"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." - Albert Einstein
Every so often I can expect the same article from an online news website: don't bother earning these college degrees. With a cringe on my face, I read it every time, already anticipating what I will read. I am never disappointed after I read it- the author loves to knock philosophy majors.
The whole idea of a college degree is to receive a return on your investment. Or so says the author whose name appears below the advertisement for the online for-profit school.
There is a problem with treating a college degree like a mutual fund. Learning should be for the sake of learning. Studying American history or calculating probabilities should not be a security deposit for the chance to work on Wall Street. Not everything in this world has to be about increasing your assets and lowering your liabilities.
I always want to point out to the author, being the antagonist that I am, that two of the wealthiest men on Wall Street also happen to be philosophy majors, i.e. Carl Icahn and George Soros. Their combined net worth could pay for 1,000,000 "worthless" college degrees.
Putting aside my education soliloquy, we all know that a college degree is important. It gives individuals the ability to pursue their dreams, whatever those dreams may be. A person with a college degree has a better opportunity to secure a career and earn a higher wage. Thus, a college education can help a person realize his or her goals.
Financing a college education is another story, however. Unfortunately for millions of Americans, the cost of a college education is rising astronomically. It does not help that median incomes have been stagnant. Since 2009, the median income in our country has decreased 4.4%, while productivity has continued to rise.
Inequality, both in income and access to education, will widen as college becomes more unaffordable. We are starting to see the effects: low-income students are not being represented at selective universities. Only 34% of high-achieving students in low-income brackets went on to an elite school, while 78% of students in the high-income bracket did.
For low-income families, an obvious conundrum falls into their lunch pails. How does one pay for a college education, does it mean that one has to forgo purchasing a home or saving for retirement? The answer: student loans.
Because of the difficulty in paying out-of-pocket for a college education, it has become necessary to borrow to attend. Student loans now account for $1.2 trillion of our national debt. That is 6% of the overall outstanding debt. It is becoming a problem for everyone.
When a student finally graduates from college, they now have the burden of having to start their life deep in debt. The outcomes of this tragic phenomena is less entrepreneurship and less of a willingness to take risks. Of course, that will decrease the chances of having another Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. How does one move on an innovative idea when they cannot even afford to make the May installment payment? Again, the costs of higher education will become a problem for our future generations.
I become enthused when I see prospective students taking initiative to find ways to pay for college. One program allows individuals to invest into a student with the student later paying the investor a portion of his earnings. Not a typical financial arrangement, but it allows the student to not have to pay a "faceless institution."Yet the ingenuity is not enough to confront the complex situation our country faces. We need systemic reform.
President Obama is attempting to push the conversation forward but it is difficult. The politics of today is poisonous. Any common sense discussion of reform is pushed to the side for partisan attacks.
My approach would be three-fold, if I had the ability to effectuate policy change. First, there needs to be a different metric in tying federal aid to secondary education. I agree with President Obama that costs and graduation rates need to be factors in assessing the school's eligibility. Second, I would initiate broad economic reforms to spur middle-income growth, i.e. a real progressive tax, corporate tax holiday to bring back cash to the United States, increase the minimum wage, and implement means-testing to entitlements, among other things.
Finally, I would make every college student take a philosophy course, which will probably mean that there will be a new "worthless" college degrees list for the author...Perhaps students will find personal value in their degrees, not just monetary value. A man can dream right?
