College Costs Are Up.... Again. Why Are People Still Paying?
It's that time of year again, when an article comes out revealing that college costs have risen... yet again.
What's amazing is that even with the economy in the dumps, thousands of recent graduates facing unemployment, young Americans actually taking to the street to protest student loan debt... people still keep applying to college. And new colleges keep popping up every day. Art schools like the New York Film Academyare making millions, with no proof that their costly degrees actually help grads find gainful employment. Many colleges throw as much money into advertising as GEICO or Apple. Credit cards for college students are a way to start getting young people into the debt habit while they are young.
College may be the very best business to be in. Colleges provide a mysterious product called an "education", that can cost almost a quarter of a million dollars or more, but only materializes in the form of a framed piece of paper called a diploma. The actual value and benefit of getting a degree is highly questionable. And yet people continue to line up to get accepted.
In that sense, colleges bear more resemblance to Studio 54 than a genuine place to get practical tools for real life. College is called "a right of passage", "the new high school diploma", and ultimately it is a status symbol at best and an ego trip at worst.
How many people actually call up a potential employer or temp agency before applying to school and say "I'm about to invest my life savings into this degree. Is that really necessary for me to get an entry level job in your field?"
That's because people don't shop for education like they shop for vacuum cleaners or cars. It's not a practical investment, it's an emotional investment. Parents and high school kids are in a panic to go to college out of some fear that they will end up a bum without a degree. But then, after graduation, reality hits. They learn what the 30+ crowd has known for years: a degree is not essential, college doesn't teach practical skills for getting a job, and paying $100,000 to drink beer, get high, and have sex at frat parties is kind of a weird way to invest your money.
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