Are you wondering whether university and college is really worth it? Well you have come to the right place. Being a high school student looking into university and college options, I have been wondering whether it is even worth the cost and time to go. So I decided to look into it, and find out what other people and what research is saying about college and the whole experience.
There have been lots of people questioning the usefulness of going to college. University and college tuition costs have been rising at around 3% each year. And the cost to attend post secondary schools are already quite expensive even where they were at 20 years ago.
Overall, it depends on the type of person and what they think from personal experiences at college. To some people, the expenses and being in dept were totally worth having the whole college experience of meeting people, having parties and living in a dorm room. But for others it just isn’t worth it and some people feel that for the amount of money they are spending, they aren’t learning enough. The amount of value that people get from going to college can range, it normally depends on experience to know whether college is the right place for you. So it can be hard to know whether it is valuable or worth it if you have never been, which is why I am writing this blog post.
Normally, you need to make a decision based on your own opinions, I can not make a decision for you, or tell you if college is worth it or not. But some of the information I have researched might change your mind about it. There are a lot of things to keep in mind, and saying university is worth or is not worth it is completely a personal opinion. So here is a list of pros and cons I have to put together, and other must know information from research I have done, to hopefully help decide whether university is worth it.
The Pros and Cons
When deciding for yourself whether university is worth it, I think it is best to start with a list of the pros and cons. It can help your decision by seeing everything that is great, and everything that is not as great about going to college. It still will depend on the type of job and field of study you want to work in and a few other aspects though. Of course there are a lot of pros to going to college, many would say that the pros over rule the cons because of the advanced education you would be getting, but some say otherwise. Sometimes people who say college is not worth it are people who went, and found it useless for the type of career path they were going for.
Pros
- Have a more advanced education
- Gain new experiences
- Have an overall higher chance of getting a higher paying job
- Learn how to learn
- You can discover new options
Have a more advanced education: Having a more advance education can be helpful for your future. You will probably learn some things in college that could help you succeed in the field of study you want to work in. College is around to educate you and help you succeed later on in life. If you are wanting to get a job in a professionals field, you will need to have a certain level of education which normally includes some sort of college experience. Often when an employer is looking to hire someone, they look into your education level, and in some conditions, if you have a college degree you could have a higher chance of getting the job.
Gain new experiences: College is full of new experiences. Students who attend college get to experience a lot of really fun and new things. Often college students get to experience living in a dorm room with someone else, they get to experience college parties and even going to study abroad for a semester. Around 11 percent of students study abroad at least once during their time in college. College experiences are the reason a lot of students choose to go in the first place, and I have to say, this will probably be my main reason for choosing to go to college.
Higher paying job: On average, adults who ended up getting their bachelors degree or went to college tend to get higher paying jobs later on in life. According to the statistics Canada government website men who solely got their high school diploma make around $55,774 (CAD) on average per year, whereas men who have a bachelors degree make $82,082 on average. The results are similar for women. Women who got their high school diploma make around $43,254 each year, but when they have a bachelors degree the median earnings $68,342.
Learn how to learn: The more school you do, the more you will learn how to learn things. Knowing how to properly learn things is important. Everyone learns at a different pace, and most people have specific learning styles that they prefer, and being in school for longer can teach you which learning methods are you strong suits. This can help you later on in life whenever you learn something new. You will start noticing a pattern when you learn things. For example every time you learn about something new through visuals you may understand it better. If you are curious what your learning style is, check out my blog post; The Ultimate Guide to Discovering your Learning Styles, to help you determine and understand this concept.
You can discover new options: College allows lots of room to try and learn about different topics and fields of study. Of course you can explore other career paths without going to college, but they make it super easy in college, because you simply have a course list of different options that you can choose from. You won’t have that list of options, and you will have a higher chance of trying and learning about all of the options even if you don’t go to college.
Cons
Overall college is sounding pretty good so far, but what about the cons?
- The costs and fees
- Tests, exams and stress
- It is not necessary to go
- College degree doesn’t guarantee job prep
- Can be successful without
The costs and fees: One big con against college is the tuition fees. Costs for college are rising every year, causing many students to be in dept. Between 1988 and 2018 tuitions at a 4 year public college rose over 200%! Around 70% percent of students end up taking out loans to go to college, and on average a student leaves college with $30,000 in dept. That is a lot of money, and it can take a long time to pay off. Tuition costs have been rising about 3% every year. Of course it depends on which college you want to go to as some are much cheaper than others, but the costs are still pretty high.
Tests, exams and stress: If you go to college you will have to do tests and exams. Often during studying periods and near times of exams, students have a lot of stress because they have pressure to do really well. According to a 2018 report by the American College Health Association, over 60 percent of college students said that they experienced a high amount of stress that was overwhelming during their time in college. And over 40 percent of college students said they felt depressed and had a hard time functioning right.
It is not necessary to go: There is no written rule that all students have to go to college right after high school let alone at all. Our society thinks that it is acceptable to go to college, and everyone will probably expect you to go. But just because it is what everyone expects doesn’t mean that you have to go to college right after high school. College isn’t the right choice for a lot of people for many different reasons. Sure it can give you a better and more advanced education, but it can also give you dept and overwhelming anxiety to do well.
A degree doesn’t guarantee success: Going to college and getting a degree cannot guarantee the exact and correct job preparation for you. And in most ways, college will not guarantee success, even if there are stats proving that college can give some students more success. Yes, in some cases you will be more successful with a degree, but those cases probably depend on the type of job you have. If you want to become a lawyer you will probably be more successful if you go to college, but if you want to become a photographer you would probably be more successful just spending 4 years getting on the field experience.
