Is College Worth It? Not Anymore!

 

Is college worth it? Not Anymore! Small colleges are starting to close in my state. Many colleges are shutting down programs since there are no jobs in those fields. Maybe angry resentful graduates contacted them, maybe they noticed the numbers dropping and have adjusted accordingly. It didn't escape my notice most were cutting art education and journalism, two fields I and my husband shared. 

This website tracks all the college cuts and closures. You can see the different closures and program cuts there. Art schools are closing, most of them led to their students being unemployed anyway. The movie Art School Confidential showed some of the absurdity of art schools, twenty years ago. Charles Schultz may have gotten some practical lettering and other classes in his city art school in Minneapolis, but those schools changed. Graphic design was dying when I was in school 30 years ago and switching over to computers. AI has taken over a lot of graphic design, you can see small companies posting the AI ads all over the place. Fine arts? I was in a state college to get my art education degree but most fine art degrees lead to unemployment. Yes some artists do make a daily living at it, but it is very competitive. If you can sell ANY art usually you are a doing quite well. 

While art education is a positive, sadly in this utilitarian and growing totalitarian society, art is not valued anymore. Many artists are self-taught. I learned far more via the art centers than I did in college. There were so many missing holes I had to fill as an adult, this included obtaining proper art supplies and how to wire a painting. I'm not sure if I should judge my state school or not, some may say well they may have influenced you to continue learning, even while disabled. A lot of my life now is spent on studying art and making it. It's limited, the spoons are short in supply, but it's a large component of my life. Some may say, "Hey wait a minute, you got life enrichment then from your education!" Maybe so, but I don't want young adults to end up struggling like I did or not being able to support themselves, so this is why I warn on here. It wasn't all bad. Intellectual curiosity can exist outside of college too, my life was spent in libraries as well before I went to college. 

 I started college way too young at 17. I have told young people don't major in art, or art education if you are not independently wealthy. The jobs just are not there and the schools are cutting the arts programs all over. In my case, I can't decide, maybe if the body hadn't gone crazy, I may have been okay, and gotten a regular teaching job. Some said I was good at it. It's weird sometimes, I have taught art in volunteer situations, with helpers like in a one off class [only one day a week for an hour or so because physically I can't do any more] and people have told me, "You are good at teaching art!" It was kind of weird. Deafness would make this impossible now even for the volunteer situations I did on rare occasions. If you love a subject enough, enthusiasm and passion can float a teaching boat. It did for me.

Finding a viable career was on my mind, when I was doing my paralegal program. Some months ago, I was telling a close friend about how in my early 20s, the attempt to switch to being a paralegal. "It was time to be practical!" She told me people are born to be artists, and she saw that in me. I nodded, we were sitting in an art center where I had just shown some art. The paralegal field got glutted, soon after. Maybe in the 1990s if I had finished instead of becoming disabled I would have been okay but by 2002, the legal field included for lawyers was glutted to the max. Those with law degrees were going for the paralegal jobs too! One almost needs a crystal ball to know what career to choose anymore. Isn't STEM and health care being flooded now? It has to be. 

 I commented on this video and wrote: "Go to Vocational school while in high school for a specific job, that will put you ahead of many, don't waste money on college unless you are going to be a doctor or are talented at STEM. One can learn many things on their own now too via internet, libraries etc. One learns by DOING too with art, computers and more. You don't need to pay someone 10s of thousands of dollars to spoon-feed you.  The jobs don't pay enough to warrant this much debt, yes wake up young people!"

Have any of you tried to give advice to young people? Some of the young people in my family have been okay, the nepotism wheel has rolled for most of them as I have written about. My family is not typical. I've met far too many who have become perpetually unemployed and have less career hope then I had for a time. One thing makes me angry, is when I see someone with high functioning autism/Aspergers comes out of high school, and nothing is provided for them as far as making a living with any training. It's crazy what do these schools expect them to do, flip burgers? You need intense social skills for most other jobs like waitressing, child care and being a barista. There's no realistic preparation.

