A bachelor’s degree is a ticket into a lot of jobs, no matter what is in. That doesn’t mean you have to go to an expensive school to get one.
Co-worker pretty much put himself through school just going to community colleges. Graduated without debt and I’m sure he makes more than I do (I have a Masters degree from a University).
While it’s hugely lagging, the US higher educational community is slowly accepting that for most people a bachelors degree is nothing more than a quasi-mandatory general purpose professional credential. Many community colleges now offer a couple of 4-year degrees, and many more reputable schools are opening extension campuses and offering remote degrees or hybrid programs that skew strongly towards remote learning.
For 90% of students, there is no specific, identifiable benefit to a traditional college experience, and dear god (most) people need to stop going into mountains of debt for little private schools or out of state publics. I didn’t take on any significant debt until law school, and while I noped out of that career path because it’s awful if you don’t have a passion for either your clients or defeating your opponents, it still paid for itself versus my original plan at 22 to teach high school English. If I’d had 6 figures of undergraduate debt, though, I would have been miserably trying to make lawyerin’ work out for me financially.
I will say, contrary to what I see online a lot, that a degree actually is a nice credential to put on a resume, though it’s often TERRIBLE value for the money outside the social expectation. It shows that you had the motivation and/or support structure (which is its own inequity vector) to stick with a 4+ year project and pull it off. It should have introduced you to outside people and ideas that could show you’ll be more adaptable in the work environment. You will have had to make it through subjects that may not have interested you and provide “deliverables” to a “manager” at an acceptable quality level. You will have been asked to do formal communication, both written and oral. Then, finally, to one degree or another, and whether explicitly or not, you will have received training in critical thinking and justifying arguments with evidence. Even the biggest blowoff freshman comp class will force you through the exercise of writing a thesis and finding quotes from the book to back them up, and even “Rocks for Jocks” has the scientific method as an underpinning for the labs and the information taught.
Given how many people have degrees, it’s an easy and not unreasonable filter for HR and hiring managers, though as with anything institutional, it ends up used well beyond its value. If you aren’t getting a very good deal to go to a place with a name that will do networking for you, though, there’s no practical sense in paying extra for anything beyond two years of CC gen-ed and two more at the nearest public university. If Bumblefuck & Dickwash Wesleyan Presbyterian College (est. 1833 and a half) is the only place you’re going to actually manage a degree, then I guess it’s worth the debt, but that population seems… small.
It changed my life. I encountered so many new ideas that challenged my upbringing. I was also able to travel through exchange programs.
I hate recommending to people that they should put themselves into crippling debt for a college education. Unfortunately, I don’t know another way to rigorously challenge your beliefs, ideas and skills outside of college. You have to be somewhat special to read diversely and vociferously to do that.
I am a huge advocate of formal education, and I think there is some undefinable benefit to “going away to college,” but in general I would say never, ever go into more than the absolute minimum of debt (based on your situation) for a bachelors degree. If you engage with the material and your professors and your classmates, you can get the real benefits a university degree actually provides.
I’d also say that while there is a certain danger in getting trapped in musty old college attitudes about what is “worth” studying, going the other way there is at least as big a risk in falling into the autodidact traps of either having no breadth of exposure or, god forbid, not having someone guide you through and out of some crazy rabbit holes (cough-ayn-rand-cough).
- it absolutely helped me land my first job in a better position than I would have gotten otherwise. A degree was a prerequisite in my industry, that has since changed, but there was no way I couldn’t get the degree at the time.
It was a shit job, but it still got my foot in the door.
- no employer gave a flying F about my education after my first job other than ticking the box by “has degree”.
I had a very similar experience. I had a degree, didn’t do anything with it. Got a cheap certificate and it got me into a good admin job. Since then I’ve done absolutely nothing to do with my actual degree but it works great when applying for internal positions for upward mobility because I check the “has degree” box.
That being said, I absolutely loved my college/university experience and wouldn’t trade it for the world. While I don’t think anything that I learned in the curriculum helped me significantly, everything else I learned has.
Went to school for environmental engineering almost twenty years ago and graduated with one of the first accredited degrees in the field.
For the last twenty years I’ve traveled the country helping clean up the environment or prevent land from being further contaminated. Yeah the system is fucked up, lawyers and politicians and society don’t value the environment over a quick buck. But I’ve done some good as opposed to wave a sign around at a protest.
Built up enough experience that I’m now part of a specialized team with the EPA that goes to all states and territories to help with case development on complicated or high profile sites that states and regions don’t have the resources to handle.
Doing exactly what I wanted to do for my career, and directly because I got a good education that opened the doors to do it. I make a decent salary and have a skillset that makes employment easy and secure.
Thank you for what you do for all of us!