Can be successful without: There are so many cases where people have become successful without college, and those people are probably the ones that got you thinking and reconsidering the option of college. If you are considering not going to college, look up famous people who didn’t go to college that have careers path you could potentially follow. If you find some pretty successful people to look up to, then you will know that it is possible to have success with that job you are interested.
Think about how you define success. Yes, stats might say that college graduates are more successful, but that normally means more successful financially. Many people have financial success but are not as happy as people who do not make as much money. To have success in life, you want to be happy, and if your career path doesn’t make you happy you might want to reconsider.
Look at Your Job Interests
It depends on the jobs you want. I suggest, before you decide whether or not to go to college, you look into some of the Job possibilities you might be interested in. Though it is great to have an idea of what you want to do when you are older, it is normally pretty realistic to have no idea. Many people go to college thinking that it will change them and help them discover themselves, and potential career paths. Colleges tend to advertise themselves as places that will help you change and become the person you want to be. But in reality students spend a lot of time in classes, studying and worrying about marks and financial situations to be discovering many new things about themselves. Colleges do open you up to new careers and give you different opportunities to try these careers, which can help you find your career path.
If you want to go into a career within the professionals realm, then you normally need a degree, or a specific level of education to continue on that job path. For example, if you want to be a surgeon, you need to have a certain level of education before you can start performing surgery on people. And some of these things you need to know, you can’t just learn through real life activities.
But if you want to have a career where you start your own business, you can do that without any requirements or degrees. You don’t necessarily need a business degree to become successful with your own company or website. You can probably learn a lot of the things and tips to know through the internet, and friends or mentors.
Think about certain things that you enjoy. Are there any potential career paths within your interests. Remember, you want to have a job that interests you, and that you enjoy. Many people choose practical jobs that they know they can make a good income on. This is totally fine, but you have to be happy with what you do, so think of careers that you think you would actually enjoy, instead of completely focusing on the income, and amount of money you would make.
Ask yourself some questions. What field of study do you want to work in? What type of work do you see yourself doing (ie. office work, hands on work, digital work)? What are your interests, and how can you incorporate them into your job? Once you have an idea of what field of study you want to explore, you should know whether you will need to go to college in order to be successful.
You Might Not Be Ready
Most people don’t know exactly what they want to do when they get out of high school, which is another reason why people wonder whether going through more school is worth it right away. To some people it can seem kind of pointless if they don’t even know what they would go to college for. And that is a good reason to wait to go to college too.
Why make a decision now, if you have no idea what you want to go to college for. Just because everyone else normally goes to college right after high school doesn’t mean you have to also do the same. It is kind of socially accepted to go to college, and some people can find themselves pressured into going. They might feel as if they have to because everyone else is going and they want to get a good job, but you can be successful without going to college.
There are plenty of successful famous people around the world who did not attend college, or dropped out like Ellen DeGeneres (Famous American comedian), Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft), Steve Jobs (One of the 2 apple founders), Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook) and many famous singers and actors who wanted to pursue their careers. Many of these people found that college was useless to them, and after a small amount of time they dropped out.
There is time: You are allowed to give yourself time to think about what you want to do with your life and if you need or want to go to university for it, whether it is through a gap year or a few years of a break from school. As kids, you normally have to go to school from age 5 to 17, but as soon as you are 18, you will have the choice to take a break, or just be done with school entirely.
Gap year: Many people take a gap year to travel, work, save up money, or just spend some time getting to know themselves before they jump right into the school system again. Personally, I think this is a great idea, especially for those who don’t know what they want to do with their future. It will give you even more time to think about your choices, and options for your future.
Go when you are older: You don’t need to decide this year or right after you graduate whether you should go to college. You don’t even need to decide within this decade. There are lots of people going to college when they are adults nowadays too. And another good thing about going to college as an adult now is that you can do school online. There are even specific colleges designed for adults, where most of the students are over 30 years old.
Alternative University: You should also consider looking into some alternative universities. An alternative university is basically a college that does not follow the conventional or mainstream rules. Alternative universities are different, they might have a different schedule, or maybe they let you design your own degree. They might have no majors, and do one class at a time, and they might even not have grades!
What Type of Person are You?
Ok, so the last thing you need to think about is what type of person are you? If you are a social bee and you love meeting new people, and trying new things, you would probably love college. If you are the type of person who likes to have a good amount of alone time, and you prefer learning through your own ways, you might not think college is as fun as others make it sound. It depends 100% on the type of person you are to know whether college is worth it.
Like I have said a few times, knowing whether college is worth it, is based on people’s personal experiences and the type of person they are. If you love having a challenge socially and academically, then you will probably find college pretty helpful, but if you are a more solitary type of person, and you would rather learn through experience and through discovering things yourself, you might find that college is not worth it.
Summary
There are a few things to keep in mind when you are making a decision about whether or not to go to college, and whether or not it is worth it for you. To re cap what we have gone over, here are some of the main points to look at from this post.
What to Think About
- Think about the pros and cons. Do you think that the pros outweigh the cons? Or the other way around? There might be a significant point that stands out to you. Keep these things in mind when you are going over your option.
- Overall knowing whether college is worth it depends on your career path. If you want to get into the medical side of careers, you might need to go to college to do something within that field of study. But if you want to be an artist, you might be just as successful without going to college as you would be by going to college
- Ask yourself if you are ready. You can always go to college another time, in a year from now, or even in a decade when you are older.
- It also depends on the type of person you are. Do you find that you can learn much better on your own?
So overall there are a bunch of different aspects you need to look at when you are deciding to go to college or not. Some people might say you will be more successful if you have a degree, while other will say that college is useless and doesn’t prepare you for the real world. Last but not least, one of my main tips is to not let other people influence your actions too much. You should be the one to make your own decision about going to college.