Is a College Degree/Advanced Education Expense Worth the Price?

Hey Everyone,

I was talking with a friend who is contemplating going back to school to earn a degree in the hopes of finding a higher-paying job.

This led to a conversation about whether or not the high cost of a a college degree actually pays off in real dollars and cents, and whether it's actually worth the sacrifices and high cost or not. I have known many people who didn't get the chance to use their degrees and it just wound up being a very expensive certificate on their wall (which they are still paying off.) But of course, every person's experience is unique, especially since there are some fields (medicine, etc.) in which a degree is absolutely necessary.

When I was growing up, it was almost a given at the time that in order to get a "good" job here in the USA, you had to obtain a 4-year college degree. I'm not sure how it works in other countries, so please feel free to share what the expectations are where you live and what people do in your own country and culture.

I have worked in retail my entire life and often met people who wound up there too because they couldn't find jobs in the profession they had studied. For example, one of my managers had a degree in engineering. When someone asked what he was doing working in a store, he said he and his wife had moved to the area to take care of his mother-in-law, and he couldn't find work in his field. He explained that the area was filled with retired engineers who were fine just working part-time, so no one was offering full-time. Instead, he took a full-time job in retail management because at least it provided health insurance for him and his wife.

The most extreme story I've heard so far was of a co-worker's son and his fiancee. They had both studied to be pilots, but graduated at a time when airlines were cutting back, and so now were looking at getting married with over a quarter of a million dollar's worth of educational debt -- and couldn't find jobs in their field. This was many years ago and I'm not sure what happened, but I know at the time, my co-worker said they were taking any kind of job they could find.

I have heard many stories like this and am wondering what you all have seen and experienced. I have heard people speak of apprenticeships as an alternative, but are they very common anymore? It seemed, in my area at least, that such opportunities were non-existent, or at least very rare.

I would like to know:

* Did you get an advanced education, and do you believe it was worth the cost? Did you make up for the price of your education with a better-paying job?

* Have you been able to pay back your student loans, if you had any? (Here in the USA, you can apply for loans from the government to pay for your schooling, but there are strict rules about paying them back.)

* If you could go back in time, would you have still earned and paid for your degree, or do you feel you would have been better without one? Would you have chosen to study another field (which one?)

* Do you have children or grandchildren (or other friends or relatives) who earned college degrees? Was it worth it to them or do they wish they'd taken another path?

* What would you advise other to do? Should they "go back to school," or what other means would you suggest in order to get better jobs and higher pay?

I'm dropping this thread in the Singles forum because my conversation was with a guy who is doing just fine for himself as a single, but is concerned he wouldn't earn enough to support a wife and family if God allows, and he wants to be prepared.

And please note that I am most definitely NOT trying to downplay or criticize the important of higher education -- I've had people in my own life who have told me I "wasted my degree," but I know my life turned out the way it did for a reason.

I'm just interested in what other people have done as far as college goes, and how their own story has turned out because of it.

After I completed my bachelors degree, I was unemployed for most of one year looking for employment. I had the degree, I had some years of experience already, I had some certifications, and I had good references.

I didn’t get feedback as to why I was rejected by so many jobs for so long, yes I bluntly asked why sometimes, but I have suspicions. I guess it was due to a variety of different factors.

College graduates normally expect higher salary so it’s smarter to not higher them if possible. College graduates are normally eligible for management positions so managers may be protecting their job from competition by not hiring college graduates. A college degree doesn’t always trump experience or references and there are many experienced people who are more qualified than someone with a degree. Nepotism is a real problem in some areas and where I was living was prone to family clans invading businesses, gradually taking over, then hiring only their family and friends.

So there’s many situations where a college degree won’t necessarily help. I eventually ended up with a very well-paying job doing things I loved in my field of study and I couldn’t have got it without a degree. Worked out well for me, but it took two years to get where I wanted to be.

Too long;didn’t read: yes a degree helps sometimes, but not always. College graduates may have to work harder to find their dream job due to a variety of factors and competition.

