Should college be our default?

Sitting in traffic, I stare once again at the bumper in front of me. I looked at it for sometime, and although I had read the bumper sticker in a relatively short amount of time, someone watching me may have thought, by the duration of my stare, and the glazed look on my face, that what the bumper sticker said was indeed referring to me. It read...

"YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE?! TRY IGNORANCE."

Where do people find these stickers? I have never had one offered to me. Perhaps I am in the wrong social company. I have never walked into a luncheon, meeting, or conference, and at the door was given this bumper sticker as a free gift.

I am not sure exactly what they are trying to say here. "You think a college credential is expensive? Try NOT having a college credential!"?  The term 'education' can not simply be referring to 'the getting of knowledge," because knowledge takes time, not money. If you get a library card, and have enough time, you can accumulate a lot of knowledge. Cheap.

Now, I don't want to criticize people who put these stickers on their cars. I want to challenge the mindset in our culture that equates college credential as the alternative to ignorance, or that assumes that a college education is the door to the greatest opportunity and cultural success.

About 1 1/2 years ago, I was installing a roof on a mansion. This house made your knees tremble when you stood next to it. The owners were a very successful young couple. They had just had a baby, and I had gotten to know them a little, and enjoyed chatting with them when they came to watch me work. One day, I was talking with the mother, and jokingly said "Now, if you encourage your son, and invest in him, and teach him to work hard at his education, he too could one day be a roofer!" Her response was made in all seriousness, and it shocked me. "I would much rather see my son pursue blue-collar work, than for him to pursue college the way I did." When I asked why, she told me that for both her and her husband, and most of her friends, college was a complete waste of time. Their current occupations in no way related to their college degrees, nor was a college degree a prerequisite.

Our culture is in "default" mode, when it comes to college. It is assumed that if you are smart and ambitious for success in life, you will go to college. What do kids do after high school? They go to college! Have we ever stopped and evaluated this assumption, that college is almost universally the best way?

Now. I write firmly convinced that God's best for many of you is college. God may be calling you to a field of service that requires a credential, and so you will pursue that degree out of obedience to God. The Lord will bless that!

However, so many young people get to be 18-20 years old, and really have no clue what they want to do with their lives. They 'assume' that they are going to go to college, but they don't really know what they want to major in, nor do they know exactly how they are going to apply the knowledge they acquire in real life work and ministry. Please understand, I am not in any way saying that all college-aged students are in this predicament, or even most. However, I do think that there are enough young people at this place that it warrants the discussion.

Now, I grew up through hiigh school assuming that I was going to go to college. But several things gradually changed that for me.

1. I looked around at all of the adults I knew who had college degrees, and realized that for most of them, the job they carried was not related to their degrees.

2. I knew a lot of adults, including my father, whose job was related to their college degree, but they longed to change occupations to something different.

3. The most financially successful people I knew,(and this is still the case), did not go to college.

Now, a clarification about that last point. I do not think that we should make our decisions based on what will make us financially or culturally successful. Christ's definition of success is far removed from the world's definition of success. However, I do believe that young people go into college default mode because they believe that it will bring them success according to cultural terms. A good job, a nice house, security for the future.

A man once told me "If you want to work for someone else, go to college. If you want to work for yourself, don't." Again, this is certainly not a universal truth. However, this was a man that had gone to college, so I was listening. I also looked around our church and realized that most of the self-employed men hadn't gone to college, while most of those who had gone to college were employed.

There is nothing wrong at all with being employed! I see a lot of benefits to being employed. A lot of times, it is easier for employed men and women to leave their work at work, while the self-employed are tempted to bring working whereever they are.

I do want to spend a little bit of time on this blog challenging mindsets that:

a. Merely equate credentials with academic success.

b. Equate a lack of credentials with ignorance.

c. Assume that college is the most efficient way to grow in knowledge.

d. Assume college is the most efficient way to "move ahead" in life.

e. Assume that a college degree is a means of future security.

So, let the discussion begin!

Comments

[Pondering...]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I commend you for being able to think outside the box. I look forward to seeing your future posts and seeing what conclcusions you come to!

[KB]

I can definitely see the value of going both ways. I went to college with folks who floated through and cared about nothing and I've worked among the leagues of those who'll never see more than fast food management. Both have up and down sides.

I do think it is important to count the cost, as you suggest, of assuming college is best for everyone. Different God-given gifts and learning styles make it something of an individual choice.

[Julianna]

I was encouraged. I'm still at the point of trying to figure out if I should go to collage. I have gone to a community college for a bit and have and am working in a office with all older people. My boss who runs a business out of her house never went to collage and is making a comfortable living for her family of 5. But she is the very one who has been encouraging me to go to college. Mostly because I know I don't want to be doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life or even for much longer and because she wishes she had and thinks if she had she would not be working at a job she doesn't like. So she has started taking classes on line to become certified in a field she loves and hopes to be able to leave the work she is doing and is OK with taking a cut in her family's income stream so she can be at home with her kids and enjoy her work.
First let me say that I am not in anyway of the impression that I have it figured out or that I think their is a particular route all young people should take. I do think it very's from person to person. Having said that I do think their is a lot of pressure from most people for most young adults to go to college. So I find it quite hard to know what I should do. I pray about it and talk about it with others often. I had thought that I should go and get a degree in something relatively interesting enough so that I could get through it and move on with life before I get any older and it becomes to hard/uncomfortable to go back to college. But then someone pointed out that if I felt God had it in His plan that I get married and have a family that maybe collage would not be the best thing if it would leave me in a lot of debt that I would be bringing into the marriage and family that my husband would have to pay off while I stayed home with the kids. At first I thought that was a silly reason for not going to collage. But I have to say it is starting to make since. So I am looking more at cheaper colleges should I think God is in fact calling me to get a degree.
I have heard often about how most people seem not to use their degree in the occupation they end up having for most of their working life. But that just the fact of them having the degree meant they had worked at it and hopefully have good writing skills and people skills meant that they would be more qualified then some other young adults who had not gone the college rout. Personally I do feel as though my writing skills are less then those who have a degree but then I often fined I am at the same place if not more then my degree holding peers when it comes to people skills. A lot of that comes from my upbringing as well as having put in the time I would have been at college in the work place. Well I have no doubt said enough. I look forward to reading more on this discussion.