This is the second part of the article, continued from yesterday:

If universities have a history of being so elitist, why are they now being crammed down our throats?  Well, the instigation of this were land grants that were passed in the mid-1860s.  These grants were known as the Morrill Act. The prosperity in America after the World Wars also saw an increase in college attendance, as veterans began attending university and higher education slowly became sought after in the job market.  Little by little, with the number of universities doubling and their attendees increasing even more than that, with the advent of technical schools and associate’s degrees, college became less elitist and more standardized.

            So this leads us to the crux of the issue.  Are there any reasons NOT to go to college any more?  There certainly are.

Employers don’t necessarily put a huge weight on college education

Other skills besides superfluous academic knowledge are considered more desirable Employers are starting to realize that an academic education isn't the end-all-be-all of an entry-level worker's abilities. In one 2008 survey of more than 2,000 businesses in Washington State, employers said entry-level workers appeared to be most deficient in being able to “solve problems and make decisions,” “resolve conflict and negotiate,” “cooperate with others” and“listen actively.”

Almost half of the kids who go to college nowadays don’t finish, even fewer if we look at the students who finished most poorly in high school

More specifically, only 20% of college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes will receive a degree of any kind.

Why do so many kids wind up getting into college but ultimately not finishing?  There are several possibilities for this:

1.    Enormous pressure is put on kids to get in, and get in now.  The inverse effect of this is the enormous stigma put on kids if they choose not to go.  I don’t know how many of you remember being 18 or 19 years old, but I certainly didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life at that point.  Kids are burdened with the unfounded notion that you will ruin the rest of your life if you don’t go.  But there are numerous stories about people who created massive success for themselves without a college degree, or without even going (heck, nine of our presidents never went to university,including our founding father!)

2.    Unaffordable tuition.  Tuition costs and student loan interest rates are increasing.  For the 2009–10 academic year, annual prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and board were estimated to be $12,804 at public institutions and $32,184 at private institutions. Between 1999–2000 and 2009–10, prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public institutions rose 37 percent, and prices at private institutions rose 25 percent, after adjustment for inflation. If you compare to the 80s, costs across the board have doubled or tripled. Even if you look at inflation, these prices increased at a rate 40% higher than they should have.

3.    Student loans are becoming unmanageable. The student loan industry is a $14 billion dollar industry, an increase of over 700% from 10 years prior.  That's a pretty lucrative business, and it affects the majority of college students.  Almost 72% of students who entered undergraduate school needed student loans.  College seniors who took out loans to fund their college education owed an average of $25,250, 5% more than the class of 2009 owed. 42% of students who borrowed $10,000 or more had still not repaid their debt. One in 3 students in the lower income brackets still owed.

Colleges are ripe with people looking to financially exploit young, inexperienced students. Beyond all the costs of the college itself, there are the credit card companies.  One of my most distinct memories of college is the ease with which I could acquire credit cards.  Numerous credit cards.  All looking to make you their first slave (err, customer). Why do they aim at young, jobless students?   Isn't that high risk?  It certainly is, but it's a small price to pay for your loyalty. Most students hold on to their first credit card way past college.  Undergraduates are carrying record-high credit card balances. The average (mean) balance grew to $3,173.  Mine was over $5,000 when I finished.  The Center for a New American Dream, a group helping Americans with personal finance, found that more than half of American college students signed up for at least four credit cards by the time they graduated.  I highly doubt that the universities and credit cards are conspiring against the youth of America, but they're certainly not working together either.

Consumerist Mentality

Many schools have turned essentially into businesses looking for customers.  The concept of “retention”, or retaining a consumer base (read: students) encourages colleges to do whatever it takes to keep their students around and keep the cash flowing in, whether it be watering down course content or allowing repeated extensions to give students more time to complete their bachelor’s.

My main issue is what is actually being demanded here.  You have a 17, 18 or 19 year old individual who has just been given charge of his or her own life, a new kind of autonomy and a complete lack of any kind of experience with this.  He or she is being pressed to make a major decision that has life-long implications.  Honestly, how many of you really, truly knew exactly what you wanted to do at that age? Wisdom, or the capacity for insight and judgment that is developed through experience, "increases between the ages offourteen and twenty-five, then levels off. "  Thus, it is during the adolescence-adulthood transition that individuals acquire the type of wisdom that is associated with age.  In other words, people are at their peak ability in terms of judgement and insight at 25, not 18.

The objective reality is, however, that students with bachelor's degrees get more jobs and better pay than those without.  So isn't all this whining about the costs and the college mentality just pedantic soapbox mud-slinging?  I'll address this issue in my next post.