Sadly many employers are still asking for pieces of paper from universities or other educational facilities
so if you looking to get work in those industries then it is worth it
however . I have bo pieces of paper . No degrees etc and yet I have worked my way up through the ranks in my industry to managerial level . Sone employers value experience and demonstrated skills , but it certainly took me a lot longer to achieve promotions

So my advice is talk to people in the field / industry yo interested in and discuss past hiring protocols

I think experience counts more than being a graduate in some fields when there arent many openings.

But you do need to have the degree to get your foot in the door. so if the OP is mature, they AND they have a degree, that is going to be more attractive to an employer than someone whos got a degree but has never worked in anything. as many fresh graduates arent going to highly paid to start with anyway.

The other thing is if you can, dont get a loan, save money and pay for it, so you might not go to college straight after high school. Take a year off and get temp job and save save save (sometimes called a gap year) and it will be less stressful to have money in the bank then decide what you really want to do.

Some fields will pay for you or reimburse your study when you complete the degree.

as for me..ugh I could write an entire thread about my career ups and downs. I got there in the end but my profession (librarianship) has never been highly paid. it also depends on what sector you work in.

its funny cos I was wondering today if all lawyers are highly paid, or is that a misconception. Certainly whenever I read about someone with heaps of money and living a rich lifestyle, it turns out the husband is a lawyer, or they are a lawyer, or they trained a s lawyer and now writing legal thrillers or using their connections to become a high powered politician. I supoose if you make the rules, you can break them or find the tax loopholes. I dunno.

Youd think bankers would make heaps of money, or accountants, but no, seems lawyers have got the being well paid thing all tied up

eg. in popular literature/tv

Bridget Jones..boyfriend Mark Darcy is humans rights lawyer making him rich and attractive
the sweet valley twins who never want for anything because their dad is a lawyer
ally macbeal
miranda hobbes in sex and the city - rich overworked lawyer, but settles for and marries 'poor' bartender Steve
anyone potential cheating husband in a Danielles Steel novel is usally a high flying but boring lawyer

the real life memoir I was just reading called The Good Life on Te Muna Road, the wife married a lawyer QC who basically funded her vineyard lifestyle.

Now I dont actually KNOW many lawyers personally, but just seems to me its always portrayed as a highly paid profession

its not like all these well off people became cops or school teachers or merchants on ebay. Or gardeners.
struggling artist yes
poor destitute lawyer...never!

A college degree means nothing today.

All I know is, my dentist and my doctor sure had better have that piece of paper on the wall somewhere. I want to make sure they know what they are doing.

I knew one once. She worked in retail. ;-) You just don't hear about them, because most people assume because of where one works, one doesn't have any other qualifications. I knew another lawyer once (not BAR certified, though) who worked as an engineer (he was rich, but not by using his law degree - at least not directly).

To answer Seoulsearch's question, I think people should do their sums before getting a college degree, and talk to someone successful in the field. College degrees are getting less and less profitable (as they cost more and more, and employers are paying less and less for them, compared to those without degrees). I definitely think a degree can make life easier in some ways - but so can not having a massive debt, and spending 4+ years of your youth doing not much else but study.

except to many recruiters.

HR departments love to make it mandatory for a Degree

I know a lot of people with only one or two years of trade school/appremtoce technical trainingj in such fields as electronics/automotive/construction/pluming.....etc....

Many of them are making six figures in annual salaries with no student debt. If you have a skill of any kind, you'll do very well without an expensive 4 year college degrree.

There are so many fields in which one can acquire a good lifetime skill through one or two year trade/technical schooling.

Firstly find out what skills are in demand and think about what you would enjoy doing. Then give some serious thought to a techncal or trade school rather than college.

Well, I live in India. My college debt for my MBA Finance was over 1 MN INR (about $15,000) and there were times when it felt like a lot. I took an education loan to pay it off at the time. But by God's Grace, in a few years, everything changed! I got a good job at Bank of New York as an Investment Banker. I was able to pay off my debt in a while, and started saving for myself. Nearly 10 years after my MBA, was it worth it? Absolutely yes, imho. By God's Grace, my higher education has taken me places I only dreamed of going earlier, including my current company, Credit Suisse, another top Investment Bank just like BNY Mellon. So yes, I am pro-education in general. But I do believe it is important to be clear, before entering college, what kind of job you are aiming for, and what you estimate to be the payback period of your loan, in other words, how soon can you earn, and save, enough to pay off your college loan.

