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College Degrees A Waste Of Time, Money
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Published: May 11, 2008
Among my saddest moments as a career counselor is when I hear a story like this: "I wasn't a good student in high school, but I wanted to prove that I can get a college diploma. I'd be the first one in my family to do it. But it's been five years and $80,000, and I still have 45 credits to go."
I have a hard time telling such people the killer statistic: Among high-school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas 8½ years later.
That figure is from a study cited by Clifford Adelman, a former research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education and now a senior research associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Yet four-year colleges admit and take money from hundreds of thousands of such students each year!
Even worse, most of those college dropouts leave the campus having learned little of value, and with a mountain of debt and devastated self-esteem from their unsuccessful struggles. Perhaps worst of all, even those who do manage to graduate too rarely end up in careers that require a college education. So it's not surprising that when you hop into a cab or walk into a restaurant, you're likely to meet workers who spent years and their family's life savings on college, only to end up with a job they could have done as a high-school dropout.
Such students are not aberrations. Today, amazingly, a majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared. Only 23 percent of the 1.3 million high-school graduates of 2007 who took the ACT examination were ready for college-level work in the core subjects of English, math, reading, and science.
Perhaps more surprising, even those high school students who are fully qualified to attend college are increasingly unlikely to derive enough benefit to justify the often six-figure cost and four to six years (or more) it takes to graduate.
Research suggests that more than 40 percent of freshmen at four-year institutions do not graduate in six years. Colleges trumpet the statistic that, over their lifetimes, college graduates earn more than nongraduates, but that's terribly misleading. You could lock the collegebound in a closet for four years, and they'd still go on to earn more than the pool of non-collegebound - they're brighter, more motivated and have better family connections.
Also, the past advantage of college graduates in the job market is eroding. Ever more students attend college at the same time as ever more employers are automating and sending offshore ever more professional jobs, and hiring part-time workers. Many college graduates are forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck or tending bar.
How much do students at four-year institutions actually learn?
Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more about enlightenment than employment. That may be the biggest deception of all. Often there is a Grand Canyon of difference between the reality and what higher-education institutions, especially research ones, tout in their viewbooks and on their Web sites.
Colleges and universities are businesses, and students are a cost item, while research is a profit center. As a result, many institutions tend to educate students in the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students.
At many colleges, only a small percentage of the typical student's classroom hours will have been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor, according to student-questionnaire data I used for my book "How to Get an Ivy League Education at a State University." When students at 115 institutions were asked what percentage of their class time had been spent in classes of fewer than 30 students, the average response was 28 percent.
That's not to say that professor-taught classes are so worthwhile. The more prestigious the institution, the more likely that faculty members are hired and promoted much more for their research than for their teaching. Professors who bring in big research dollars are almost always rewarded more highly than a fine teacher who doesn't bring in the research bucks.
College students may be dissatisfied with instruction, but, despite that, do they learn? A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below "proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their cars had enough gas to get to the gas station.
Unbelievably, according to the Spellings Report, which was released in 2006 by a federal commission that examined the future of American higher education, things are getting even worse: "Over the past decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined." What must be done to improve undergraduate education?
Colleges should be held at least as accountable as tire companies are. When some Firestone tires were believed to be defective, government investigations, combined with news-media scrutiny, led to higher tire-safety standards. Yet year after year, colleges and universities turn out millions of defective products: students who drop out or graduate with far too little benefit for the time and money spent. Not only do colleges escape punishment, but they are rewarded with taxpayer-financed student grants and loans, which allow them to raise their tuitions even more.
I believe that colleges should be required to prominently report the following data on their Web sites and in recruitment materials:
•Value added. A national test, which could be developed by the major testing companies, should measure skills important for responsible citizenship and career success. Some of the test should be in career contexts: the ability to draft a persuasive memo, analyze an employer's financial report or use online research tools to develop content for a report.
• The average cash, loan, and work-study financial aid for varying levels of family income and assets, broken out by race and gender. And because some colleges use the drug-dealer scam - give the first dose cheap and then jack up the price - they should be required to provide the average not just for the first year, but for each year.
•Retention data: the percentage of students returning for a second year, broken out by SAT score, race, and gender.
•Safety data: the percentage of an institution's students who have been robbed or assaulted on or near the campus.
•The four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates, broken out by SAT score, race, and gender. That would allow institutions to better document such trends as the plummeting percentage of male graduates in recent years.
•Employment data for graduates: the percentage of graduates who, within six months of graduation, are in graduate school, unemployed, or employed in a job requiring college-level skills, along with salary data.
If your child's high-school grades and test scores are in the bottom half for his class, resist the attempts of four-year colleges to woo him. Colleges make money whether or not a student learns, whether or not she graduates, and whether or not he finds good employment. Let the buyer beware.
