With minimum wage increasing over the years the cost of college tuition has also increased rapidly. 70 percent of college students graduate with a significant amount of loans. Over 44 million Americans collectively hold nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt.” That’s an average of $34,090 per person. Debt can significantly limit your lifestyle and the things you are able to do after college. However, Attending a four year university is not the only option to become successful and here is why; As previously stated college costs a lot of money, there are many well paying jobs that don’t require a degree, many people are not ready to go to college right out of high school, there are other alternatives such as community college.
College tuition is continually increasing. According to a 2017 CNBC article, yearly tuition at four year public universities has increased 213 percent since 1988. Student debt can be an extremely limiting factor in someone’s life and it determines the lifestyle they are able to live early in their life.
While high schools emphasize the idea of higher learning, there are other options for occupations after high school. The three major pathways that do not require a college degree are entrepreneurship, trades, and internet occupations. Entrepreneurship is a high risk, high reward approach to one’s career. The risk is that businesses often fail and go into bankruptcy. However, there is definitely hope of succeeding. Well-known success stories such as billionaires like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs are among the few of college dropouts who found success in entrepreneurship. Of course, dropping out of college contains risk. The risk as Scott Dobroski from CNBC explains is that “[s]kipping school can make it difficult to return to the traditional workforce”. Also, Dobroski explains how once an individual decides not to follow through on their education, there is a lower percentage of achieving a higher paying job. He says that “most high demand jobs require a traditional four year education”. Furthermore with trying entrepreneurship without a degree, there is a high risk like bankruptcy and unemployment but also a high reward like the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of this world. In regards to trade fields there are also many options to choose from. Some examples of trade jobs are construction, plumbing, electric services, and many others. Since in recent years the cost for college has gone substantially up, these jobs have become more pleasing for high school graduates. On one hand trades schools are a cheaper and better option for people. For example with trade schools it is one year program and then it is straight into the workforce while other people have to go through three more years of education before they get an occupation. Also according to entrepreneur magazine in 2015 44.6% of college graduates are working jobs that don’t require a degree. But on the other hand with going into the trades route it is not elastic in ever changing times. For instance David Leonhardt of the New York Times suggested “Vocational education, done right, helps workers find jobs when they are young. But as they age — and job requirements change — workers are often not well prepared for the changes”. So although trades school can be a cheaper option it is very specific to a certain occupation. All in all is college really worth all that money or is the other options benefit people more.