<p>I’m afraid I think the concept of college ROI is off base. It’s college. They are our kids. Its simply what you do. Your invest in your children without thinking of “ROI”. Because you are a parent. For me, its as simple as that.</p>
<p>IndianParent</p>
<p>“Clearly there is a consensus on CC that a college education is not vocational training.”</p>
<p>What about Engineering? Accounting? Medicine?</p>
<p>ProudMomofS</p>
<p>“I’m afraid I think the concept of college ROI is off base. It’s college. They are our kids. Its simply what you do. Your invest in your children without thinking of “ROI”. Because you are a parent. For me, its as simple as that.”</p>
<p>I agree that this is one of the many reasons students go to college but I believe ther are many other reasons as well.</p>
<p>Indian Parent</p>
<p>“This is a completely wrong way to look at college. College is not about getting a job. It is an investment to enrich the mind.”</p>
<p>I fully agree with you up to a point. I think you view is accurate for SOME students. However, I believe many students go to college simply to get a better job, earn more money, have more career choices, satisfy parents (schools, guidance counselors, society at large), etc. In a number of these cases, compensation and earnings are legitimate yardsticks.</p>
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<p>I guess that means that there’s going to be a mad rush of applicants to GIT.</p>
<p>Rubbing my eyes in disbelief, I find myself in agreement with IP, almost completely. </p>
<p>Yes, most students go to college because they perceive it will increase their earnings. That is because of the sick, materialistic culture that we, their parents, have imposed on them. </p>
<p>But if colleges are doing the jobs they should be doing, they will prepare a student for a full and enriching life - and that includes preparing one for a career that may or may not make one rich but that unquestionably matches one’s talents and interests. It also includes fostering a life of the mind, helping one start to make sense of the world, making one ethically aware, and creating the ability to relate to, work with, and empathize with many different kinds of people. </p>
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<p>Color me cynical, I think IP is just messing around.</p>
<p>you arent cynical, bovertine, you are correct.</p>
<p>Everyone has different motivations. Some want to explore the meanings of life; some want to get a better-paying job; some just want to get better girls or boys…It is good that the life is so diverse and complex.</p>
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<p>By “sick, materialistic culture”, do you mean to include the high cost of attending university to the point of graduating with a bachelor’s degree?</p>
<p>If you were a high school graduate, and did not get a full ride to a university, would you attend one if it did not help in any way in future job and career prospects (i.e. you could get a job just as enjoyable and compensated just as well otherwise, though not necessarily the same job)?</p>
<p>This does not mean that improving job and career prospects is, or should be, the only reason to attend university to a bachelor’s degree. But it is a reason to do so, and the costs of attending university force it to be a criterion to consider for most students (i.e. neither full ride nor from very wealthy families).</p>
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<p>However, there are probably some schools which you think offer a poor education, possibly combined with high prices, that you would not send your children to. ROI is not necessarily just in monetary terms; even from an intellectual idealistic point of view (i.e. what and how much you learn, how well you expand your mind, etc.), some schools may do better than others, and some have such poor ROI that you would not send your children there.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is a great school. Highly recruited by Fortune 50 companies looking for engineers. It is the only college my former employer recruits for engineers outside the midwest. What else needs to be argued. College as ROI…well if you are a parent forking out more than you can afford it might be important. What is clear is that there is a value to college education and is it is not directly commensurate with the outflow in the short term. Spend accordingly if ROI is your primary concern. Me …ROI is a more long term proposition. Looking at my friends it mattered not alot whether we were Ivy League or top level public school or selective private educated…we’re all at about the same point in life economic wise and I adjusted my thinking accordingly. No regrets. Think for yourself if my advice.</p>
<p>By sick, materialistic culture, I mean the ideas that he who dies with the most toys wins, that you are what you earn, that material success brings happiness, and that your worth as a human being has something to do with the size of your bank account.</p>
<p>I mean the culture that causes almost every adult that my very smart and talented HS senior D2 tells she is thinking about a career in public education to immediately warn her, “there’s no money in education.”</p>
<p>I mean the culture that regards me as a freak because I’m immensely proud of D1, even though she is in a career where she’ll never get rich - and needed a master’s degree to get into (she’s a <gasp> librarian) and steadily climbing the ladder of increased responsibility in her professional life. And, I hasten to add, making an adequate living. </gasp></p>
<p>In answer to your direct question, yes, the fact that a good education costs more than most people can afford without burdening themselves with debt is part if the sickness. </p>
<p>I really can’t say what I would do as a high school senior in today’s culture, because I haven’t been in that position for 47 years. I would hope that I had parents and other caring adults that would have taught me that there’s much more to life than money. </p>
<p>I’m immensely glad that when I was growing up, I had those parents and that as a result, even though I don’t have much money, I have something immensely more valuable - a life of the mind and interests that go beyond absorption in who will be the next American Idol. </p>
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<p>The highlighted part is the only thing that I disagree with. I don’t think colleges should be in the business of teaching ethics.</p>
<p>You can’t teach someone to BE ethical, except by example. You can and should teach HOW to make ethical judgments - understanding, of course, that different ethical systems sometimes lead to different answers. </p>
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<p>That’s fine by me. It is the teaching on a particular ethical system that I am in disagreement with.</p>
<p>Bovertine, Be cynical all you want, but remember that I am the one who is encouraging my kid to ditch college and go to a conservatory, and pursue his passion of being a pianist.</p>
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<p>Opening minds is not limited to LA’s. I was a teenager when I bought one of the first Casio stopwatches with 1/100 sec resolution. I noticed that no matter how fast I would tap single-finger the fastest was always about the same. 8/100’ths. If I used two fingers it was much better, often 2/100’s. Took 20 years and a Purdue graduate degree to learn the answer. </p>
<p>Did I get my money’s worth off 14 years of college? Hard to tell. But I loved every second of it…</p>
<p>^turbo93</p>
<p>…or partial second.</p>
<p>Cute. I’m actually not at all convinced that every single thing we do and every single decision we make has to have an ROI. The term ROI is one of those abused terms that at one time had meaning but now has become narrowly defined as economic return on economic investment.</p>
<p>I never even considered the ROI of my own education, or for my kids, and in fact never even thought of it as a concept until I came to CC. I imagine that is a great privilege.</p>
<p>Having said that, the largest university in the U.S. by far is the University of Phoenix, and a plurality of students in the U.S. get business degrees, so obviously it is on other people’s minds.</p>