College is About Getting an Education, Not a Job

This rant was inspired by a comment left on this post over at LenPenzo.com. I even wrote a snarky reply comment, something I don’t usually do. Sorry, Len.

 

I get the student loan crisis. I really do. I graduated with my BA in 2000, and thirteen years later, I still owe 82% of what I borrowed (though I also made some choices post-graduation that have led to this). And I only seriously borrowed for about 3 semesters. My total undergraduate student loan debt was less than I paid for my second new car. I cannot imagine what it much be like for people who needed to borrow for their entire college career.

At the same time, I have to admit, I am getting sick of all this STEM talk. Let me rephrase that because I have nothing against Science, Technology, Engineering or Math. Heck, C is planning on getting a PhD in math. What I am sick of is this new belief that it is not worth it to go to college unless you are planning to get a degree in a STEM field, because those are supposedly the only degrees that will get you a job that is worth getting a degree for.

I want this rant to be readable, so we will not even go into the fact that the vast majority of jobs (including jobs which require a degree) are not STEM jobs. What I really want to know is when did the purpose of going to college become about getting a job?

Yes, everyone always plans on getting a job after college. And most people plan on getting a job somewhat related to what they have studied in college. But up until recently, the purpose of college was never about getting a job. It was about getting an education. Employers hired people with college degrees for certain jobs because they knew the person had been trained to THINK, not just do a routine task.

In the past, if your purpose in getting extra schooling/training was to get a specific job, you went to a vocational or trade school. Or you became an apprentice in a trade. Carpenters, plumbers, machinists, etc, still make really good money. But the construction foreman, the project manager, etc, almost certainly also has a college degree on top of any trade training for a reason- college teaches a person to think, to problem solve, and to deal with the unexpected.

Yes, there are professional degrees that prepare you specifically for a job – MD, JD, DVM, DDS. But all of those degrees are graduate level degrees- meaning they require that you have a four year bachelors degree first- not a certificate in being a medical assistant, paralegal, vet tech or dental hygienist, not four years’ experience in one of those jobs, but a four year college degree. Because that degree represents not that you can do the routine parts of the job, but that you have learned to think in a way that is needed by those professions.

Am I biased? I have to be. My undergraduate degree is in history with a minor in writing. I also have an MBA. Neither of those are STEM degrees. C is excelling in his higher level math classes not because he’s naturally good at math but because he has a philosophy background. Math proofs and philosophical proofs are nearly identical- you follow a logical line of reasoning based on what you know and what you do not know. The fact that C once majored in philosophy actually makes it easier for him to understand and follow the proofs once you stop doing computational math and move on to mathematical theory.

Do I believe that a college education is necessary for certain jobs? Absolutely. I could not be where I am without one. But going to college did not train me for a job. It did not get me a job. It taught me to think in a way that employers have found valuable.

If you want to go to college, go to college. And if you want a STEM degree, get one. But please, stop thinking of a four year college as a vocational school. It is not there to get you a job. It is there to teach you to think. And if you can think, there’s no job you cannot do.