Is a college education worth the cost?

[Valerie]

So many variables.
My niece graduated in May with her doctorate to be a physical therapist. She received scholarships but still had a lot to pay. She was able to complete in less time than usual and then was able to get a good job where they offered to pay student loans provided she stay a certain amount of time. So she will have a rewarding career that pays quite well and should definitely justify the cost of her education.

I work with young who after 4 years of college end up not using their degrees- a lot of thought really needs to go into their choices.

Our town has “Career Center” that provides great options for those not opting for typical college careers. Many graduate from high school specializing in something they can land a decent job with right out of high school. One girl worked with did well in her machining class, interned in summer at NASA, NASA hired her right out of high school (came driving up in her brand new Subaru Forester) and NASA pays to further your education (lots of companies do this).

It really all depends then- we work so many decades!

[Neto]

It depends on how you approach it and for what reasons. Many in our area go to the local community college for 2 years to get the basics then move on and if you look around you can find schools that are not as expensive. Also look for scholarships and/or work studies. Also more and more opportunities are out there to use online schools so you can fit it into your work schedule and live at home also.

Also why are you going? Just for the experience? Do you have a path of education in mind?
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So there are many factors, many reasons for a college education and so it can be worth the cost. But in my opinion you must be intentional and careful and choose wisely.

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... the question isn’t simply, “Is college worth it?” A better question is, “Given who you are, what you’re called to, and the path you want to take, which kind of education will best help you grow?” It may not be a college education. But it might. Most things in life require prayerful discernment.

Most probably know this about me already, but just in case, I went to a Bible college, got a 4-year degree, then did a number of grad level courses (but no Grad degree).

I concur with the comments above. It really depends on a number of personal factors. Generally speaking, I would say that going on to college right out of HS is not worthwhile unless you have a pretty good idea what you want to do in life. (Or, at least not going past the first two years, where most courses are basic required courses for graduating. But then, if there is not some sort of certainty that you will be doing something that would be aided by a college degree, then probably still not. Now if it's a Bible institute or college, then it's a good way to get a good grounding in how to study the Bible, what are the basic doctrines of the church, etc.

If there is a severe financial challenge involved, then getting the basic courses done in a local junior college makes good sense. (I considered quitting HS after I had the required number of credits for graduation, starting in at a local junior college, but a couple of my HS teachers convinced me to remain in HS even though I didn't need to. I think it was probably best that way for me, but it isn't possible to do it both ways - in order to compare - so what I think of it doesn't really carry much weight.)

One thing that any type of formal education (including finishing HS) will do for a person is that while some people are very motivated to increase their learning in a special field of study, they often do not make the time or effort to study something which they think is of no interest to them. My wife was forced to quit HS after 10th grade (that was already pushing the envelope), but later got a GED and went on to graduate with a 4 year degree. (And, like myself, she did a number of graduate level courses - those required for Bible translation.) But the thing that got her interested in languages at all was a requirement at her college of at least a semester foreign language study. She took Koine Greek, did well & loved it, and from there moved on to an interest in Bible translation and linguistics. So in the course of taking on a field of study that she didn't know she would do well in, and, perhaps more importantly, one that she would find interesting and appealing, she discovered a life path that shaped her life for a number of years.

These same things can also be said of the trades, and I think that a HS course that covers an introduction to a number of different trades would be a benefit for many people. We as "modern Westerners" typically have very narrow interests and areas of expertise or even general understanding. Contrast this with the 'education' that every member of a remote tribe gets, and one can see where all of this specialization has left us lacking.

[JohnH]

One thing that any type of formal education (including finishing HS) will do for a person is that while some people are very motivated to increase their learning in a special field of study, they often do not make the time or effort to study something which they think is of no interest to them.

My first two years of college were almost entirely gen-eds, with just a handful of classes in my major(s). I did not find that I gained an academic interest or enthusiasm for things like Personal Wellness/Fitness, World History, American History, English Literature, English in general, "The College Experience" (quite literally a college class that is about going to college and taking college classes), Personal Finances, Macro-Economics, Psychology, Current Events in Science, Fine Art, or Philosophy, to name a few. To be frank, most of the material covered in the courses could be much more effectively learned with a few hours spent clicking around Wikipedia.

The list of classes above (which is by no means comprehensive - more than are required to graduate) would be around $35,000 in tuition.

[barnhart]

My mother was able to take her highschool diploma into a job that could have been a viable career had she pursued it. I don't think my children will have that path open to them. Most jobs they will encounter that pay a living wage have other requirements. The economic structure where you live may simply have specific demands on qualifications.

