Reply #13: Do we want people to quit going to college?

[onpatrol98]

What is the point of the OP? Not being sarcastic...I just think I missed it. Is the complaint that people get degrees but then don't end up in their career fields. I think the OP correctly stated there are many reasons this can happen. Is the complaint the cost of student loans? I agree, but there are ways to pursue a degree with exorbitant student loans. IT GENERALLY TAKES FOREVER...but many students work and pay for college without student loans or grants. We still live in a country that truly rewards high academic achievement. For the high school student ABSOLUTELY COMMITTED to their grades and return high scores, there are schools willing to offer them scholarships. Perhaps not to the school of their first choice, but if they're flexible, to another.

Is the point - a misguided effort on the part of parents and students? Perhaps we should encourage our children NOT to go to college. That sounds a bit like the GOP ad telling Hispanics not to vote. In some communities, we have to push a college education. For some fields, it is for career preparation. I don't see a way around that. I don't even know if I want a way around it. There was a time when education mattered less...as long as you looked a certain way or knew the right people, it didn't matter if you were uneducated or even if you were dumb as a brick. Heck...it's still this way sometimes. For the rest of us, we'd better pursue a higher education, and better encourage our children to do the same.

Perhaps the rest of polite society can throw up its hands at the irony of PhDs pushing brooms. In my community, it means a lot more than that. I'll keep convincing kids to go to college and helping them avoid huge student loans.