By Patrick Cannon
You may think that going to college is a no-brainer, and that everyone should just suck it up and go. But that is not always the case. Some people just are not meant to go to college. We all know that college is hard work, and it cost a lot of money. President Francesco Cesareo said, “that not everyone is meant to go to college. There are other options.”
So is spending 40,000 dollars a year really worth it? Lets look at some stats to find out.
According to the New York Times, college graduates made 98% more money per hour than people without a degree. As you can see, going to college has economic value, if you can find a job once you graduate from college.
In some cases, it depends on what you major in while you are at college that will determine how much money you will make after college. There are some majors out there that will not make you a lot of money once you get out of college, like a degree in journalism for instance. However, some still think that going to college is a good investment.
President Francesco Cesareo, who is the president of Assumption College, thinks that going to college is a smart investment, and should not be judged based on your starting salary out of college.
While it is true that college graduates make more money than people who did not go to college, people who do not go to college are not burdened with loan debt and an inability to find jobs after college. At Assumption College, they say that 99% of graduates have jobs or are in graduate school six months after graduation. It is not clear whether that is for the class of 2014, or for every class.
The reason that most people go to college is not for the sake of education itself, but instead for the money that they will make over a lifetime. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but college should be about more than just making money, it should be about gaining skills that will help make people more interesting to be around. People should take many different classes in college to see what they really enjoy, and not just classes that they think will land them the high paying job right out of college.
The reality in today’s economy is that college students may not get their dream job with their dream starting salary right out of college. That may worry some of us today, but we have to have patience and faith that our decision to go to college will pay off down the road.
People have told me that you may not appreciate a college education while you are getting one, but years from now you will be happy that you have one. People have so many different jobs today, that you have to have the skills to do many different things, so it is important to learn as much as you can. President Cesareo says, “I try to tell college students that a college degree is going to help them long after they get to their first job because what happens with their college degree, especially if it is a liberal arts degree, gives them the flexibility to be able to seek these opportunities that they might be unable to.”
In the end, going to college is important for people futures but people need to realize that it will take time before you see the results of your labor.
THE AC301 