Some standard but easy-to-set-aside arguments against going to college:
College-going is financially disadvantageous/too expensive
Loss of 4 years of gainful employment – wages/job-related-skills/seniority
Too expensive and debt-encumbering for life
Shorter trade school a better bet
College-going is occupationally narrowing?
College-going unsuits one for hard work
College-going is socially maginalizing
College-going is personally corrupting
Morally /politically corrupting
Unhealthy
Prolongs adolescence/defers independence
Military/community service more productive/patriotic
Disconnects with family/rearings/alienating/
Recent Critics’ Case
Richard Arum and Josipa Rosika, Academically Adrift (2011)
Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education (2018)
NB: Most college critics are themselves dependably academically credentialed – Their kids not kept from college….
Both books claim collegians don’t actually learn much that’s job-relevant – and retain less
How often do we apply calculus to problems?
Utility of literary theory? Knowledge of the Civil War?
Four years committed to college-going an expensive/ wasteful of valuable time
Famous non-collegians: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie,
Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Harry Truman….
Early-dropouts from college: Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates….
Raj Chetty Critique
“The Fading American Dream” – US today with less upward inter-generational mobility
than earlier;
30-40 year-olds today less likely to be better off than their parents
Part of the problem is that college-going now less the engine of upward mobility that
it was after WW II;
Going to a selective college correlates with subsequent high-incomes, but also with
already acquired or family-retained wealth
Most of the top/most selective/elite colleges enroll few kids from low-income families
and mostly kids from high-income families.
Chetty: “If children from higher-income families tend to attend better colleges, then the
higher education system may not actually promote mobility, and may worsen it.”
So, what are the benefits of college?
An additional structured learning opportunity with social benefits, before
“the rest of life” kicks in; fully takes hold;
Transitional moment/phase between parental dependence and “grownup”
Opportunity to experience different geographic setting;
Enhances/expands job/career opportunities;
Possibility of intellectual /artistic enrichment;
College degree a positive “signal” to would-be employers
An important credential in a credential-observant world
And why not try for/go to the most selective college you can?
Requires additional preparation and work to secure elite admission that makes it
not worth the benefit
Too expensive
Likely to be too intellectually demanding
May flunk out
Better a big frog in little pond…
Or Justice Antony Scalia and the “mismatch” theory of minorities favored by affirmative action policies as being psychologically harmed by attending elite colleges…??
Chetty: “Students from low-income families have excellent long-term outcomes after attending selective schools, but there are very few low-income students at these schools.”
Why is that?
Chetty: “At top colleges, cost by itself doesn’t seem like the key barrier [to admission].
Lack of information or support in the application process for low-income students
seems more plausible.”
Any corrective action? Short of leveling the playing field by equalizing the quality of
secondary education by eliminating the connection between residence and quality of
pubic education?
Give low-income applicants from under-financed schools (i.e., most Blacks and Hispanics)
a 160-point SAT bonus (the equivalent of the “legacy” or “athlete” bonus at many
top schools)
Why consider going to the top/most selective/toughest college that will accept you?
Not likely to be any more expensive than a non-selective college; may be cheaper;
less debt-encumbering [more on this later]
Better learning environment – smaller classes/better trained faculty/better prepared
classmates/nicer surroundings
More likely to stay on to graduation
More in the way of student services
Greater recognition when job hunting/courting….
Stronger signal to employers/potential mates…
Stronger alumni network
Bob McCaughey
April 18, 2022
North Fork College Bound 