We’ve spent five weeks looking at the question that continues to be the focus of reports and articles in the media – “Is college worth it?” – from the standpoint of four distinct concerns: its perceived lack of affordability; the burden of debt that faces so many graduates; the relative scarcity of well-paying jobs for recent college graduates; and the risk that a student will borrow money, not complete his or her course of study, and be economically worse off than if he or she had never started. (As an aside, I should note that the question of the worth of a college education has been so frequently asked that it is now being satirized. The Onion recently posted the following headline on its website: “Study Finds College Still More Worthwhile Than Spending 4 Years Chained to Radiator.”)
Monthly Archives: August 2014
The Ultimate Question: “Is College Worth It?” (Part 5)
Lots of debt, no degree – the consequences of starting college, but not graduating
In previous blog posts on this topic, we have explored concerns relating to how expensive a college education has become; how many students are graduating with considerable debt; and how difficult it is for some graduates to find good jobs – all preparatory to a final discussion on the underlying question: Is college worth it? Before we take that question on, however, we must review a fourth concern:
Not enough college students are graduating, leaving them in debt and without a degree.
This is the most serious and significant of the four topics we have been discussing.
To begin, there are many studies regarding the economic impact on individuals with college degrees in comparison to those with just a high school education.
The Ultimate Question: “Is College Worth It?” (Part 4)
Do graduates find well-paying jobs?
In Part 1 of this series of blog posts, I said that the question of the worthiness of investing in a college education was best addressed by looking at four discrete concerns: high cost, high debt, scarce jobs, and low graduation rates. In Part 2, we looked at the first concern, that too many families were finding that a college education had become too expensive. In Part 3, we analyzed the student debt “bubble.” This week, we’ll examine the concern that too many college graduates can’t find well-paying jobs.
There are too many unemployed or underemployed college graduates who are not earning enough to pay back their debts.
The Ultimate Question: “Is College Worth It?” (Part 3)
The realities behind student debt and the “bubble.”
In Part 1, I argued that the proper way of determining whether college was worth the investment was first to examine four distinct concerns—high cost, high debt, scarce jobs, and low graduation rates. Last week, in part 2, we looked at the first of these concerns: has college simply become too expensive for many families? This week, we’ll examine the second concern:
There is a student debt “bubble” that is preventing young college graduates from buying homes, starting families, and thereby acting as a drain on the entire economy.