I am a parent who paid full freight for 2 kids (private colleges) and I do think it was/is worth it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with getting a basket-weaving degree from an expensive college, but if one cannot financially afford it in the short and long runs, it’s a bad personal finance decision.
There really isn’t a point spending $250k so one can do a $40k year job. Might as well just buy a decent house and pour coffee all day.
The problem I have with these stats is that it’s the same misleading framing as elsewhere in these GPI surveys and in the sensationalized news stories that come out of them. The figures you’re citing are not how many people agree with the statement, but how many “strongly agree.” The number who “agree or strongly agree” could be, and likely is, much higher, but presenting only the figures for those who “strongly agree” will lead many people to the erroneous conclusion that most college grads think their professors did NOT care about them as a person. But that’s an inference you just can’t fairly make from this limited presentation of the data. It’s spin. I’m not faulting you, that’s how it’s presented in the GPI reports, and in my opinion it’s just bogus and unprofessional. They should show us the whole data set, not cherrypick for sensational effect.
I removed several posts about gender studies degrees as off topic. Please start a separate thread if anyone thinks this is a fruitful line of discussion.
Ask a woman who just had a mammogram how she feels about it- if it was negative, then it was a waste of an hour. If it found a cancer which might save her life- she’ll feel differently.
That doesn’t change the value proposition at a macro level of mammograms. So I find this endless discussions as to whether young people feel their degrees were “worth it” to be a waste. The reality is that SOME degrees are not “worth it” from a monetary perspective because they are devoid of actual academic and intellectual content, and are really just a few weeks of vocational training masquerading as a college degree.
But try telling that to the Leisure Studies majors- who look at you like you’re deranged for suggesting that they major in an actual academic subject- like history or political science. Mommy and Daddy want them to be “employable”.
My question is what percentage of those students who said it wasn’t worth it got an engineering or medical degree, and what percentage studied French Lit or Russian history?
Traditional liberal arts are dying. There was a time when a company would hire someone with a French Lit degree, based on the idea that they had a good background education and could be trained. Now most of the liberal arts degrees are pipelines to careers as well-educated baristas who can hold up their end of an educated conversation.
Today’s employers want new grads to be ready to hit the ground running. Vocational degrees - those that translate directly into decent wage jobs such as engineering, law, medical, chemistry, education, etc - are what lead to a paycheck that can pay off the student loans and still be somewhat comfortable.
That said, I chose a “vocational” type major that I knew going into it would pay very little, despite requiring a degree to break into the field. I am STILL paying on my student loans, and that’s okay with me because I am doing what I love.
So what percentage of students who graduated with NO DEBT think their education was worth it?
Citation for this? While the plural of anecdotes is not data, this has not been my experience (though I’ve seen it echoed- and refuted- ad nauseam on CC).
HA. Law and education especially are especially over-saturated right now. It’s is very, VERY difficult to get a job in education and legal degrees except from the most prestigious universities are kind of considered a waste (not my words- this is from those within the profession). Can’t speak to the others.
If you asked my girls to fill out such a survey, they’d think that was a waste of their time.
OTOH, if you asked them about their majors, both lib arts, you’d see them light up. Both are grads, employed, and paying off debt. Their feelings, as is true about many surveys, don’t fit neatly into agree, strongly agree, disagree, etc.
Surveys are only as good as the people behind them and the real intentions. So Gallup has a new product to push? Oh.
Not sure why you would put law (except maybe from an elite law school) or chemistry into the category of giving assurance of getting a decent wage job.
Of course, medical school has high admissions gates, and engineering has relatively rigorous requirements that cause many of the weaker students to switch out of the major.
This was already answered in post #10:
- Nearly 4 in 5 recent (2006-2015) college graduates who didn't borrow agree (29%) or strongly agree (49%) that their education was "worth the cost."
This is straight from the survey cited in the OP.
This may overstate the situation in law. According to the American Bar Association, within 10 months after graduation 71% of 2014 law school graduates had full-time,long-term jobs that either required bar passage or for which a law degree was either required or preferred; and overall, only 10% were unemployed, though some were working in part-time and/or temporary positions or in jobs that didn’t require legal training (though there’s always some of this, as some people get a law degree then elect to go directly into business careers). The placement rates at the better law schools are much higher than these national averages. And because of a relatively sharp drop in law school enrollment, some are predicting an actual shortage of newly minted lawyers relative to available positions by the time the class of 2017 is hitting the job market. Yes, there are some bottom-feeding law schools still cranking out graduates who have extremely poor job prospects, but the overall situation is much better than it was at the depths of the recession, which came at a time when law schools were also producing record-largest graduating classes. Employment prospects are actually quite good for students currently at the better law schools.
I had no mentor, my “advisor” did not advise me of anything, I had to figure it all out on my own (parents did not attend college and I had no connections) but I still believe that a college degree is important. (if you are not going into a job that does not require a college degree). College is about more than learning obscure facts. It is about growing up, too. It is learning to manage your time and learning that it is not all about you.
Students are manipulated by the college mafia that a ‘degree’ itself has value. It does not for most. Either they are too young to really get anything out of school, or they have no clue what career path they are on. In the past, ANY college degree meant you COULD get a decent job that would lead to a decent salary. Now, with PhDs making coffee for minimum wage, that same degree is essentially worthless unless it has an in-demand specialty. Schools are very slow to adapt, as they are top heavy with tenured liberal arts profs. Can’t fire them, cannot fill enough general ed classes in their fields, so you HAVE to offer worthless degrees and hope there isn’t too much blowback from the Graduates.
College spending priorities are driven by overhead costs that do nothing to help society, students, or taxpayers.
So, you are no better off, financially, than someone who took out loans, got a degree in French Literature and went to work as a file clerk somewhere (they’re not all baristas…)
Some people are happy just being gainfully employed and using their skills - and that’s what Liberal Arts majors do in many white-collar jobs - although the jobs may not be high-paying.
So, why is that only vocational majors are worthy of going into debt for low-paying jobs?