It shouldn't be more than 2-3 years at the most. After that, the rest of your earnings should be for marriage, children, future savings etc.

God Bless.

apprenticeships depends on where you can get them
I think really depends on the employers, where they have time to apprentice you

in my country, they are so cheap that they pay apprentices less than minimum wage for as long as they can and try to keep you down so you dont try and take over the business.

workplaces can be real bullies! For women its much harder in general to be highly paid as employers dont want you to fall pregnant and take maternity leave, and most employers at the top tend to be the status quo or sacrificed their families for their career.

Many of the bosses ive worked under had family problems when I scratched the surface. But that is nz, they dont tell you this when you start out working, because if you knew what it was like you wouldnt even want to work there.


paying off a student loan shouldnt take that long but you cant expect to do it straight away, think of long term rather than the short term in that case, though there are some schools that actually dont help prepare graduates at all, dont bother places them in positions, dont care to connect them with any employers, basically, for many once you graduate you on your own.

its a real bummer sometimes for fresh graduates to have studied so hard, and maybe real passionate about what they do to find that nobody wants their skills. or there are TOO many already and so your degree doesnt even make a splash. Ive know some that once they do that the only thing left to do is go and teach at the school they just graduated from lol

so you might find yourself on a merry go round like in a Dr Suess book...

my part time retail job , well my boss had trained as an architect, but that didnt seem to translate into running a small business.
but i know in my gardening job, the boss had gone to agricultural school and became boss pretty soon over those who hadnt, though I think there was a bit of nepotism there
and then in libraries, half the managers had no degree and resented those who did have or were studying for one.

you might be paid a bit more with a qualification, but running a library requires experience as well and the oldies who have held on their jobs for so long tend to keep any up and comings down.

I dont know if having an MBA makes any difference but its probably more for the connections that will get your places than the degree itself, though some just see college or university as a rite of passage. It does open doors if you knock on the right ones.

lots of people go back to school...you never stop learning anyway, but there is a downside...you might come across people who resent you for being smart and overqualified!

Also it depends if you come from a family that values education or one that wanted you to drop out from school to earn money, but a lot of that comes from whatver the economy is at the time. in nz, higher education is now a business. It gets sold to foreigners who come from overseas, often from china to get the degree they cant in their homeland as there arent many univerisities and it isnt easy to get into.

private schools also need foreign students to pay for their upkeep. Its a bit of a racket actually. If only people knew!

That's another place I really want somebody with specialized training. The guy who handles my Roth IRA had better have that piece of paper on the wall.

All I have to say is this...

My oldest daughter (19) just completed her second year of college, and she has a scholarship paying for it all, so loans/debt really aren't an issue. However, and this is a HUGE HOWEVER, she's presently lost, so what is it all worth? More money? Prestige? Without Christ, it's all useless, and it ends with eternal damnation.

My second daughter (16) just completed her junior year of high school. Based upon her grades/past awards, she'll probably wind up with a full scholarship, too. I was just out for dinner with her and my other children a few days ago, and she told me that she plans to go to college in Italy, and that she wants to practice international law. Of course, she also told me that she plans to live in a mansion there. Again, like my other daughter, she's presently lost, so what does any of it matter?

As a father, my primary concern for my children is their eternal destinies. Their primary concerns at the moment? Make a lot of money so they can do whatever they want in life with no regard for God whatsoever.

Not a pleasant situation by any means, with or without a degree.

I Corinthians chapter 1

[26] For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
[27] But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
[28] And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
[29] That no flesh should glory in his presence.
[30] But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
[31] That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

I think the advice I would give to a recent or soon to be graduate who is unsure about college is ... wait until you have something you really want to study to go to college to study it.

I had a good scholarship so didn't have too much debt when I graduated (and have since paid it all off because college was a long time ago now), but I was never that sure or passionate about my field of study and yeah I'm guilty of going to college because it was expected of me. But I started with an engineering major because it took 4 years to do and I only had 4 years of scholarship and finished the engineering major because I didn't know what I would like doing better (and I was pretty good at it). Now I work tech support and a lot of the analysis and problem solving skills I learned in engineering school could have helped, but sometimes I think about the road not taken and how much money I could be making (and the more interesting things I could be doing) had I been super career focused in college.

