Not Everyone Needs to Attend College

How often do you hear "the college degree is the new high school diploma." I wonder who started this untrue rumor, and why the general population buys into it. Besides, I remember embarking on my freshman year at General University and observing that there were students enrolled in my classes that had absolutely no business attending college. Sometimes they didn't have the potential to complete their degree, but also there were others who just didn't know what career they wanted. College did not help them decide, and they dropped out after spending lots of money to discover this.

So, say you you work hard, study and get a college degree. Does that mean a job and a good salary when you graduate? Well, no ... it meant unemployment and a huge amount of student loan debt for me. And I'm not the only one. John Stossel hosts a wonderful segment aired on 20/20 addressing the value of a college degree:

Some Debt-Laden Graduates Wonder Why They Bothered With College hosted by John Stossel (01/16/2009)

Essentially, the segment points out that students who graduate from college often end up working in permanent jobs that only require a high school diploma. It also mentions that most higher education institutions provide an inflated statistic of starting salaries for their graduates which was absolutely true in my case. I will discuss how those misleading statistics are arrived at in another post.

Can you begin a career with just a high school diploma? Is there any hope for you to have a successful financial life without a bachelors degree?

Absolutely.

But like with most things in life it depends on many interdependent factors. What kind of person you are and what kind of work you like, the effort and time you are willing to invest, how intelligent you are, and your ability to learn new concepts. I see many high school graduates working low paying jobs like those at McDonalds, but if they make enough money to survive and are happy doing it, then who am I to judge? I have also witnessed many high school graduates start or become partners in businesses that grow and become very lucrative.

An alternative is to continue on with a formal education after high school, but keep the cost and time invested to a minimum. My mom has an AA degree in a medical field, loves her job, paid off her student loans in 5 years, and made more than me since 1999 just up until recently! There are technical schools for a variety of areas such as the plumbing and electrical fields. And before you look down on those occupations, they make damned good money, we need them AND their jobs can't be off-shored!

You don't need to earn a boat load of cash to make it through life. The key is to live on less than your earnings, avoid debt, and build wealth (I will discuss this in another post). However, if a high salary is important to you, here is a list compiled by the government of high earners that don't require a bachelors degree: High Earners Who Don't Have A Bachelors Degree.

But how about if your dream job requires an advanced degree? To work as an engineer, I was required to earn a BS. But to be honest, there are some that have worked along side me with 2 year degrees in computer programming. Moreover, I know of at least 2 jobs that I didn't get because they went to recent engineering technician graduates (2 year degree) instead! The employers felt they learned more job applicable skills (which was true). Expect to attend college 6 years or more for careers as a medical doctor, almost any psychology related field (clinical, behavioral, cognitive, etc.), and law. EVEN THOUGH SOME PROFESSIONALS MAKE A LOT OF MONEY IN THESE FIELDS, IF YOU ARE FINANCING YOUR EDUCATION WITH STUDENT LOANS, YOU MAY BE LEFT WITH ALMOST NOTHING AT THE END OF THE MONTH AFTER PAYING YOUR STUDENT LOAN PAYMENT. Don't believe me? Enlighten yourself, and do some searching through blogs. Blogspace is filled with these poor, peeved professionals complaining about their burdensome student loans.

When I was in graduate school, I met a debt laden lad who recently graduated with his PhD in clinical psychology. Stress of his work and student loan debt consumed this poor soul, and he said if he had to do it all over again, he would become a janitor.

So would I.