#CollegeDegree #WorthlessDegree #HigherEducation #CareerOptions
🎓 Are college degrees worthless? 🤔 This question has been a topic of debate for years, with many people questioning the value of a college education in today’s job market. While there are valid arguments on both sides of the discussion, it’s important to consider various factors before making a decision about pursuing a college degree.
In this article, we’ll explore the reasons why some people believe college degrees are worthless, provide examples of successful individuals without degrees, and offer insights into the potential benefits of obtaining a higher education. Let’s dive in!
## Reasons Why Some Believe College Degrees Are Worthless
### Rising Tuition Costs
– College tuition costs have been steadily increasing over the years, making higher education inaccessible for many individuals.
– Student loan debt is at an all-time high, leading some to question if the cost of a degree is worth the potential job opportunities it may provide.
### Lack of Relevant Job Opportunities
– Some argue that certain degrees do not adequately prepare students for real-world job opportunities.
– The oversaturation of certain industries can make it challenging for graduates to secure employment in their field of study.
### Changing Job Market Trends
– The rise of automation and artificial intelligence has led to disruptions in traditional job markets, making some degrees obsolete.
– The gig economy and freelance work opportunities have created new avenues for employment that do not necessarily require a college degree.
## Examples of Successful Individuals Without Degrees
### Steve Jobs
– Co-founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs dropped out of college after just one semester. He went on to become one of the most successful businessmen in history.
### Mark Zuckerberg
– Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, dropped out of Harvard University to focus on building his social media empire. He is now a billionaire and an influential figure in the tech industry.
### Bill Gates
– Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, also dropped out of college to pursue his passion for software development. He is now one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.
## Potential Benefits of Obtaining a College Degree
### Increased Job Opportunities
– Many employers still value a college education and may require a degree for certain positions.
– A degree can provide individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in their chosen field.
### Higher Earning Potential
– On average, individuals with a college degree tend to earn more over their lifetime compared to those without a degree.
– Certain professions, such as healthcare and engineering, require specific degrees in order to attain higher salaries.
### Personal Growth and Development
– College can be a transformative experience that helps individuals develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills.
– Building a network of peers and mentors in a college setting can lead to valuable connections and opportunities in the future.
In conclusion, the value of a college degree ultimately depends on the individual’s goals, circumstances, and career aspirations. While there are examples of successful individuals without degrees, obtaining a higher education can still provide numerous benefits in terms of job opportunities, earning potential, and personal growth.
If you’re considering pursuing a college degree, it’s essential to research your options, consider the potential return on investment, and weigh the pros and cons of higher education. Ultimately, the decision to pursue a degree is a personal one that should align with your values, interests, and long-term career goals.
If it isn’t STEM, it probably isn’t worth it to go to college. Even then there are low demand STEM jobs too.
Because they didn’t major in engineering.
The bachelor degree itself is of low value and always has been. Universities used to be a space available almost exclusively to the elites in society. University was a place to finish a classical education, and grow a personal social network with other people who already had powerful social networks. That is the real value of a university degree.
With the GI bill following WW2 that began to change. Ordinary folks began to have access to university education, but because they did not understand the real purpose of the university the focus was on the degree itself. For a few decades the degree still held value as a sign that the holder had been exposed to the social network, but beginning in the 90s there was a huge push to put more kids in college, backed by a large and effective propaganda campaign and exacerbated by high school ranking and funding systems that are partly based on college attendance rates.
So the number of bachelor degree holders skyrocketed, while the actual quality of education and focus on social networking has continued to decline, along with the value of a bachelor degree. When everybody has one, it’s no longer special.
My advice to high school kids for the last 10 years has been: If you know for sure what you want to do and it requires a degree, go for it and network the hell out of it. If not, get a union job and start making money ASAP.
Of course they are not worthless. You need a college degree to even qualify to apply for most government jobs.
because learning something in college hardly equates to doing it professionally. college is just another way to sort yourself into this or that bucket, become this kind of person or that kind of person. go towards this or that, and ultimately set yourself apart from others who might be competing for similar roles.
