https://youtu.be/tXgCG50YoWs
I had no idea that colleges were tax exempt. I do agree with Pat on the tech part, and that thru technology we can make college much cheaper, and we could accelerate the process for many majors. Instead of 4 years, we they could have students out in 2 years. But, that won't happen anytime soon unless we demand it, or find other alternatives.
It's scammy, but there are multiple factors involved, so it's not an entirely negative thing:
1. Tribal knowledge can be a really powerful asset to gain from college. Not just what the books tell you, but how things really work in the field & in things like corporate politics.
2. A lot of networking & connections happen there. I got my first paid internship through school & was able to go from three part-time jobs (two of which were minimum wage) down to one, which was amazing. I discovered ATOT through college & still have a lot of friends from school (some of whom still lurk here!). Those are not assets I would have magically stumbled across had I not gone to college.
3. Going to college & getting a degree shows that you can stick with things & finish them. There are plenty of unqualified people who graduate college, but they went to their classes, got a passing grade, and finished it. That counts for a lot.
4. For managers, it's an easy way to weed out people to hire. Again, lots of unqualified people graduate college, but you also have to understand Corporate Politics 101: if the person being hired has a degree but turns out to be a screw-up in the company, then the manager can save face by pointing back to their degree as a reason to hire them, so they can't be faulted.
I mean, for me, my parent's rule was basically to cover the first year of college to get us started, and then we were expected to make ends meet as adults. Working at crap jobs & feeling like I'd be stuck there forever was often my primary motivation to keep chipping away at school, because I recognized that that was the golden ticket to making money the traditional way in America. I'm not Steve Jobs or Elon Musk; I have no desire to run a company or work 100 hours a week, and I needed a reliable way to make money until I retired. I have a lot of mixed feelings about college, but it has opened many career doors for me that would have been closed otherwise.
I think in a lot of ways, having things as they are now, despite the high prices, is actually a good thing. We have sites like Glassdoor that tell you how much money specific jobs make in specific areas. We have tons of data on industry needs & what jobs are good to study for. We have a ridiculous amount of online tools to help you stay relevant in your career. You essentially have an army of information at your fingertips, so if you're smart, you can do some gap analysis from where you are now to where you want to be, and figure out a solid plan to achieve that.
If you refuse to think (to pick a goal & make a plan) & refuse to work at it, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. I know several people in one situation or the other. I have a couple good friends who simply don't want to have to commit to anything, so they've avoided any & all thinking about their future, despite being smart guys, and are just kind of drifting in life. I also know a guy who knows what he wants, but isn't willing to push past the barriers of having to try very hard at school to actually finish & graduate. I feel bad because all of them are wonderful, capable people, but they are also their own roadblocks, and don't want to accept responsibility for that.
In many ways, I do feel like college was a waste of time for me, personally. It has been a powerful tool for opening doors to jobs, but I also spent way too much time there & way too much money there, and did not learn a
tenth of what I've learned from self-study & OJT. But on the flip side, I wouldn't really want my doctor or my dentist going the DIY route for education, so it really depends on what niche you're into. I do general IT stuff, it's mostly a lot of really basic things & busywork, but it's also a never-ending educational opportunity, so you never get bored.
I've learned various operating systems, hardware build & repair, network installation, virtualization, all kinds of stuff over the years. Literally every week I get to learn something new & interesting & I'm not just stuck being bored showing up to the same job day after day. And yet there are plenty of people who LOVE jobs like that. So it really depends on what you want, and again, we have so much information available these days that it really puts you in a good position to find something you enjoy doing & actually be able to make a living at it.
I do think school should be more affordable, and I also think culturally we should treat alternative educational systems like trade schools & OJT with an equal amount of social respect as college. But, the world largely pays you what it thinks you're worth, and college is the rite-of-passage system to funnel people into certain career fields, so it is what it is, for now. What I'd recommend to a lot of people is:
1. Pick a career field that (1) you will enjoy, (2) will be relevant long-term, and (3) will meet your personal financial requirements.
2. Go to community college for two years & get your Associate's degree, then take more classes that will transfer to a university, then get a Bachelor's at a university. That's a solid & cost-effective foundation that you can carry around with you for the rest of your life, even if you don't stay in your field long-term.
3. Pursue continuing education so that you stay relevant. Again, for the most part, a job will pay you what they think you are worth. Those numbers are pretty public now, so you can fairly easily figure out a path forward to meeting your own goals in life. But there is no loyalty to companies or workers these days, and the employment market can be fluid, so staying on top of your niche makes you more marketable in your field & makes you more valuable to your company. There's a phrase I really like: "master your craft", which isn't a static thing, but a dynamic thing - get your degree, but keep on pursuing new information. For me, I've gone primarily from hardware to virtualization over the last five years, and it's really given me a lot of benefits to know how to dive into Hyper-V, VMware, VDI, etc.
Of course, that advice only matters if your particular job requires college. But it helps to have that to fall back on! Of course, practical economics plays a role too. Like, I'd really like to go & finish my Master's degree, but it's going to cost me time (I'm already working full-time & have a family that needs time spent with them) & ten grand per semester, and it's not going to bring me any significant financial gain in my line of work, so I'm not super motivated to complete that particular degree. I wish it were more affordable, because they do have flexible evening & online classes, but they're in business to make money, so there you go.