It’s hard to argue that college is a good financial investment if you walk away with any type of liberal arts degree. Unless you’re getting a science or engineering degree or know you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or some professional that requires a graduate degree, spending four years of your life and $100,000+ simply doesn’t make a lot of sense. Hardly any liberal arts degrees leave a graduate with any marketable skills. Plus, if you’re even half-way competent, there are plenty of career choices that you can make a fortune in without a day of college. You’re probably much better off taking that small fortune and buying a franchise, or going straight into the workforce.
But, is a liberal arts degree from an Ivy League school worth it? If you take advantage of the opportunities you’re presented with, probably, at least at Harvard and Yale, for the access alone. Some great insights from a Harvard grad:
Of course there were many great people there, and I made lots of great friends, but it was a weird, weird fucking place to be. If you were interested in biology, you could go to Stephen Jay Gould’s office hours and talk to him. When I took a survey psychology course, the lecture on behaviorism was given by B. F. Skinner. I was on the staff of the Harvard Lampoon, where we’d do things like invite John Cleese to accept an award, and he’d come have dinner with the forty of us. George Plimpton would sometimes drop by unannounced. So really the most notable thing was the social access.
Then, in terms of work possibilities, too: if you were someone on the Lampoon, and if you liked making jokes, then a very real job possibility you faced after graduation was to go write for The Simpsons or Letterman, at a time when these were the best shows on TV. Many people got book contracts while they were still in college, partly because if you go to Harvard, the eyes of the country are on you in a certain way. So if you want to write a book about taking Prozac and being slutty, that’s not as marketable as a book about taking Prozac and being slutty at Harvard.
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A.J, you make a lot of great financial points. But my opinion (which as a 40-something, you may not even be interested in!) who has gone to college and graduated with a liberal arts degree and then gone into science, and then business, is that the college experience, no matter what you major in, is priceless, and if you can possibly swing it, go! When one is looking back at those years from 18-22, and the time spent learning great texts and ideas, meeting people and maturing, and growing an understanding of relationships, developing other relationships with mentors, possibly a chance to live and study in another country for a semester or two — there is a world of difference between who you were when you enter college and who you are when you leave. Don’t shortchange the liberal arts education, it may not prepare you for a “career” but it prepares you for life.
Hi Jocelyn,
I agree and disagree. You’re right that college is an experience wholly unlike anything else that’s available to 18 year olds. The people you meet and the things you’re exposed to can, if you let them, change the course of your life no matter what you study. But, ask the growing number of those who leave school with no marketable skills, suffocating in debt, and I’m not sure how many would say its worth it.
Especially when you compare it to the alternatives. I think you could get much of the same life-changing benefits without spending 4 years and $250,000. Frankly, almost everyone I know agrees that their study abroad trips made the biggest impact on them. You don’t need to go to college to get that though. (One of the abroad trips I did was through an independent organization.) I think a lot of the other beneficial aspects could be replicated as well, though you wouldn’t have that “college experience”. I might also add that we’ve had generations of interesting and accomplished people forgo college, and still turn interesting and accomplished.
Anyway, I’m not saying a liberal arts education is worthless, just that people should be aware of what their substantial loan payments are going to get them. I really enjoyed my college years. Would I trade them for $250,000 in my hand right now? Maybe not, but it’d be a hell of a tough decision.