Consider an associate-degree program at a community college, or such nondegree options as apprenticeship programs (see www.khake.com), shorter career-preparation programs at community colleges, the military and on-the-job training, especially at the elbow of a successful small-business owner.
If your student is in the top half of her high-school class and is motivated to attend college for reasons other than going to parties and being able to say she went to college, have her apply to perhaps a dozen colleges. Colleges vary less than you might think (at least on factors you can readily discern in the absence of the accountability requirements I advocate above), yet financial-aid awards can vary wildly. It's often wise to choose the college that requires you to pay the least cash and take out the smallest loan. College is among the few products that don't necessarily give you what you pay for- price does not indicate quality.
If your child is one of the rare breed who knows what he wants to do and isn't unduly attracted to academics or to the Animal House environment that characterizes many college-living arrangements, then take solace in the fact that countless other people have successfully taken the noncollege road less traveled.
Some examples: Maya Angelou, David Ben-Gurion, Richard Branson, Coco Chanel, Walter Cronkite, Michael Dell, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Alex Haley, Ernest Hemingway, Wolfgang Puck, John D. Rockefeller Sr., Ted Turner, Frank Lloyd Wright, and nine U.S. presidents, from Washington to Truman.
College is a wise choice for far fewer people than are currently encouraged to consider it. It's crucial that they evenhandedly weigh the pros and cons of college versus the aforementioned alternatives. The quality of their lives may depend on that choice.
Marty Nemko is a career counselor based in Oakland, Calif., and has been an education consultant to 15 college presidents. He is author of four books, including "The All-in-One College Guide: A Consumer Activist's Guide to Choosing a College" (Barron's, 2
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( cyanide ) on May 11, 2008 at 7:48 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
It's good to see the truth is finally coming out. Check this story --
http://cyanidehole.com/2006/11/03/why-i-no-longer-teach/
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Posted by ( lrfeagle ) on May 18, 2008 at 12:38 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
It's pretty depressing as a college student these days when your parents work hard to send you to college only to have this columnist tell me how much of a waste of time and money college is.
I fit the above description as someone who has about 20 hours or so to complete and have spent quite a bit of money the last three years. I am one of the lucky one's though, who have gone through college on the Florida Prepaid Plan, along with a Bright Futures Scholarship to offset the costs of textbooks, classes and living expenses.
I won't argue that college is expensive- way more expensive than it has ever been, seeings how book buy-back is a joke.
But to say that college is a complete waste of time and money is subject to debate, especially considering what your education experience is, what you plan to do for a living and who you are.
I graduated from Plant High School in 2005 in the upper third of my class and I am now a senior at the University of Florida studying journalism. Through Facebook, I have seen many of my classmates from high school drop out from their initial college choice to either go back to a community college or transfer to a smaller school- many students have trouble dealing with the new environment of living on your own and making your own choices.
If you are someone who went to high school and did marginally ok, often went to the dean's office for tardiness, often had OSS or ATOSS, then college is probably not for you.
But if you are someone who has ambition to do better than marginal and are willing to work hard, then college probably is for you and you will only get out of it what you put into it.
I won't deny that a poor economy today leaves many college graduates without jobs. But if you are someone who graduates with a liberal arts and sciences degree such as: English, history, business or political science, then you either need to have a really good plan after graduation or continue going to graduate school. There are so many people who graduate with a business degree who can't find a job and end up working in retail and department stores.
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Posted by ( lrfeagle ) on May 18, 2008 at 12:41 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( TTrent ) on May 18, 2008 at 1:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Excellent points. Nobody benefits when the bar is lowered -- not the students there to learn, and certainly not the ones who are attending school simply because there was "grant money" (ie. taxpayer funds) available.
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Posted by ( lrfeagle ) on May 19, 2008 at 10:07 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
A lot of college majors do not require graduate school and in some cases college itself. In studying journalism, I needed instruction on how to report and write in AP style, but my major is based more on real world experience working for a publication than passing an exam that gives me a license.
Apparently this columnist is not aware that many professions require undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral education. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and businessmen are all very worthwhile, important professions that require a college education and benefit society.
It's great to see that the columnist mentions people who have never gone to college and were still successful. It's also great to see that these people are lucky and most achieved their success prior to 1970. Can someone seriously expect to run for president of the US today without a college education? Just about all of the people that the columnist mentions are people who had a skill or talent that did not necessarily require a college education, during an era when it was not that important.
If someone wants to be moderately successful in my eco-boomer generation of television, animation and the internet, a college education and a plan still puts you leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of high school graduates.
This columnist brings up many decent points about buyer beware when it comes to college. But to say that it is a complete waste of time and money, is a complete waste of time of my life reading this editorial.
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