Need for higher education questioned

For three and a half years I have doled out an unspeakable amount of money to the industry of higher education. I have sat through classes where the only ramblings I can recall are words such as, “mitosis” and “Paleolithic.” 

I have done the burdensome task of purchasing over-priced textbooks for eight semesters, only to use 20 percent of the book’s material. I have subjected myself to all of the absurdities of college for one simple reason—a job. But, as I prepare myself to walk across the stage in May, I am left with one piece of information college has managed to ingrain in me. I never needed college.

Of course, there are some professions that will always require the need to seek higher education. It would be hard to find an anesthesiologist who is coming straight from high school with the knowledge they need for their career. However, the pressure young adults are met with upon graduating from high school gives them no other alternatives when it comes to what they do next.

The Wall Street Journal reports that of 3,000 people, 63 percent said college is a good investment for young adults, which is down nearly 19 percent from 2009. Society, which has bred a nation of young adult minds to believe their only option is college, is setting a generation up for failure. Time Magazine reported that 40 percent of young adults who enroll in college don’t receive a degree within six years. Where we find ourselves is in a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation.

The New York Times reports that students who graduated from college in 2010 did so with an average of $25,250 of debt. Even as I sit here now as a budding journalist, I am aware of the bleak job market awaiting me come this summer. I would hate to think that all of this was for naught; however, I am finding it to be true.

The most tangible education I have received has been in my college paper’s newsroom. It was there I learned the ropes of editing, design and staff management. The same type of “education” could have simply been learned at a newsroom anywhere in the country—and yet I’m walking away from college with upwards of $10,000 in debt just to start over in another cubicle in another newsroom.

Journalism isn’t the only career that shouldn’t require higher education. Professions such as restaurant management and accounting use skills that are acquired in high school and yet we force students to pursue college just so they can grudgingly grasp a white slip of paper in four years.

As I wrap up my last bit of education here, I’m left bitter and angry. The solution to this dilemma we have found ourselves in is simple. Hire based on talent rather than degree and more thoughtful consideration is needed by the next generation on whether or not college is the right decision.