Over the last 35 years, college tuition has gone up about 750%. Altogether, about 40 million
Americans owe more than a trillion dollars in student loan debt, and that number is only
set to grow. With many jobless graduates struggling to pay off their education, it is starting
to look like college isn’t that great of an investment anymore. So, does college still
matter, and is it even worth it?
Well, it’s no secret that the purpose of going to college is to find employment after
graduating. According to the US’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate
for graduates with bachelor degrees or higher is just 2.5%, compared to 5% among high school
graduates. However, for those who only had some college education, or only received an
associates degree, the unemployment rate was much higher, roughly 4.5%.
Now, while that figure might be comforting, it includes post-grads of all ages, and doesn’t
paint a realistic picture for graduates today. At its peak in 2011, recent four-year college
graduates saw an unemployment rate of about 11%. That’s more than twice the national
average! And when counting those who are underemployed, meaning that they work in jobs which do not
actually require a bachelor’s degree, the number is MUCH higher. Since 2001, the underemployment
rate for recent grads has been rising, hitting 44% by 2012. That’s nearly half of all grads
in a job where their degree is irrelevant.
Of course, what you do in college can often be as important as going to college altogether.
In-demand careers like Nursing and Education may see low to mid-range salaries, but have
comparatively stable rates of employment for recent graduates. Meanwhile, majors based
in humanities and arts see incredibly high unemployment, more than twice that of those
who never went to college in the first place. Moreover, despite having to pay back an average
of $33,000 dollars per student, salaries for recent graduates are relatively low. In the
Arts they range from about $26,000 to $36,000 a year. For a family of four, that’s barely
above the poverty line.
For some, a college education may not be worth the additional costs, but what if you get
into a really good school? Does that matter? Well, a 2015 study found that among science,
humanities, and engineering majors, there was little to no difference in future earnings
between graduating from a mid-tier or a top-tier school. However, for business, social science,
and education was there a significant relationship between the quality of school and future salary
prospects.
So does college really matter? Sort of. For many, the cost of getting a degree far outweighs
potential job prospects and earnings, and over the past decade, more and more people
have fallen into that category. However, the outlook for non-college graduates are pretty
abysmal as well. Perhaps most realistically, regardless of whether you go to college or
not, young people are suffering a job crisis unseen since The Great Depression.
But one school in San Francisco, California is seeking to end the crisis of college costs
by not charging tuition. Learn more in this video by Seeker Stories. Thanks for watching!
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