I'm old, compared to most of you. I think people should go to college if that's what they want to do. College isn't a place to learn a trade (for most people) but a place to develop critical thinking skills, grow up a little, and experience the wider world before totally being out on your own. There are other ways to gain those benefits. The rising cost of college is insane these days, so it's hard to say what the right choice is. If somebody asked, I'd still lean towards getting a degree in an affordable way (i.e. state schools, community colleges, work and go to school, etc.) Still, plenty of people have led happy and productive lives without a degree, so it's not something anybody has to do.
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I agree with you in terms of college being a place to develop critical thinking skills, growing up and experiencing the nastiness of the real world. With that said, I think that's only possible if you major in a field where critical thinking is in fact critical. The overwhelming majority of majors out there require little critical thinking, and most people pay for their grades of an A. Doing your work to get an A is one thing. Busting your ass off to get a B+ is a whole other story.
I ended up at state school, and paid $10,000 a year, something that is pretty affordable on any job if you lived at home and I ended up as a structural engineer. Now I can 100% attribute my success to college, but at the same time, how much of my critical thinking skills would have developed if I didnt choose to major in Engineering???
Thats a tough question to answer, because I don't know how many factors would have pushed me to be a bum at home.
Well, I majored in computer science, so I know we were sort of snobby about some degrees. However, English, history, etc. are also tough disciplines at the higher levels. I've talked to plenty of English majors, and they are smart people. Try reading Hamlet and remembering who said what. It's not easy either. Of course, some companies recognize that and hire liberal arts major with good grades for jobs, but it's not like the people exactly get trained for the job in college. They learn to think and jump through some hoops, which is part of life too.
this is true. But it's a small pool of people who are such scholars that their critical thinking skills alone employ them. Most of us have to have a combination of technical aptitude and soft skills to remain employable. Most of us who are at that point in life realize that and might inadvertently look down on other majors. But I think the majority of people don't fall into that category, which becomes its own problem because plenty of people breeze through these production line majors and end up at the same place when they started.