What's a Degree Worth?I don’t know if you watched the same program I did last Friday night (ABC News’ 20/20), but one story they covered was pretty bothersome to me. It questioned whether a college degree was worth all the money it cost (http://abcnews.go.com/2020, January 16, “College: Worth the Price of Admission?”).
They interviewed some college graduates who had significant debt (through student loans) from school, and had recently lost a job or been unable to find suitable work. Those they interviewed felt they had been lied to about the value of a college degree (one calling it a “scam”), and cited a number of their friends who were very successful and had no degree. They felt their difficulty in the employment world was an indication that their degree was not as valuable as they had been led to believe. Experts were interviewed to discuss the validity of the $1,000,000 figure often cited as the lifetime salary differential between those with college degrees and those without. Sandy Baum, Economics Professor and representative of the College Board, defended a lower figure ($500,000), and well known financial advisor/personality Suze Orman worried about the tremendous debt some students accrue. “The bachelor’s degree…it’s America’s most overrated product.” according to Dr. Marty Nemko, Ph. D, Education Consultant and Career Counselor interviewed for the story. The story’s bottom line was that a college degree wasn’t worth all the money you had to pay for it, and the experts and unhappy, under-employed people they interviewed proved it. I’m generally a fan of ABC News’ reporting and their reporters, and I’m fairly sure somebody at ABC has at least one degree (although I just remembered Peter Jennings, their long-time anchor, lacked a high school diploma…), so it seems like somebody on their staff should have seen the flaw in their story. Nobody mentioned the main aims of a college degree are NOT job training or a high salary, but an education! You know… an education (not the same thing as a degree) – informing people about the past, about people and places and ideas they’ve never been exposed to before, about science and the arts, and making them more knowledgeable members of society, and therefore making society better! It’s about teaching people how to think critically, and to expand their horizons. And it’s about having a somewhat protected environment in which to continue growing up, maturing, finding oneself, and learning how to interact with the rest of the world. Discussing the price differential between two higher education institutions might be a more appropriate issue for them to have addressed (maybe comparing the value of a public university vs. a private university degree). It just seems like that discussion would have been much more productive than questioning the value of higher education and promoting technical education as the alternative. It is a viable alternative for many (and in Oklahoma, a great one), but a college education accomplishes much more than 20/20 gave it credit for. Back to Articles List |
Main Menu |
|
Also from College Answer Guy -
©
Copyright 2017 CollegePrep-101