It’s been entirely worthless for me.
I got the job before the degree. Now that degree has moved me much higher in the food chain.
However the degree cant take all the credit, the trade I initially learned is the base of my success. I started out as an aviation mechanic in the military. One room mate was in supply and the other roommate was in aviation admin. I learned what both their jobs were just by talking with them and we interacted quite often on a daily basis at work.
When I got out I was a mechanic again but I saw an opportunity to become a planner. After I worked at that position I moved into quality, then into supply.
With that experience I found a job as a customer quality rep.
That got me into 6 digits. After that I found a supply chain analyst job. This is where I decided to finish my degree.
Im a senior analyst and bounce between quality and engineering.
I also picked up a project manager certificate, quality auditor certificate, & supply chain professional certificate before & during my degree.
My degree isnt from a top school but I choose it because of the courses it offered in supply chain. Its also were I got a contract law certificate.
In the current state of things, ya gotta keep versatile and move when the job market moves.
There are simply more work fields than there are majors. And not enough jobs within majors to provide a job for each graduate. Some white collar jobs don’t necessarily require a certain major but they require collegiate level skills. But ya there are some colleges and some degrees that are not worth the price or time investment. Choose wisely.
Yes and no. If you think that getting a degree magically gets you a job and you’ll instantly make a bunch of money, then yes, they’re useless because what you want to happen (the above) won’t happen (excluding a few medical and computer-based jobs).
Depends what degree, but most jobs require you to have a degree in the specific field
Healthcare degrees are still valuable
Depends on the degree, the program and the school.
Engineering is almost a yes in every field.
Psychology is best to stay away from unless you’re purely passionate about
I went to college to get an education, not work a particular job.
College degrees just open doors, you have to be the one to walk through. It doesn’t guarantee you anything but saying MOST people don’t use the degree they went to school for? That sound’s exaggerated
Worthless? No, because they will almost certainly help you land higher paying jobs more easily. But realistically, they are useless because they don’t really prove that you know any more than, or are more of an expert than someone without a degree. It’s all about perception, though, and for most people, perception is reality.
Depends what kind of person u wanna become. If u wanna be a doctor, it isn’t useless at all. But if u wanna be businessman or you are into arts, I don’t think that is completely necessary.
I dont think they’re worthless, but I think people go to school thinking their job search will be much easier afterwards but come to discover it didn’t do much. These days you need at least college education to get a job above minimum wage. Also the market is full of people who lie on their resumes, bloat their achievements, and fight tooth and nail to get a better job for more money because that’s capitalism kids.
Statistically most of those graduates will eventually get a job that requires a college degree. Statistically people with degrees generally have a higher income over the course of their lives
Well, I was a homeless stripper before starting school – any job after I graduate is guaranteed to be more money than what I was making before lol. At least I hope so.
I think it’s a very nuanced topic. A college degree would definitely benefit someone who was in my circumstance – someone who doesn’t come from much money to begin with or a stable environment- I look at college as a second chance and stepping stone to help me integrate with everyone else – even if I don’t make tons of money – I’ll definitely be a lot better off than where I was before.
If you grew up in an affluent area, or you are lucky enough to land a job with opportunities to advance and make more money within a reasonable time frame – you could make it without a degree I guess.
Most millionaires and billionaires do have degrees though – think it’s about 80% of them – so that tells me the chances of becoming successful or making 6 figures without a formal education are very slim and anyone who manages to make it without that was just lucky.
Most people won’t get lucky though, so it’s better just to get a degree and try to work on your resume – internships and networking.
I wish I didn’t listen to anyone telling me a college degree was useless or don’t go to school. I think people are going to another extreme and not considering all the factors. A college degree still holds weight, and if you don’t come from anything at all – it’s definitely not “useless” it’s still very necessary.