[Neto]

One thing that any type of formal education (including finishing HS) will do for a person is that while some people are very motivated to increase their learning in a special field of study, they often do not make the time or effort to study something which they think is of no interest to them.

My first two years of college were almost entirely gen-eds, with just a handful of classes in my major(s). I did not find that I gained an academic interest or enthusiasm for things like Personal Wellness/Fitness, World History, American History, English Literature, English in general, "The College Experience" (quite literally a college class that is about going to college and taking college classes), Personal Finances, Macro-Economics, Psychology, Current Events in Science, Fine Art, or Philosophy, to name a few. To be frank, most of the material covered in the courses could be much more effectively learned with a few hours spent clicking around Wikipedia.

The list of classes above (which is by no means comprehensive - more than are required to graduate) would be around $35,000 in tuition.

One personal example. Not that I developed a great interest in it, but that semester of HS I could have skipped was when I took speech class. Then I had a Freshman level college speech course as well, and later an upper class level homiletics course. Public speaking was not an interest I had, nor would I say that it is a special interest of mine now, but it is something I've needed to do throughout the rest of my life since then, and the things I learned in those courses still serve me in leading SS class discussions, and even in any writing skills I use here on this forum, and on others as well. (That also involves things learned in various English courses, in HS as well as college.)

I have a friend, also a Bible translator, who is, I would say, a much better linguist than I, but he is not a good public speaker. (Fortunately his wife IS a good public speaker, so their financial support for ministry work probably doesn't suffer.)

[Dan Z]

A few thoughts:

• 1) College is not for everyone, and there are fine career paths that don't include a college degree.
  
  2) I think that college is getting financially out of reach for many, and that college debt is too burdensome for too many young people.
  
  3) Like in any endeavor, it is possible to waste a lot of money and time with the wrong college, pursuing the wrong degree, for the wrong reasons.
  
  3) College can be affordable if you make the right choices (commuting, state & local colleges, financial aid, scholarships, employer assistance, etc).
  
  4) Ultimately, it is very important to choose a marketable degree that provides a return on investment.
  
  5) College is as much about intellectual development as it is about career development. A good college education teaches students how to think rather than just what to think.
  
  6) As far as faith grounding, intellectual development, and core relationships are concerned, Anabaptist young people would do best to start their post-high school education in a church-based higher-ed context (e.g. Faithbuilders, Rosedale, Elnora, SMBI, etc.), or at least in a mission/discipleship context, before pursuing a degree at a secular university...or starting a career, business, or family for that matter.
  
  7) Economically, college is still a good investment for most people. On average, people with a college degree earn quite a bit more over a lifetime than non-college grads (upwards of $1 million), and college grads are historically about half as likely to be unemployed as non-grads.

[JohnH]

5) College is as much about intellectual development as it is about career development. A good college education teaches students how to think rather than just what to think.

This is something we often hear… but having attended college myself and then spending too much of my career at universities and colleges, I’m not sure it’s actually the case.

Perform a simple thought experiment: how many universities would teach people to have an open mind towards traditional family values or conservative politics vs modern values and liberal politics? The answer is painfully obvious in surveys. Universities might market themselves as “teaching how to think”, but the product they are actually selling seems to just be indoctrination.

6) As far as faith grounding, intellectual development, and core relationships are concerned, Anabaptist young people would do best to start their post-high school education in a church-based higher-ed context (e.g. Faithbuilders, Rosedale, Elnora, SMBI, etc.), or at least in a mission/discipleship context, before pursuing a degree at a secular university...or starting a career, business, or family for that matter.

For plain Anabaptists, universities have typically been vectors of liberalism (and the stories I hear present day coming out of Rosedale would confirm that). It seems like these institutions are very eager to recruit young people from more conservative groups and then indoctrinate them into some other way of belief.

Missions used to be a vector for liberalism (read “A Gentle Wind”), and without care, missions/agencies/seminaries/universities seem to inevitably push things in a worldly direction. Hence why the majority of plain groups avoid such things.

7) Economically, college is still a good investment for most people. On average, people with a college degree earn quite a bit more over a lifetime than non-college grads (upwards of $1 million), and college grads are historically about half as likely to be unemployed as non-grads.

Does this analysis include plain people? Off the top of my head, college grads certainly don’t seem wealthier or more stable in employment inside plain circles.

[Dan Z]

5) College is as much about intellectual development as it is about career development. A good college education teaches students how to think rather than just what to think.

