(2022) Third Place: College is More Valuable Than a Car
(2022) Third Place: College is More Valuable Than a Car
by Eli Stoops
Rising costs and fees along with the ever-increasing complexity in application processes are motivating people to determine that college is no longer worth the time, money, or hassle that it takes to get an education. And after all of this, it often takes at least four years of dedicated time and work to receive enough credits to earn a bachelor’s degree. I have heard many people who believe that most students who get a college degree don’t even end up utilizing it after they graduate. All of these things are causing many people to completely avoid going to college and instead go straight into their careers after high school. They have decided that the benefits of a college application are not worth the payment that schools require of them. I have often pondered the question of whether or not the value of a college education outweighs all of the costs. When I say college education, I am referring to receiving a college degree of some kind (associate, bachelor’s, etc.), not necessarily any amount of higher education. So, should people go to college? The answer for the majority of people is yes. While getting a college education may not be the best decision for everyone, there are a lot of great benefits that make college worthwhile for the preponderance of people.
A Large Exaggeration
It is no secret that almost every college graduate leaves their school with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. However, most people have a flawed view of how much debt most students actually have. While I am in no way arguing that it is a small amount of money, the media has greatly exaggerated the exact amount of debt that most students leave with. Everyone has heard the nightmarish stories of students burdened with over $100,000 in debt, and while there are cases where this is true, it is not the case for most students. Megan Scott, a writer for Knox College’s Knox Magazine, debunks this illusion in her article, “Yes, College is Worth It: Busting Myths about Higher Education.” Scott asseverates that only four percent of students in 2014 owed $100,000 or more in student debt, much of which was acquired by graduate students at for-profit institutions. In 2018, the national average student debt in America was about $30,000 (Scott, 2018). It doesn’t take a mathematician to understand the dramatic difference between $100,000 and $30,000.
Although $30,000 is much less than the extreme what the media will often portray as normal, it is still a substantial amount of debt to accumulate. This can still be extremely discouraging to someone looking into the prospect of being a college student, especially right out of high school. To put it into another perspective, Scott compares the cost of college to a $30,000 car loan. She explains that most people wouldn’t even think twice about a car loan like that (Scott, 2018). According to Kelley Blue Book, $30,000 is less than the average transaction price f