To go or not to go to college

An interesting read here from a career counselor, Marty Nemko, and from "The Chronicle of Higher Education."

Nemko's is simply that today, in these times, the Bachelor's Degree is "America's Most Overrated Product."

My original BA is in an industry that I no longer work in, essentially it was a wasted $40 grand. I got tantamount to another Bachelor's in Education/Science degree because I had to retake 3 years of core classes to obtain the position I am now happily in.

Because of this, you would think I'd agree with his overall position. But, I don't. However, there are some merits to his case, and i've wondered aloud at times if this was an accurate position.

Clearly, former Presidential Candidate John Edwards' plan to allow everyone graduating high school with a C average (or whatever it was) would have been a complete disaster, despite its lovely thought. Being in college recently made me realize a few things. First of all, that plan would never work. Schools are already trimming enrollment because there are no more beds to house students, and classes are booked. Second, not all people are made for college. Not because of the workload, but because of the thought and thinking you end up doing in college. During my first degree I learned more about myself than I did anything else...I was enlightened to the world for sure, but some of the values that I found challenged made me take another look at my thinking and further develop my worldview.

Nemko's strongest argument comes from the following graft: "...many institutions tend to educate students in the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students. At many colleges, only a small percentage of the typical student's classroom hours will have been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor, according to student-questionnaire data I used for my book..."

This I could not agree more with. The biggest scam outside of the money may be indeed the unseen role grad students play when "teaching" a class. I've taken some of these classes, and i have had some great graduate students who did a fine job of running a course, but by and large...they stink to high heaven.

I pay the college for my professor's expertise in this area, and I expect him/her to actually teach the class, not just hand off the agenda to some grad student. I will note, that once you get into the core of your degree (depending on the college and/or degree) you do get to have smaller classes, which are typically (but, not always) taught by professors.

Herein lies the rub. A good friend of mine is a grad student, in fact he's working on his doctorate and wants to possibly teach. I am fine with him teaching a class because that is his intention, his likely choice of a career. This is different than what typically happens, the grad students are typically "teaching" the class because they are forced to carry a professors water because that professors often holds the massive power key to their future success. So, we do need some grad students teaching classes so that, they can eventually take over when the professors leave/retire.

Nemko's argument that the job market for college graduates seems off to me as well. If anything, it's become more relevant, more required to get those degrees as factory-type jobs head overseas and the more cerebral jobs are staying put...or highly technical jobs which do require some post high school training.

Ultimately, if you intend to get a job where a college degree is a likely necessity, it behooves you to get that degree now. Finally, also, I concur with Nemko that big-brand-name institutions may offer less valuable educations because those big-name prefessors are so busy doing their research. However, I also caution against settling for a community college, and try to get into a fairly decent-sized university that offers both the mix of a research-based-community and the hands-on access to those very professors when you get into your core area of interest.

P.S. Nemko cites via his survey/research that "43.5 percent of freshmen also reported "frequently" feeling bored in class." OF COURSE! Freshman classes are frequently boring, not just because of the material not being in your core interest area, but it also is usually a class given in a large (I'm talking over 500 students) lecture hall. It's all part of the freshman year experience, Nemko, being a career counselor, should know better than to include this erroneous stat in his article. There's a reason he isn't citing sophmores, juniors, or seniors interest level...your first year is often the worst between dorm life, trying to survive classes, trying to deal with the new freedom, and finding where you fit in.