$422,320 for a College Degree? With Tuition Skyrocketing, It is Time to Rethink Higher Education

[SheilaT]

9. All the more reason to attend

a two-year college and get a certificate/degree that leads directly to employment.

Our community colleges, on the whole, are the very best thing about higher education in this country.

And too many students are totally unrealistic about what they can do with a four year degree. Or they just don't have any clue about what they really want to do.

My older son, after several false starts, got a CAD (computer aided design) degree from his community college, and recently commented to me that his job pays better than he thought that kind of job would.

Younger son got a bachelor's, psych major, marketing minor, and currently supports himself doing pizza delivery. In his defense, he made no effort to get a "real" job, is supporting himself (I'm certainly not giving him money) and he's doing open-mike stand-up in comedy clubs in Portland, OR.

I have a friend whose daughter, a college junior at a public university in her state, doesn't know if she wants to be a psychologist or a dentist. The gap between those two is so large that it's clear the young woman doesn't really know what she wants to do, and probably doesn't understand how much more education she'll need for either career path.