This is something we often hear… but having attended college myself and then spending too much of my career at universities and colleges, I’m not sure it’s actually the case.

Perform a simple thought experiment: how many universities would teach people to have an open mind towards traditional family values or conservative politics vs modern values and liberal politics? The answer is painfully obvious in surveys. Universities might market themselves as “teaching how to think”, but the product they are actually selling seems to just be indoctrination.

I do think there is data that supports the leftward lean of higher ed in the USA (I'm not convinced that is always a bad thing BTW), but I also believe this is a bit of a caricature - and probably depends in good part on the school and the major. If you are studying Gender Studies at Berkley, you will certainly get a different ideological experience than, say, Engineering at Georgia Tech. In my experience, those who make this case tend to cherry-pick examples that are not representative of the normal day-to-day experience on most college campuses.

Let me share what I'm thinking when I say college helps people learn how to think.

First, any college education worth its salt starts not with political ideology, but by teaching students things like critical thinking skills, the scientific method, proper research techniques, academic writing skills, academic rigor & peer review, statistical analysis, using a varied source material, etc. - in essence, grassroots epistemology. These tools help a young person begin to discern between tested research and free-wheeling opinion, fact from fertilizer, if you will. Armed with these thinking skills, a student is more equipped to process the ideas they are presented with and discern their validity.

Second, a good college education is going to be broad-based, surveying various schools of thought in a variety of disciplines, and challenging the student to consider various (often competing) points of view. Good higher ed is not indoctrination, it is education. Colleges don't do themselves any favors by churning out graduates who are not conversant in a wide spectrum of ideas and philosophies and able to think for themselves.

Third, the reason I suggest church-related higher ed as a foundational first step is to inoculate students, to some degree, from wide-eyed susceptibility to unchristian philosophies and ideas they may bump into at a secular university. More on that later...

[Soloist]

When I was pursuing an ag degree in college one of the classes I had to take which I ended up dropping out of was a history course on western civilization. It was blatantly anti-Christian.
A biology class I had to take said it was a survey on evolution. The first term second term they went a little more in depth, and last term was all evolution.
The actual crop ecology class I took had very little other than identifying grass. The soil science class I took was similar. It had a little bit of earth aging, but it matches perfectly with what I understand about the Earth.

Nursing School was almost entirely practical and pertinent to the actual things I needed.
I took probably six psychology classes, and they all basically just regurgitated the same thing over and over again which was mostly just a bunch of history and theories and speculations that nobody had any real idea on outside of studying mice in labs.
Writing classes were mostly useful as well as math.
College though was not teaching someone how to think, it was teaching how to learn what the instructor wanted to test.
Something like determining how to think wasn’t something that 99% of the college instructors actually are able to do either. It’s a solid science where there is only one way to look at it, or there are several ways, but you’re being tested on only one.
The closest I would say was when we took statistics and the instructor was definitely not PC and spent a lot more time discussing how statistics lie to you.
I would say Nursing School, though was probably the closest to teaching how to think, but it wasn’t teaching how to think as what most people would think of that, but rather was teaching how to think like a specific style of nurse. there’s been some research on how nursing schools teach only one type of nursing, but it’s not well studied.

[Neto]

Teaching How to Think vs Teaching What to Think -
This is something that seems to be happening in some Mennonite Bible Institutes, judging from the course listings I've seen posted at our church house. When I see a whole string of courses on many different Bible books, I think they are teaching the students What to Think about each of the books studied. On the other hand, what I experienced was (in my Freshman year, actually) a Bible Study Methods course that covered a number of different approaches. The book of First John was used as the text material on which these methods were applied. The one I recall best is the paper that was assigned on I John 5:7-8, which contains the most glaring addition to Scripture. I was never a "top student", but I think the professor must have been able to tell that I had struggled deeply with the issues involved with something of that nature, because I got a very rare-for-me A on that paper.

That approach, teaching how to study, also results in learning how to think. Sure, he expected that some students would just 'tell him what they thought he wanted to hear'. But I don't think that's what he wanted - He wanted to be able to see that we had grappled with the issues, as well as the deeper, somewhat buried ones. (A friend of mine there lost his faith over that deal, and the last time I saw him he was deeply involved in a heretical 'church'. That reminds me also of the care that a professor must exercise, realizing that the students may have vastly different levels of 'faith security'. I do not know if he ever found out about that student, because both of us did not return there the following year, but I'm certain that he would have felt badly if he had known.)