What is the Point of Going to College?

We have all been there, it is your Senior year of high school, and all anybody is talking about is where they are going to go for their post-secondary education, otherwise known as... college. But you may ask, "What is the point of going"? This question was most likely asked by the 34.1% of students that do not attend college after high school.

The difference between a high school degree, and an associate's degree is $13,930. The average person with an associate's degree is reported to earn approximately $49,470 and the average high school graduate is reported to earn $35,540 (Statistics, 2016). But those earnings are not without their costs. It is estimated that by the year 2020, 65% of all jobs in the United states will require at least some form of post-secondary education; however, it iss also projected that the U.S economy will have a shortage of 5 million workers with post-secondary education (Bergeron & Marti, 2015).

Being able to obtain a job is not the only reason that post-secondary education is becoming more of a requirement in our society today. Having a post-secondary education also highly affects a person's social mobility. By not obtaining a college degree, children born in the lower income distribution quintile have a 45% chance of staying in that percentile, and only a 5% chance of moving to a higher quintile. However, when these same children earn a college degree their chances of moving to the top quintile nearly quadruple, and their chance of moving out of the lowest quintile increase by nearly 50% (The Executive Office of the President, 2015). The costs of a two-year degree also known as an associate's degree is approximately $14,637.

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These costs are broken down into five different categories: Tuition and Fees $2,713, Off-Campus Room and Board $7,259, Books and Supplies $1,133, Transportation $1,491, and Other Expenses $2,041 (The College Board, 2010). These numbers do not even take into consideration the cost of food, which when then is added into the equation, the total cost is around $15,000. These costs are usually paid for with loans. 66% of graduates from public colleges & 75% of graduates from private colleges. For students graduating with a bachelor's degree the average debt from loans is a $25,550, for private, nonprofit colleges, the average debt is $ 32,300, and for private for-profit colleges is $39,950 (The Institute for College Access & Success, 2014).

A lot of these costs have gone up in the past few years. For example, the previously stated amounts which are from 2012 have gone up since 2008. The average debt from public schools is up from $20,450 to $25,550, the average debt from private, nonprofit colleges is up $28,200 to $32,300, and the average debt from for-profit colleges is up from $31,800 to $39,950. Graduates from low income families who received grants, are more likely to borrow more money than those who were not receiving grants (The Institute for College Access & Success, 2014). While generally it is accepted that most students who are accepted into college usually are likely to go and sign up for the classes, as this is the point of applying. Up to 40% of low income students who have been accepted into colleges never actually end up going (Kolodner, 2015).

This statistic may come from the fact that low income students are unlikely to take core classes; therefore, they are less likely to meet the expected benchmarks on college entrance exams. With the current increase in the demand for more educated workers it will evidently become harder for people in the lower class to enter the middle class, shown by data that in 2007 only 39% of people in the middle class had a high school diploma or less (The Executive Office of the President, 2015).

I have a friend who is from a low income family and she chose not to go to college for multiple reasons: nobody else in her family went, she could not afford it, and she simply felt like she was not going to succeed. Everybody in our friend group always encouraged her to go, because before she graduated that was all she ever talked about. She had dreams of becoming a writer, she had already written a whole book by the time she finished high school, and had been talking with a small local publisher about getting a few copies of her book produced.

But after she decided to not go to school, she just stopped working on writing and just focused more on helping out her family. Now she is enrolled in school, not for something that she wants to do, but for something that she knows will be a stable source of income, becoming a hairdresser. An occupation that is very far away from what she originally wanted to do. Oddly enough in the world, quite the opposite scenario is taking place, and that can have some dire effects.

In Uganda 80% of people's livelihood is established in agriculture; however, only 2.6% of degree seeking students enroll in courses related to agriculture (Kasozi, 2005). This can have drastic effects on their economy if a generation grows up not knowing how to participate in their countries primary source of income. But now take in to consideration the facts that they are being taught things like outdated curriculums and their universities struggle to recruit qualified staff (Kasozi, 2005). This means that by the time someone reaches the job market the knowledge that they have obtained can be outdated and leaving them unable to find a job, this does not lead to any socioeconomic progress in the country and will continue to stunt its growth.

This paper is not intended to convince anyone to go to college or get a post-secondary education. It is merely meant to try to convince people to open their eyes and see that if they have the opportunity in front of them to do so, that they should at least consider the effects that this could have on their lives, and how it affects those that do not get that chance.

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