For the entirety of our youth, most of us are told the only way to succeed is to go to college right after high school, and that is the only way to succeed in life. I know that is what happened to me, for instance, my senior year in high school when I met with my guidance consular about what I am going to do after high school, not once did she mention anything outside of what college am I going to attend. No other options were ever presented to me aside from “you must attend college”. I think it is reasonable to say that most teenagers have no idea what they want to do right after high school, yet we are told from day 1 we have to go drop thousands of dollars and attend college right after high school, regardless if we know what we want or not. That leads to the next issue of college itself. I wouldn’t consider college a “good place to find yourself” because of how grossly overpriced it is. Not only is it disgustingly expensive for no reason, but you are forced to take courses that have nothing to do with the actual field you want to study. If I want to major in accounting, why am I forced to take biology? At what point will that help me in my career? The answer is: it won’t ever help me in my career. The typical argument for this is “it is to make you well rounded.” That is a load of BS. If I am forced to take a course that I have zero interest in and doesn’t apply to a possible future career I am pursuing, I am doing the bare minimum to achieve a good grade then more than likely forgetting everything taught in that class. Many of these elective courses you are forced to take are so simple and worthless that a toddler could pass them, yet we are still forced to pay $1000+ to take them in order to get our degree. On top of that, it is 2020 and students are still required to drop hundreds of dollars on hard copy books. You would think that professors could come up with a curriculum that doesn’t require a $300 book, but nope, many of them get kickbacks from making students purchase said book because they had some part in writing the book. Then comes the random university fees forcefully charged to students. A few hundred bucks here for athletic fees, some more fees here for tech fees, school spirit fees, etc. Why are students forced to pay such fees when they are already being gouged for tuition money? Especially for people that commute or have no desire to be a part of any sort of school spirit bs. These costs are destroying younger generations and hindering their chances of buying a home, which ultimately hurts the economy as a whole.

It also doesn’t help that many jobs that shouldn’t require a degree, do indeed list that as a requirement. “Come join Call Center USA. Requirements include a 4 year degree and 5 years experience. Starting wage is $30,000/year.” Yet we have allowed ourselves to think we are worthless without a degree hence why all these jobs put it as a requirement.

We NEED to dramatically change the thinking in this country when it comes to college education. Employers need to start looking at some of their open positions and truly consider not requiring a degree.

We have allowed higher education to have such a profound affect on how our society functions as a whole, that no one in dares question the validity of the system because they will be belittled and called names or become some1 who hates education. We have allowed institutions of higher education to infect everything to the point where it is almost seen as a necessity to life.

The only solution presented to this issue is to have tax payers cover the costs, which I am highly against because it isn’t solving the issue, it is just covering it up. The USA needs a massive change in how we view higher education, and we need it fast.