myUsearch blog

This is a difficult question that depends heavily on so many factors. There are many different forms that a college education can take and within these there is an entire spectrum of costs associated, ranging anywhere from a local community college, which can be as low as $20 per credit hour, to a private university where tuition and fees can reach closer to $60,000 per year. But the fact of the matter is, there ARE options.

The spectacular range of costs for one to attain a higher education degree illustrates that a degree is not prohibitive. The flexibility that most institutions offer for full-time, part-time, nightly, continuing education and occasional learners is astounding. Most of those students who do either return to college education at a less-traditional time in their life or choose to pursue at a rate other than full-time, are very committed. The larger number of drop-outs are those students who forced the transition into full-time college when this was not realistic, practical or desired (i.e. some external force made the decision for them). So knowing that the costs don’t necessarily have to be prohibitive or that the time commitment does not necessarily have to be full, how can we figure out whether studying for a number of years is more or less economically beneficial over the long run? For you, who is to say? However, for the majority, the answer is in the numbers. Over a lifetime, a college degree-earner will make, on average, $2.1 million. Compare this with the average high school graduate who earns $1.2 million over his/her lifetime (http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/value.htm) and I think that the cost makes sense.

Not so fast, though. Remember, this is not a game of simple numbers. The economics of this can be deceiving. Although a college graduate can/does earn more in a lifetime, there are still many elements to consider such as being in one’s early twenties with college loan debt versus having worked and saved and not encountered that debt. There is a burden to bear for those who achieve a college degree and then choose to go into the manual labor workforce for reasons which are as diverse as ‘the love of using one’s hands’ to ‘taking over a blue-collar family business’. The pressure associated with a college degree and putting it to good use has slowly eroded our nation’s strength in teaching a classical education. In other words, the cost of college is a question which many would say is far too expensive if one were to pursue a “directionless” area of study such as philosophy, English or classical languages, heaven forbid. The cost is only justifiable when the study can lead to an obvious area in the job market  and a salary which can assist in beginning to pay off the mountain of loans.

The very thought of paying for something which is not tangible strikes fear into the heart of our consumer culture: to invest in something which might not show a calculable return . . . to continue investing in yourself even though it takes years to gain what the money is supposed to be buying you (a degree) . . . These are the fears which haunt the minds of our self-created pressure cooker. From high school students who have not been able to take moments to try and understand themselves and who they are working so hard to become, to college graduates who, saddled with the knowledge that they just spent hundreds, thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars on a degree, it’s a constant push to see the hard work and investment in time and resources pay off.

Yes, the cost of college does pay off. Yes, the right choices have to be made.  No, it is not always better to pursue university education in the traditional sense if it is not something that one is comfortable with. Regardless of whatever external pressures one may have, continuing educational pursuits, no matter if it’s one hour per week or full-time, is a great way to invest in yourself.