Why Attend College
One industry under attack is higher education. In some cities, entrepreneurs have jumped into the education realm to compete with failing or underperforming high schools by creating privatized high schools, and that is only high school. Similar things are happening in community college and universities.
One tenet of a free market is that money attracts attention. Where large dollars are thrown around, people will try to find ways into the business to get a piece of the action. This is one reason why in the past ten years, we have seen private models, a.k.a. for-profit endeavors, in higher education. Here is the business case. On the demand side, outsiders saw tuition rising, record numbers of applicants, increased competition for admission and more jobs requiring degrees. On the supply side, they saw universities with overcrowded dorms and classrooms, degrees that take longer than four years to complete, withering state support, shrinking endowments and land-locked, real estate hungry monstrosities unable to adapt or serve non-traditional students (age, work status, family status) efficiently. In some ways, higher education is overripe for the picking by a critical eye.
At the same time, articles started popping up that took things one step further: if colleges cannot control costs and deliver a tailored, quality service, why go? Practitioners, professionals, journalists and finally, families and prospective students started wondering aloud if college should be a fait accompli for 18-year olds across the nation. Is college necessary or are there other legitimate alternatives? As Baby Boomers fretted over their 401(k)s, tuition, board and book costs took off, and they began to realize they did not have enough in the piggy bank for their kids. Either the kids pay their way or parents take out second mortgages. The dilemma: is the degreed opportunity cost too high?
Many argue yes. Last October, Newsweek ran a cover story about whether college should take three years. That issue also had some collateral pieces, including a roundtable, that explored baselines of typical college students: do kids enroll from high schools knowing more or less than the past, and are the essentials higher education should provide growing or shrinking? The positions were varied. Some administrators felt students were less prepared than in the past, others felt students were more worldly and had a greater grasp and utilization of technology that gave them an advantage. Some argued college should last longer than in the past because the expectation from employers is greater, and because the quantifiable amount of stuff a college graduate needs to survive had expanded. Interwoven in this was the role of high schools: launching pads for the super-motivated where students acquire AP / IB credit which knocks out a year or more of core college curriculum requirements, or something else, a place to intern and taste-test careers prior to entering college for instance? Even with a degree, many twenty-somethings boomerang back to their parents’ house, unable to find work.
If the cost is too high, should this mean do not attend college? A vocal contingent says no: higher education offers too many valuable intangibles, regardless of cost, to simply skip it. Statistics prove college graduates earn more than those without one, and this multiplied over a lifetime equates to millions of dollars of lost income for non-graduates. College is a time for maturation, living on your own, intellectual exploration and access to thought leaders that would be otherwise inaccessible. College offers opportunities for research and close study with professors, as well as networking and social benefits. Many careers require certain degrees for professional credentials or career advancement, and increasing regulation points to this as growing in numerous fields.
And then there are the trends outside the education realm that get overlaid on this debate which make alternative higher education (internet degrees, etc.) an interesting option. I learned in a JCCI Forward issue forum a couple years ago, research has shown Generation Y (the Millennials) have a lot less patience for attending college to get advanced degrees than previous generations; they see big dollars in careers that involve little to no additional study (media, computers, software) after high school and think master or doctoral degrees are wastes of time. When the Baby Boomers retire, are we going to be short doctors, attorneys, architects, engineers, professors and the like? Also, average student debt coming out of school is at record levels. Students that pay their own way must juggle a combination of saving, working while in school, and taking out loans, as well as other strategies like piece-mealing semesters or taking courses online. Students with high debt are greater credit risks, which affect their ability to purchase a home or buy a car.
Regardless of higher education’s evolution, some tried-and-true guidelines remain even more evident: unmotivated, unguided, entitled students are a drain to the higher education system and are not qualified candidates for college. No ubiquitous online university or small, liberal arts college with a low student-to-teacher ratio will ever fix that. Higher education is a complex system and product, and more than the sum of its parts, but also an investment with an expected payback. I am curious what the future holds, and how the college experience will be defined for my daughter seventeen years from now.
