COL 103 - Note #3

“Prior to attending college, I never thought about my life purpose, and I took everything at face value. Now, I think more about my long term goals and definitely feel that the price I pay for education is well worth it.”

Setting both long- and short-term goals has always been important to Lewis. After high school, when he found himself living in Atlanta working at a dead end job, he set his sights on going to college and enrolled at Georgia State University. Now that he’s in college, he’s majoring in economics with the goal of attending law school after graduation. He knows that getting good grades and staying involved on campus will help him achieve that ultimate goal.

Like many students, Lewis also needs to balance working with attending and participating in college activities, so many of his goals have involved small steps. “I am currently the president of the pre-law student association,” he explains. “The group is small, but this semester I plan to attend a leadership seminar to get some extra skills in leading a successful student organization.” He also gets involved on campus by working in student affairs to promote special events, which helps him stay connected with other students. He acknowledges, however, that working even on campus does have its challenges that he is still trying to solve. “Working twenty hours while taking fifteen credits means that I rarely get enough sleep because I have to stay up late studying. My biggest goal for now is to find a better way to manage my time.” Still, Lewis believes that the hard work will pay off. “Prior to attending college, I never thought about my life purpose, and I took everything at face value. Now, I think more about my long term goals and definitely feel that the price I pay for education is well worth it,” he says.

In the future, Lewis hopes to travel the world tackling issues such as poverty, cultural barriers, and the economic glass ceiling that many people face, and his favorite elective class so far, Psychology 1101, plays nicely into those goals. “That class pushes my life message that we should try to understand other people and not be so convinced we always know what’s best for everyone else,” he says. “I have been the subject of negative stereotypes, and I just love the way this class shows how this kind of thinking came about.”

^^THE VALUE OF COLLEGE^^

You are likely in college because you and/or your family members believe that it is an important and valuable experience now and for the future. The value of college can be measured in many different ways. As you read this section, think about how and why college is important to you.

^^Accessing Better Jobs, Higher Salaries, a Better Life^^

Overall, people around the world value higher education and this is certainly true in the United States. The demand for a college degree from a U.S. college or university explains, in part, why there are more than 4,000 of them. Around the world, having a college degree is a major opportunity for people to achieve upward social mobility and a higher standard of living. That accurately describes the primary purpose most students have for being in college: to attain a higher standard of living than they would have without a college credential.

In earlier centuries, one’s standard of living was almost always a function of family background. Either you were born into power and money or you spent your life working for others who had power and money. While, sadly these factors still have some influence on upward mobility in the United States, receiving a college degree can minimize or eliminate the restrictions to achievement that stem from differences in background, race, ethnicity, family income, national origin, immigration status, family lineage, and personal connection. Simply put, college participation is about ensuring that more people have the opportunity to be evaluated on the basis of merit rather than family status, money, or other forms of privilege. It makes achieving the America dream more possible.

In 1900, fewer than 2 percent of Americans of traditional college age attended college. Today, new technologies and the information explosion are changing the workplace so drastically that to support themselves and their families adequately, most people need some education beyond high school. Although today more than 69 percent of high school graduates are attending college (approximately eighteen million students), we are seeing a wave of questions in the media about whether or not college is really worth it.

Lewis, the student profiled at the beginning of this chapter, likely would answer, “Yes, college is really worth it,” but what does the data say? A New York Times analysis of data from the Economic Policy Institute (epi.org) also finds that the answer is “yes.” Dramatic differences exist between the earning power of students with a high school diploma and those with a four-year college degree. In 2014, four-year college graduates earned, on average, about $50,000 per year, while high school graduates earned $30,000 per year. While there are concerns about the cost of college today, the cost of not attending college is even more dramatic. David Autor, an economist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reported that not going to college will, over your lifetime, cost you about half a million dollars.

You can also look at Figure 1.1 to see how earning a college degree will improve your earning potential. This figure breaks down unemployment rates and weekly earnings according to education level. The more education you have, the more likely you are to be employed, and the higher your earnings will be.

Beyond the financial benefits that earning a college college gives to an individual, college is an established process designed to further formal education so that students who attend and graduate will be prepared for certain roles in society. Today, for many, those roles are found predominantly in what has become known as the information economy, which means that most college graduates will earn their living by creating, managing, and using information. For others, college is a crucial way to prepare for leadership roles in their communities, companies, and professions, or military units. Every society throughout history has proscribed routes for their members to achieve leadership status, and in our society it is most often by means of college degree attainment.