Good degree from good colleges don’t necessarily mean you have to do what you studied for the rest of your life. Besides the knowledge part, it means you can sit your ass down for serious periods of time and listen to what’s the job given to you while memorizing the details correctly. That’s your ability to learn which makes you worthy to train as a responsible employee they’d bring in. Most companies don’t expect new grad hires to do everything on day one, but they need to know you’ll be a good investment
It helps to get your foot to the door. Would literally choose someone with degree than don’t. It all depends bruv. Some people out there did just fine without a degree, some people had a career completely unrelated to their degree and some work on what they studied.
Tho to answer, working and on the job teaches you more than college.
No, the way people use them are.
They open a door and don’t know what to do once it’s open. It’s kind of like American Idol. It’s like expecting to get a contract just because you invited to sing in front of the panel.
And picking a degree / field of study that’s not marketable is like singing Gaelic Folk. Your chances of getting to the stage dwindle.
Also, to get a job after college IN YOUR FIELD you have to have your shit together. That means internships and work experience. Lots of students think of college as one big party and forget this until it is too late. The competition for entry level jobs is fierce.
Let me guess, you recommend being a real man and getting a trade instead??
A college degree is not useless because even if you enter a field that doesn’t pertain to your degree you still most likely need a degree just to get a worthwhile job.
I’m sure many end up working in another field than what they studied, and that’s ok. It is even desired in many cases. This doesn’t make the degree “useless”. Plenty of career paths want to see at least some kind of bachelor’s degree as a minimum requirement, so no it’s not worthless at all. Get to school.
As someone who wants to live in a foreign country and lacks one, no.
In Econometrics we ran a regression model on data set that showed a college degree was directly correlated and was statistically significant to earning more money. This was done in college, and was technically small data set (still very big by most people’s standards, just don’t qualify as big data) so you could argue it was biased. But I don’t mess with nerds and their numbers. Especially the head of the economics department at a large school full of nerds.
Now I don’t make a lot atm, just short of $30 an hour, but I make a hell of a lot more than many people from high school that don’t have a degree. Also my benefits are great, which if you take those into consideration, technically boost my compensation to much higher than $30 an hour. But you won’t just get a great job out of college. Experience from jobs with your degree help open more doors the older you get. I have a friend that makes $200k with a masters in business ( not an MBA), he would not have gotten there without his degrees or job experience. But YMMV. Go to trade school if you want to. Just don’t do nothing. Get experience in something even if it’s not college.
No. People with college degrees tend to make 400k more over a lifetime and save more. Vs those without.
On average.
A lot of people do not understand what it is to have a job, let alone what the jobs they’re specifically lining up for entails.
Imagine you’re young and idealistic and you want to save the ocean so you become a marine biologist… and find yourself splitting your time 60% behind a computer doing data entry, 20% in a lab, 10% writing reports, and 10% in the field.
Don’t get caught up on the numbers if they’re not totally accurate, but do be aware that that kind of split is common in tons and tons of jobs.
The fun bit might be a very small minority of the work.
So… a degree is not useless, but it should be treated like a tool to get certain specific jobs and you should damn well understand what those jobs actually involve. Don’t just listen to the rose tinted bits, ask what their day involves. See what percentage of their day is the rose tint.
Earning a degree often serves as your ticket in the door to many jobs in the United States, especially if you hope to climb the career ladder and manage people.
It depends on how in demand the degree is
I wouldn’t say that they are worthless, but if your degree isn’t obtained in order to land a specific targeted position….it might be useless in the long run.
The current state of “Job Hiring” makes every degree seem worthless, but it is not your degree…it is the inept hiring system and the absolute idiots put in position to hire people.
For example: Where I work, they constantly put out listings for government/federal jobs and actively encourage the working population of contractors to apply to them. However, they only ever hire military veterans to the positions. Well, you may ask “why the hell do they waste time annoying the actual workers that get the work done to apply for these positions”?
