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Rachel Stapleton GSW 1110 Susan Cruea 7 March 2019 Schools Out Forever?

What do you think of when you hear the word college? Dorm rooms, stress, homework, partying, scholarships and loans. A lot of families, schools, and society push students to go to college, but is it really necessary for students to go to college? Bryan Caplan an economics professor at George Mason University would argue that it isn’t. I agree with Caplan because college is not necessary for everyone to succeed in life because of the extensive time, high cost, and the availability of other alternatives. In Caplan’s article “The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone” he identifies that society is pushing more students to go to college as a natural part of their education that doesn’t stop when graduating high school. College didn’t used to be this pushed but now you can’t escape the expectation of college for everyone. When completing a four-year degree that generally takes about 122 credit hours to graduate. That’s roughly 15 hours every week sitting in a class room. That’s a lot of time put towards getting lectured in classes that don’t necessarily go towards your intended major.

College takes up a lot of time in a student’s life. I know that I spend a great deal of time on my school work or at the library. Caplan discusses the possibility that not everyone is meant for college.

Stapleton 2 Indeed, in the average study, senior year of college brings more than twice the pay increase of freshman, sophomore, and junior years combined. Unless colleges delay job training until the very end, signaling is practically the only explanation. This in turn implies a mountain of wasted resources—time and money that would be better spent preparing students for the jobs they’re likely to do. I really agree with Caplan here because college takes about 4 years of your life when you’ve already devoted your entire life so far to education. When you know what you want to do in life why waste any more time on college? With the amount of time invested in college what’s there to gain for the general population of 19-23-year-olds? Going to college takes up more time than a full-time job. This time could be spent in a full-time job instead of taking classes that don’t relate to your major. The Washington Post agrees with Caplan or at least Steve Pearlstein does in dedicating a whole article to Caplan. “Citing copious amounts of social science data, Caplan calculates that at least half of the 67 percent premium earned by the average college graduate can be explained simply by the talent, knowledge and discipline that they already had when they arrived for freshman orientation”. If this is true then why do we need college according to Caplan what are we as college students doing? We already have the skills for our intend fields. So can’t the people who already are in our fields teach us themselves as an alternative to college that costs an arm and a leg? The answer is yes. The phrase learning from your mistakes should be applied. Why don’t you just give new employees a trial period. Caplan already tells the reader we already have the skills necessary to start work so why don’t we? With scholarships and financial aid available most students will come up with a nice few years of student loans to pay throughout the years to come. This is just one more reason every

Stapleton 3 single person does not need college. No one likes when they get the statement entitling how much is expected to be paid back at the end of the four years of hard work and grueling efforts to stay afloat. So why would someone go through all that unnecessary trouble for, let’s be honest, a slip of paper in a pretty holder? It doesn’t make sense for everyone to go to college let alone everyone get a ridiculous amount of debt. “Fresh men have the lowest total average loan debt with $14,447, sophomores with $19,416, juniors with $22,512, and seniors with the highest total debt of $29,682. Intuitively, the higher the classification, the more total loan debt students accrue” (Solis and Ferguson 333). All of this money that could be spend on a house payment, car, and the general cost of life would be a better use of the money for people who don’t need college. What’s understandable is getting this cost reduced via scholarships, grants, and recognition.

Lots of alternative options to the traditional college experience are out there. My best friend doesn’t go to college and he is perfectly happy and saving a ton of money. He has a steady job at Kroger and is extremely involved in our local church. He does plan to go to college eventually but by that time he will have more money and can go at college on his own time. Other options are trade schools or simply just jumping right into college. There is nothing wrong with going to trade schools. Lots of jobs are in demand that require no further education like plumbers, electricians, and many others. Trade schools are respectable and people who attend these school often get field experience right away. So, they are making money while they are paying for the costs of trade school. These people are already one step ahead, well four years so to say, ahead of us college folks. Caplan points out a startling observation that might be worth looking into. “It’s tempting to say that students on the college track can always turn to vocational

Stapleton 4 education as a Plan B, but this ignores the disturbing possibility that after they crash, they’ll be too embittered to go back and learn a trade” (Caplan). College is great but if people who do go to college end up unemployed or laid off what will they do? Accepting that you have no job is very hard for some people and if they have a college degree than they will be less likely to try and learn something unrelated to their field. This further illustrates that some people can’t predict the future and if they have a college degree and something unexpected happens they are less likely to try and get a new job unrelated to their degree. Doctors, nurses, and surgeons are just a few of the exceptions to this solution. The whole point of college for these students is to learn everything before they are allowed to even enter the practice. Even their entry level positions are called practices as their profession, so college is a necessity for these students. Would you want a doctor with no experience and knowledge of his predecessor’s mistakes to operate on you? The answer is most likely no because what is being operated on isn’t something you want further injured. The purpose of years of extensive schooling is to give these doctors some experience through a safe way of learning. My sister is a sophomore currently enrolled at The Ohio State University’s nursing program. This is a competitive field at OSU and requires a lot of time and dedication. Going to school as a doctor takes about 16 years of first your bachelors, masters, and then your doctoral degree. Four years in the undergraduate, four more years in medical school, then 3-7 years of residency training, and then they are eligible to have a medical license. So that’s already up to 16 years of schooling just to be eligible for a medical license. Most of the doctors you see are old and maybe have some wrinkles but they have the experience. I know I personally wouldn’t trust some doctor who was 28 yet that is more than half of their life dedicated to school. The amount of time is necessary for

Stapleton 5 those jobs but is it really necessary for all the other jobs to have at least four additional years of schooling. The money that is invested in college is worth it right? According to Peter Osborn spending the money on college is definitely worth it. “By choosing not to go to college, you are essentially forfeiting $17,500 per year and $1 million over your lifetime”. Having that extra million in retirement could make the difference between the decision to go on your dream vacation to Hawaii or staying at home with your spouse wishing you had some extra money for that vacation. $1 million is a lot of money that could also buy a house, car, and maybe some left over for bills. This extra million isn’t guaranteed though. This assumes that you never get laid off, keep moving up in the job market and you are over all very successful in life. Even after all of society pressures high school students to go to college millions of students end up at a university studying hard for their next quiz, exam, or final. Some of those students end up not right for a university but yet they still go and the reason why is they feel pressured because so many of their peers are going to college the fear of being labeled as a high school graduate versus a college graduate scares some kids. College isn’t right for everyone and there are plenty of options out there that can and do serve as alternatives. So society needs to start accepting that and look at the sacrificed time and money.

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Works Cited Caplan, Bryan. “The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone”. The Atlantic. January/Feburary Issue 2018. bigfuture.collegeboard.org/compare-colleges? excmpid=OC209-ST-82-DM. Osborn, Peter. “Do College Grad Really Earn More Than High School Grads?”. Cornerstone University. November 29, 2016. https://www.cornerstone.edu/blogs/lifelong-learningmatters/post/do-college-grads-really-earn-more-than-high-school-grads Pearlstein, Steve. “Is College Worth It? One Professor Says No”. The Washington Post March 9, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-higher-education-has-littleincentive-to-deliver-better-value/2018/03/08/a02684e0-224a-11e8-94daebf9d112159c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.38a09aeecf97 Solis, Oscar and Ralph Ferguson. “The Relationship Of Student Loan and Credit Card Debt On Financial Satisfaction of College Students” College Student Journal. Fall 2017 vol. 51 Issue 51 p329. https://publications.nasfaa.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1576&context=jsfa...