government and all your creditors will forget about your unpaid loans you will still have to pay them back. The longer you go to school the more it is going to cost you. For the most part this won’t be a problem if you can get a job after college. But, it adds even more to the negative effects if you do not have the right marketable skills.
As I mentioned before there are alternatives to college. If you are starting to feel like maybe secondary education isn’t your thing wait just a moment. People have probably told you that industry in America is dead or dying. They are wrong. There are many skilled labor positions available, such as welders, machinists, etc.… The interesting thing about these positions is that during times of economic hardship the number of available positions can actually grow and the new positions aren’t from layoffs. The government likes to invest in infrastructure when they need to stimulate the economy. I will not get into the economics behind it but it is usually a good decision and can be very advantageous when there are people ready to fill the new positions.
Now, this is not all to say that you should not go to college. If you stop and consider what career options will be available in 10 years with the degree you hope to go for odds are you are going to be okay. People will always tell you to do what makes you happy since you will be doing it for the rest of your life. This will only ever be true if there are employment options for what you like to do. When I was required to choose my major I wanted to go work for NASA or some other aerospace company. Back in 2009 when I was making this decision it was clear that there might not be any jobs in the aerospace field by the time I graduated. So instead I decided to go for a mechanical engineering degree knowing there would be more opportunities to find a desirable job.
During my time in college I have seen people with “strong” degrees fail to find jobs. I have seen hundreds of students with “weak” degrees filing bankruptcy on student loans that will still need to be paid back. What all of these examples say is that college is not a free ticket to higher salaries and guaranteed employment. Hard work and careful planning will prevent making mistakes when it comes to picking a career.