Well the answer is because they get a small incentive rewarded with the more people that apply for the position. That is why you see that 1500 people applied for the position, meanwhile, the recruiter already knows who they are going to put in the position (another lazy military vet looking for a handout/handup) and they’re only boosting their little bonus.
The system is broken and honestly…nothing is happening to fix any of it.
I think there are a few reasons for this. One is degree inflation. Having a degree used to make you kind of in an elite group. That’s why parents pushed their millennial kids into college so much. The problem is, when so many people have degrees, it drives the value of them down, and makes them less impactful. Employers look for other ways to filter out candidates. There’s a reason people say that college degrees are the new High School diplomas now.
Another reason is the job market. How do you know whether or not the job you want will be in demand after you graduate? You don’t. The world changes too fast. What’s in demand when you’re a college freshman might not be once you walk down the aisle in graduation. You would have missed the boat, so no one is hiring in your field, and you’re forced to work somewhere else.
And a third problem is experience based. All the academic achievements in the world doesn’t hold much of a light next to hard won experience. Employers are going to look for experience every time. So you have newly minted grads, who could *probably* do their jobs if given have a chance, but get passed over because they don’t have any real world experience yet.
I overstayed my welcome in college. I got three degrees, I did extracurricular work. I never got paid a dime for anything I learned. Maybe there are exceptions, but for the most part I think going to college to secure a lucrative future for yourself is antiquated. It costs too much, is a crap shoot (going back to reason 2) and no one has to employ you for having gone. It’s not a contract, it’s not a license, it’s not a rank or noble title. It’s a sheep skin.
The market is polluted is the reason why and the toxic mindsets during hiring. Speaking as someone with a computer science degree. I can say I had terrible luck. Many jobs prior to the last month of college constantly downgraded my degree and experience and wanted workers for cheap (minimum wage with no benefits). One agency I called suggested I clean off my resume of all tech experience so I can get an entry level position in a far away city.
After college that left me with no job and the constant want to stay in the tech industry since I had the degree. College was useless and did not help at all. Was given my first job in the industry. 1st job the boss would verbally abuse me and tell me to go back to school and ended up having to sue for wage later on. After that traumatic experience I quit after 1 month since I couldn’t take it.
I ended up getting a customer service job but still felt unsatisfied I did not get a tech job. So to fulfill the fact I got a degree I constantly applied to tech jobs and tech agencies as a way out. The tech agencies did not take me seriously offering me labour jobs at minimum wage when my degree was not even applicable to that position. Tech jobs also would tell me that I should not look at the pay but the experience. Well experience does not pay my bills and had plenty of them.
Many years passed and I did not have to even apply for tech jobs as they were calling me. At this point I still was grasping onto the want a little bit to satisfy my degree but was not a driving force anymore. The wages were lower than what I was being paid and on top of that the headhunters that contacted me failed to keep my interest longer than 5 minutes of talking to them as they ask dumb questions like what made you wanna apply for this position. lol you called me I never applied.
At some point after the calls had stopped I made peace with the fact I would not get a tech job out of the worry of getting treated poorly again. I ended up going a completely different path as I found it was more my interested. The college contacted me years later to ask if I got a tech job of my dreams and told the truth and that their degree did not help me.
Nothing wrong with working in other fields. This notion has to end.
A college degree just tells employers that you did something half way well and you did it in a timely matter and met deadlines. Most employers don’t care what your degree is in. Unless it is in a specific job that need that specific training.
Good luck
Good when combined with experience. How you get that experience is the actual challenge. No exam will ever level to getting that opportunity for experience. An immense frustration, and when you do get it, hold onto it for dear life.
I highly highly recommend an internship while in college. Prioritize that over the lame classes where you’ll only retain 30% or the professor was dogshit.
If you were in a class and took a good look at the students there, you would instantly understand why this is the case. College is the default after highschool so there are a lot of lost young adults
Absolutely not worthless. Learning is never worthless.