I think we're still at a point where that expensive piece of paper can open a lot of doors even if they aren't in your field (although my supervisors would like to change the policy, right now they can't hire anyone without a college degree because of some foolish manager above them), and like it or not there are plenty of fields where all other things being equal they're always going to hire someone with a degree over someone without a degree. I would say if you want to do brain work (work that is mainly done with your brain or offers specialized knowledge as a product or service) you'll need a degree. If skilled trades or factory work or manual labor type things are more what you would enjoy, see how far you can get without a degree.

We should probably also advise people not to spend a lot of money for "the college experience", transfer credits from a community or commuter branch of a college are just as valuable (and a lot cheaper) than credits earned at an expensive private school. Even if you have to live at home while you're getting them.

Yes, a college degree is necessary depending on the profession. I don't think a liberal arts degree is too useful generally, but in many cases having a 'useless" degree will open more doors than not having a degree. That is because at least with a liberal arts degree, a person knows how to conduct research, think critically, write reports, meet deadlines etc., but I admit it doesn't always translate well in the real world. It also depends on location. In my work city, I know people with liberal arts degrees who are using their degrees (for ex. working in policy-making, etc.), but where I grew up at least among the people I know they are not really using their degrees (working in retail, being receptionist or similar job, etc.).

It also depends on other factors such as ambition, how much a person wants to study, etc. It's fine to be an electrician, but that person cannot be an electrical engineer (which requires a college degree). It's fine to go into the trades but not everyone wants to do that, especially women. The trades are usually "man's work". For women, there are not many options without a college degree.

I have no regrets going to college (I did not have much debt and paid it all within 5 years). Sometimes I do regret not doing a one-year Master's that is combined with the Bachelor's (otherwise is it generally 2 years separately). Now, I do not really feel like being a student and it not really possible with the work-load from my job. But, nowadays most people in my field have advanced degrees so I think that would be beneficial if I want to move around/advance, etc.

Grandpa was fond of saying, " If you take a fool and educate him what do you have when you're done? An educated fool."

College degrees can help...and they can't take away what you know. But when you go for a degree you also need an inside track on a career to compliment that education.

IOW you need a job in IT if you are studying to be an IT engineer. The job may be basic and just barely through the door....but it's a definite leg up.
Otherwise the field changes so fast that the degree is useless.


Aircraft pilots licenses are extremely expensive to get...again "Inside track" is very important in this area...if you don't have one...don't. Besides, being a pilot is boring. Takeoff is OK and there's not much to do until landing. Even cargo plane jobs do not pay sufficient to repay loans....only passenger planes do that.

Nursing jobs are always going to be plentiful and many hospitals will contract to pay for the education if you will work for them after graduating.

Then there's the GI bill....

Lots of ways to get an education and earn a living. Only fools get stuck with $75,000 in school loans for acting classes.

in library profession you can get the diploma (open polytech, or what american think of as community college)
or you can get a bachelors and then do a masters (MLIS) which is what I did

If you already have the bachelors then do the masters but if not then just do the diploma its kind of the same in the end really, I dont think one pathway is necessarily better than the other

I dont regret going to uni but I didnt have that much options when it was simply expected of me.
I think if you love literature and the arts a university education is valuable if the faculty has a rich collection, good professors and able to expand your mind in more ways than a community college can, but for some its more the status of going to university. though personally I think sometimes the whole peer review and academia world can be rather elitist.

I remember doing several papers on things that I just dont even use now, studying plays that today nobody ever sees (shakespeare?!) and Im pretty sure in the next few years there will probably be 'TV and film studies' and they will be of popular tv and films that I watched when I was younger.

its a bit arcane really, but thats the fun of learning you dont do it strictly for how much you going to be paid at the end of it. Possibly thats why it cost so much and only the rich can really afford it. But thats arts

science..thats something else. Often its super obssesed people who go into science and often specialists in one thing, like you totally obssessed with the yellow eyed penguin well in science you could just study that ONE animal if nobody else is!