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I am talking to many friends and relatives who have decided not to go to college because the tuition fees are too high. Others have older brothers and sisters who have graduated and are now working at Sears for Minimum Wage on loading dock.
I wonder what impact this is going to have on our economy in the short and long term. So many talented people are going to not go to college and will likely be forced to spend the rest of their lives in lower waged low skilled jobs. They would have so much potential in a country with reasonable tuition and a more optimistic view of employment after graduation.
Do you know anyone who had planned to go to college but decided against it because of they could no longer afford it or felt that it would not really help them get a good job in the end?
How many of them had parents who properly planned for steep costs of college (good colleges have been costly for decades)?
And how many of them (and their parents) thought through career strategies and college/specific major choices early in K-12?
Suspect most parents and kids spend more time with planning vacations or choosing/taking care of pets or following pop culture/sports than career planning...thus the unsurprisingly high (~30-40%) un/underemployment rates among '09 lib arts grads of places like Harvard, let alone less prestigious colleges
Outcomes of any education are heavily correlated with one's strategic investment/planning in choice of specific college/specific major...and GPA and recommendations from respected profs achieved by any ambitious kid
There are still ways of going to college. You don't need a degree from places like Harvard or MIT just to get a decent job. 9/10, an employer's not going to give a damn whether you're a Harvard grad. or not. Many of them are going to want what you can give to them.
Anyhow, a lot of my friends went to community college first for two years, then went to a four year college. Saved a lot of money that way, and a lot of community college credits are transferable.
While it's true you don't necessary need a college degree to be successful, you still learn a lot when obtaining the degree. You get what you put in.
I would be afraid that when we come out of this recession when employers do start hiring again they are going to be very picky. Not having a college degree will most likely exclude people.
If they are truly smart and talented, they would find ways to pay for college without lots of debt. I have friends who worked their way through school by taking fewer classes at a time and working full time. Yes, it was very hard but they came out of it with work experience and a degree, thus making them very valuable. The only college grads I know with menial jobs are arts majors who still work hard in their fields trying to make it big and the ones who partied all through school and never developed a work ethic. The rest of us do just fine.
They don't need college to be successful. They need entrepreneurial skills and start their own business.
This is not the best time in the world to start a business. Most businesses fail within five years, even in a decent economy. Plus, you probably need to know accounting, management, etc when starting a business b/c you can't afford to hire it out.
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