Greatness of College education – Hype or Real?

It’s a ritual that happens every year.  Some students will be elated by the news that they have been admitted to their dream school; many others will receive a disappointing rejection news as they prepare for their backup school. Regardless of whether a student lands in his or her dream school or not, students are going to college in record numbers and the numbers are expected to increase. Students go through a complex stressful process that involves multiple steps to get a college admission. The struggles doesn’t end there - only a little over half of all students will be graduating and they’ll have a high debt.  Americans owe more in student loan debt than credit card debt and they have a staggering 1.2 trillion in outstanding federal student loan debt. It’s very depressing, isn’t it?  After all, a college education opens many doors and opportunities and data suggests that a college degrees holder earns double than a person with high school diploma. So, all these struggles are worth it, right? Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt definitely thinks so.

Eric Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman who attended Princeton and UC Berkeley during Sep 2013 in a panel at the New America Foundation also featuring foundation president Ann-Marie Slaughter and Buzzfeed President Jon Steinberg, argues that everyone must seek college education as college provides invaluable learning experience and plays a fundamental role in shaping better people as well as boosting future earnings potential. “So much of college is about not learning through education but how to not live at home, how to work with other people, going through the various rites of passage. I think it’s going to be around for a very long time”, he adds. Schmidt notes the increasing levels of advanced education has served us well and how he has encouraged his children to get higher education. He advocates that, “You should set an expectation for your children to go to college”. He places many arguments such as Economic sense of college education, how college education makes better adults, and how college education provides better job security - when there is a credit boom it creates real-estate boom which employs everyone irrespective of degree and warns, “I don’t think you want to have a child that is subject to the next boom”. He asserts we need more college educated people and notes, “At Google we take all these nice pleasant 22 year olds, we put them through a training program, and they’re phenomenal employees after a training program”.  Schmidt observes that there are issues with college education due to antiquated methods, habits and deep-rooted interests. But he is confident that the efficiency of the college education can be improved with measure and improve methodology. Replacing college with online education is not the solution, Schmidt affirms, the rich experience a college education provides still remains enormously valuable.

I think Schmidt makes a great argument on the need of college education for everyone and gives excellent reasons backing his argument.  His argument is filled with facts. The fact that these words are coming from a person, who himself has graduated from two renowned universities and manages a powerful organization makes the argument very credible. Schmidt makes an ethical appeal when he says college education makes a better individual, as most of believe that it is right thing to do. The logic is spot on when Schmidt says college grads make phenomenal employees after a training program. Schmidt makes an adroit use emotional appeal when he says “I don’t think you want to have a child that is subject to the next boom”,  which is directed towards a powerful human emotion – fear - after all no parent wants their children to experience hardship due to their lack of education.

Schmidt arguments resonates with me and I can vouch for the great learning experience college provides from my personal experience. I am currently attending ENGL-1010 course and it had thought me so many valuable lessons – it made me aware of the different arsenals in the writer’s toolbox and how to effectively use them, how to argue persuasively, how to participate in a productive discussion, how to respond to a critic – just to name a few. I have learned so much and it made me a better person, but mind you, this is just a college level 101 course. Imagine the learning possibilities with advanced courses. Don’t we inherently know the value a college education provides? Assuming there is an option, would you like to be treated by a college educated physician or the one without it? Would you be comfortable being represented by an attorney without the qualifying education? College allows you to explore the vast human knowledge and puts you through intensive practice so you internalize the learnings. It is beyond doubt that college education provides invaluable skills and experience that will make a better person.

Every coin has two sides. Often issues are multi-faced. Though I agree with Schmidt that college education provides invaluable learning experience and makes a better person, I disagree that everyone needs it and everyone must go through it to get there – a better person.  My disagreements are multi-fold and I explain them below. If you go beyond the surface of the Schmidt’s arguments, a different picture emerges. Schmidt’s claim that college plays a fundamental role in shaping better people rests upon the questionable assumption that only colleges can play this role. As any critical reader will quickly spot, there is no need for a person to wait till college to attain this knowledge. In fact, the school education plays a key role in imparting core knowledge that makes students skilled, civilized and knowledgeable people.  If there is any lack in the way this education is given, it is school education that must be reformed.

I disagree with Schmidt’s view that only colleges can provide skilled people suitable for professional work because, as many researchers have shown, blue collar workers gain many of the skills typically associated with formal college education – analytical, time management, people and interpersonal skills, working under pressure, to name a few – as a part of their work. Any skills they may lack can be quickly gained by attending community colleges or online courses; so a 4 year college will be an overkill. A critic might say that a doctor or a lawyer will need extensive study and a college education will provide that. Indeed, these professions benefit from such rigorous education to gain those skills. But these professions are very few in comparison to the overall white-collar professions and requiring everyone go through such stringent education is pointless.

By focusing on the economic payoffs of college education, Schmidt overlooks the deeper problem of how the college education provides the economic benefits. Many professional jobs, though they can be performed by a well experienced person without a college degree, insist on having a college degree just as a way of filtering out candidates. Besides, a top blue collar worker working on a profession they love earns more than a mediocre person with college degree working on a job they hate.

I have mixed feeling with Schmidt argument that experiencing a college education is invaluable. This is an outdated notion that doesn’t consider the alternative options provided by advancement in Internet technologies. You’ll need to note here the technology is just starting and future possibilities are endless.

Schmidt when he advocates everyone should go to college misses a crucial aspect. That everyone is not college ready. That everyone is not academically able to meet the high learning standard college requires from its pupil. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.  By failing to acknowledge not everyone has the academic abilities needed for college education, we are doing a huge injustice to our young population.

What are the social effects of requiring everyone to go to college? This hype of everyone should be going to college has created an unrealistic and unnecessary aspiration among our young people; anyone who can’t complete college is labelled as ‘lazy and dumb’. By having a college degree a requirement for a professional career, not only we are missing out on a talented population, we create a class based society and force people with punishing debt, which forces them to delay key decisions such as marriage and buying home causing negative social and economic ripple effects.

 Educationalists and policy makers should consider the unnecessary financial and mental pressure this places on society, students and parents and make positive alternative measures. Public must be well informed of this serious issue so debates and policy changes can occur.