In America, students often attend traditional college without considering any other option. They spend tens of thousands of dollars, and many don’t need the degree or the education they receive. College remains an important option for many, but it should not be the only realistic choice for students after high school.
Often, students feel pressured to take this path by parents and teachers, who say it is the only option for post-high school success.
“College is a largely common source everyone uses to amass credibility and is required to sort of ‘move up’ in a field of work,” says Carson Bloom, a sophomore at Oregon Episcopal School. “Essentially your success as an adult is defined by your schooling years, and is enforced by parents/the stress of failure.”
Vocational schools and other college alternatives can be more helpful to many students depending on the career they want to choose. Alternative schooling offers courses that are designed to aid in the workforce, rather than simply giving information, unlike many educational college courses. The education that alternative schools offer is often more applicable to careers, such as carpentry, woodworking and careers in the arts, than classic education.
In addition, not going to college opens up more opportunities in self-led careers and entrepreneurship. The years that students should spend training to go into their field would often be more helpful to a startup business than a survey of European history or Astronomy 101.
Students who know what career path they want to take also have the option of apprenticeships, which allows for more specific hands-on learning in the fields they’re interested in.
“The fact that 40 percent of college freshmen never make it to commencement is higher education’s dirty little secret, a dereliction of duty that has gotten too little public attention,” Valerie Strauss wrote in a 2019 article for The Washington Post.
Most students who take higher education don’t finish their degrees, according to Strauss. It’s even higher at public colleges and community colleges. Many students realize in college that this option was not for them, and realizing that before wasting years of time and possibly tens of thousands of dollars is crucial.
The debt many students obtain outweighs the benefits of having a college degree. The inflation of the cost of college tuition also goes up faster than the increase in average wages. Those 40% of students who drop out before finishing their college degree still carry some student debt without the benefit of a degree.
Statistics show that going to college has higher general job security, but taking specialized education or an apprenticeship into a specific field makes going into that field much easier.
The college experience improves networking and can give students many more resources like counselors or advisors, but these tools are also readily available outside of college.
Instead of pressuring students to take higher education in the form of classic college, opening up other options will be more beneficial to everyone. Allowing students to take gap years, go to a trade school or other alternative learning, or enroll in an apprenticeship and go straight into a career will be ultimately beneficial for the vast majority of students.
“College” by Tax Credits is licensed under CC BY 2.0
I love this – The possibilities are vast and there is no “one/right way”