Both. I studied journalism (strike 1) and graduated in 2008 (strike 2). I chose “print” as my option (strike 3).
Consequences: never worked a day in journalism in my life. Judging by the state of journalism globally in 2024, I can’t say that I mind. Having “a” degree is still a necessity for most non-menial jobs, so in that regard it always came in handy. Cost of the education wasn’t through the roof, didn’t have to take on any loans or such. To this day my only debt ever is my mortgage to the bank, looking to keep it that way.
I dropped out 20 years ago and I’ve done alright but have grown into a management role and now it is very hard to move into other management roles without a degree. I am considering going back to school to finish it.
Tldr, get a basic associates degree. Do more later if it will prove advantageous.
My perspective is from living in the US.
It’s always worth going to a local community college, even if you have no idea what you want to do, and taking basic classes (writing, speech, etc.). You can come out with a general associates degree without any specialization, low cost, and learn a ton of skills that are broadly applicable in any profession. And if you decide to get a specialized degree later, those classes should transfer in, saving you time and money in the more advanced/specific degree. But there are currently lots of jobs that don’t require a specific degree, or any degree at all.
I personally feel like much of my time in college was wasted. I spent 6 years in college (4 is typical) pursuing degrees because I felt pressured into going to college, rather than working some basic jobs, saving money, and figuring out what I wanted in life. I was fortunate to come out without debt (thanks to some fortunate scholarships and hard work), but also with no money, a 2-6 year lag behind all my friends, and a degree with very little earning potential that I’ve ended up never using. I was fortunate enough to stumble into a great career where we do look at what degree someone had on their resume, but only as a point of conversation - it’s fun to see what studies someone had, and ask them to share what they learned. For the job, we don’t care what the degree is or if they even have one.
My undergraduate education was absolutely invaluable to setting me up on the path I’m on today. In part because of the academics, but also because of the opportunities I was afforded through internships and organizations which have morphed into a career. My best friends to this day came from those experiences. It gave me an opportunity to learn about myself, make some mistakes that thankfully didn’t set me back too far, and the flexibility to give me room to grow into who I am today.
My graduate education on the other hand was simply a checkbox for job recruiters. I did the bare minimum to get the grades I needed, but my heart wasn’t in it. I figure the hiring manager will see the benefits of my on the job training, and HR will use my degree in their matrix to decide what salary I’m worth.
The gap between college and non college educated in the US is the non college educated vote for Trump in a 4to1 proportion. Oh also make in average $20K less, a year, than college educated people.
It reinforced the idea that I love learning. I also reinforced the idea that I don’t learn well by sitting in a lecture hall and listening to people talk to me.
I went to university, and I currently work at university. Unless you know what you want to do, and that absolutely requires a degree, and you are 100% certain to get a job in that field, then go to university.
Otherwise, go learn a trade and join a union. By the time your friends are graduating college, you’ll already be well established in your career and making much more than they likely will straight out of school.
The income ceiling is lower without a degree, but you get there much faster, have great benefits, and get to retire a lot earlier.
Also, there is nothing saying that you can’t eventually go to university and get a degree.
Otherwise, go learn a trade and join a union.
My kid fell for this. They promise you’ll get paid while you learn. What they don’t tell you is that IF you manage to pass the entrance exam (he did) you get put on a list for open apprenticeship positions, waiting to be called in at any moment. While you’re on that list you don’t get paid. If you do get a spot, contracts only last a couple of months. Then you go back on the list. Rinse and repeat. And the longer you’ve been in the union the higher up you get placed on the list. So the older members get placed before the newer ones no matter what number they were in line. This “join a trade” push is similar to the charter school scam, siphoning up state and federal training funds without delivering results.
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I want to believe it helped me but I don’t really think it did. I enrolled into a small and generally not famous university in my country which decreases your chances of employment. I worked retail and rarely went to classes, I was majoring in Computer Science. I had 0 college debt and I also got a car.
After graduating with an average GPA I thankfully got into an internship for Mobile Development thanks to a friend of mine. Since then I’ve learnt lots of things on the jobs and I still work as a Mobile App Dev. No one asked me about my degree or university because I can deliver fairly high quality apps.
Of course my chances of getting into FAANGs or big name companies is slim compared to people who graduated top of their class in a top university, but I’m content with where my career is currently heading.
I’m in college right now, so it might not be as relevant as others who have graduated and used their degrees (or not), but I would say it really depends. College obviously is expensive, and depending on the degree you go for as well as what it’s for can help or do nothing. For example, if your going to do power line work, you dont really need a degree unless your the person planning the project or leading everyone in the task. However, if you want to do welding or mechanic work on machines, you do need a degree and it will help you, not only in getting the job and better pay, but also in minor experience before you even start working.
