Is College Still Worth It In The United States?

I saw a news story recently that asked this question, and I have my own two cents to add. You would think that I, someone who is excited to tell everyone that I meet that I am a teacher, would say that college is totally worth it, right? Well, you would be wrong. College is not all it is cracked up to be for everyone. I would add on a "these days," but honestly, I never thought that it was.

You can lose a lot of money going to college. This is especially true if you don't know what you want to do with the degree that you go for. I know a lot of people believe that college is the place to discover yourself, however, you are spending money for every class that you take, and if you aren't focused on a subject area, you are taking classes for no reason. I started off going in for computer programming, and I am not a computer programmer. In fact, I couldn't tell you anything I learned in those classes, and I did not graduate with a degree in computer programming. I then went to school for human services. I got my associates, but I am doing nothing with that degree. I went in for psychology next. I have my bachelor's, but I am not currently a counselor. I have my master's in education, and now 130,000 dollars in debt later, I finally wound up in the career field that I had told everyone in high school that I was thinking about becoming in the first place.

There are so many other ways to have the life you want without a college degree. There are trade schools, and there are a lot of jobs that you can do where they will train you right there on the job. There are careers that make more money than the jobs we can get with a college education. I used to sell glasses. I became an optician, and I was trained on the job. That could have easily become a career for me, except, I hate sales. It's good in a clutch, but it's not for me. Likewise, there are college degrees that will not get you a career. So you really have to be careful in your degree choice as well.

College is not cheap, and the job that you get afterward may not even be comparable. Like I said before, I am 130,000 dollars in debt from getting a master's degree for a career that I don't make enough money for the cost of living and paying back student loans. Luckily because I am a teacher, I will get loan forgiveness after working for 10 years and not going into debt. This means that I will have to get on a repayment plan that I can afford, along with paying my rent in my bills, at a time when inflation is at an all time high, and they have not updated our contracts to reflect these changes in the world.

Personally, I love to learn, and I love to share my knowledge with others. Therefore, being a teacher is what I needed to be, but I could have done that with a bachelor's degree, and had a little less debt. If you want to become a nurse, there's a trade school for that. Garbage men make more than I do, and they didn't have to go to school for that. Our elders worked in factories and warehouses and lived great lives. You don't need a college education to survive, and it is way too expensive for a job that you don't need a degree in just to say that you have a degree. Save your money. Buy a house.

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