There has been a lot of talk in the media about the value or
non-value of a college education. With the skyrocketing costs of college and
the less than stellar outlooks for some recent graduates, this is a good time
to take a closer look.
On a strictly dollars and “sense” level, it may be a wash.
If you come out of college with tons of debt and a job that you could have
gotten right out of high school, you have to seriously look at how you spent
your time. But this misses the whole point of going to college.
The value of a college education is not just “book-learning,”
after all you could do better spending eight hours a day for four years reading
in the public library for free. The value is in the relationships and experiences
that come from the rarified atmosphere of a college campus that you can’t get anywhere
else.
The years I spent at Kansas State University and later at
Mid-America Nazarene University were life changing in all kinds of ways. Only a
few were things I learned in a classroom. Sure I picked up some good economic
theories and learned a lot of calculus that I’ve never used; but the bulk of my
education came over a cup of coffee, hanging out with people from all over the
world and all walks of life, exchanging ideas about music, art, architecture, and
literature.
I just finished reading J Paul Getty’s memoir. He attended
Oxford in the early part of the 29th century. He admits that the
best part was that classes were only six weeks at a time, four times a year,
which gave him plenty of time to travel and get to know people. His travels to
Italy, Greece, and France help make him one of the world’s foremost authorities
on Renaissance art. His degree from Oxford in Economics may or may not have
been helpful in the Oklahoma oil fields where he made his fortune.
I recently talked to a bank president. The bank is family
owned. The current generation of owners were his friends in college. When they
needed a president, because they already knew him, they gave him a call. Do the
relationships we have in college matter? They certainly can.
This all brings into question the value of online or other
alternative forms of higher education. I take all kinds of online courses to
stay up to date in business, but this is not the same as being on a college
campus and being submerged with like-minded people 24 hours a day. An online
degree misses the whole point and probably dilutes the whole idea having a college
degree.
Forget all the gibberish about whether or not a college
degree will make you more money. It may or may not, that is up to you, not the
degree, but it will definitely make you a different, and usually better,
person.