More young people should take advantage of vocational school in high school.  Get the skills for a basic job and then if you want to go to college later, it's a possibility. Hopefully those school programs have not been shut down. It was ironic, I used to substitute teach at one, and thought these kids probably will be able to get a job out of high school far easier than me, that will keep the bills paid. I had my reservations then already trapped in substitute teaching hell with feelings of wishing I could dial back time. I was not gaining independence fast enough from my family. College in my day cost a lot of money, but they didn't make it crushing as it is today. My alma mater, now wants around $125,000 for a 4 year degree! Will that pay off for most people? No Way!  Laying out that much money to get a 15 dollar an hour job just isn't worth it! Spend the money on a small house, you'll go much further. 

I've written about regretting going to college online some years ago. 

"Be careful of spending money on college, sometimes I think if one is going to spend 30,000 plus, oops college is 100,000 plus now, my old Alma Mater wants 25,000 a year, when I went to college it cost around 6,000 a year. Back then I could have purchased a small house for what it cost. Vo-ed in high school-LOL weird I substitute taught there later, would have been a far better outcome. Housing is what will strip you clean as you get old and if you are a renter in your 50s like I am, it is hell and the costs always go up up up. 

They are getting people with property taxes but I wish I had paid attention to HOUSING first. College didn't pay off for me. I wonder if young people are realizing college isn't paying off anymore. We are both college educated and poor as dirt. Both of us have full bachelors. I never made more than 14 an hour. BTW they pay less at some jobs I had 30 years ago. I made 12 an hour as a residential counselor in 1996, they pay them 10 dollars here, 30 years later. I made 14 an hour at my juvenile home in 1990, people in programs like that make only 15-17 an hour now. 

And yeah they wonder why people are so much poorer?

My husband considers college worth it, and disagrees with me on this matter. He does prize education. He's written books.  College definitely did spare him manual labor during his life. His career in newspapers lasted longer too. He saw college as a fulfilling place. I got into his college and could have gone there but picked the cheaper school. We could have met sooner!

I liked some parts of college quite a bit, some good memories were made there. Yes, this makes it complex. Some may even say to me, "Well you got 14/12 an hour instead of the 1980s/90s minimum wages which ranged from $3.35-5.30 an hour in our state!" In my dream world, college would be expanded and my neo-Renaissance world would have people hanging out the library and researching and studying things just for the joy of it but sadly in America, this isn't reality. Years ago, I got into this strange internet conversation, where I told these other people, maybe some folks should start underground colleges, that were far cheaper. They did have lecture societies in the 19th century! Credentialism and turning college into a career training field probably ruined it. It costs too much, and got bloated with too many administrators, and college sports. 

Can college pay off for anyone? It is a gamble. Those who are talented in STEM careers sometimes can be okay but you better do your research and examine where things are now like IT and computer programming. One reason STEM does pay better is there are far less people with an aptitude for it than other more ordinary fields. Some say health care is the way to go but make sure you research how much doctors and PAs have to borrow. Be mindful of how high those debts can go and the rules that may be imposed on you. Some degrees that seemed to have led people to dead ends are Communications, Psychology--[you usually just end up getting a job in a group home for 12-13 an hour], English, Drama/Theatre, gender studies, Sociology, Education, Anthropology, Art History, Philosophy, Theology, Foreign Languages [unless you are a Native Speaker seriously don't bother, that's who they will hire], Hospitality, Journalism [We know first hand journalism has died.], Fashion Design, Fine Arts and Film Studies. It's kind of sad because many people love these subjects. Our society is growing totalitarian and that means no more art or less focus on enriching intellectual pursuits. One friend I was having this college conversation with, summed it up well. She told me college used to be a place to learn liberal arts and how to think, now it's just a useless and expensive trade school.