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Benjamin Nalley

Professor Dean Leonard

ENG 1201

3/20/2022

Is Obtaining a College Education Worth It?

Throughout the American Education System, many children and young adults are told

that in order to be successful in our world one would need to obtain a college degree. But how

true is this statement? A college degree, especially those that take 4 years or longer to obtain,

requires an incredibly large amount of capital, time, and effort in order to properly achieve it.

There are many people who have dropped out of college or have not even attended any

institution of higher education and have still lived what are fairly regarded as successful lives.

What is the value of a degree from a college or university, and does it outweigh the work that

was put in in order to obtain that degree?

There is consensus from multiple different academics on facts regarding college degrees.

Firstly, it is generally agreed upon that on average obtaining a college degree results in an

increase of income due to better job prospects. Secondly, it is widely understood that obtaining a

degree from an institution of higher education requires a lot of financial capital, resulting in

many having to take out student loans. Third, lacking certain college degrees can prohibit career-

seekers from obtaining certain careers as they often list in their requirements a certain degree

necessary for employment. Finally, most come to the conclusion that attending a higher

education institution can result in an increase in personal growth for an individual.

The idea that having a college degree means that one has a better chance at scoring a job

with a higher pay is not novel. Those with a college degree make 62 percent more on average
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than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma (Yoon et al. 2022). Something relevant

with this source and most others that report on this subject is that they are written by those who

are likely to have a high amount of education themselves, which may result in some bias as they

may lean toward saying higher education is worth it in order to make themselves feel more

validated in the decisions that they made. Another interesting point that is made is that incomes

from a college degree on average can vary heavily depending on which college is attended and

the background of the student who attended (Glastris 2021). While Glastris does have a point in

his argument, he falls short in providing a decent amount of evidence to support this claim in his

article.

Perhaps the biggest deterrent to obtaining a degree from an institution of higher education

is that cost factor. A big part of the cost is the foregone earnings while studying at a college

(Lobo & Smalley 2018). Lobo and Smalley report that graduation after 4 years requires on

average 13 years of working to recover the college costs while a 6-year degree requires an

average of 31 years of working. Similar to the short comings of the first source mentioned, this

source was published by a group that thrives on publishing academic journals and articles. This

may lead Lobo and Smalley to report more favorably on higher education as their publisher

relies on educated individuals in order to conduct their business. The main fear around the high

costs of college is the necessity for many to take out a student loan, with 42.9 million Americans

having student loan debt through federal student loans in 2021 (Yoon et al. 2022). These many

people having loans for a quite long amount of time, as proven by the previous source, shows

that the problem of financing higher education is a long-term problem that affects many different

people.
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The roadblock that not having a significant amount of higher education can provide those

seeking jobs is notable. About 33 percent of those in America who lack a four-year degree

reported that they didn’t apply for a job they could have done because they missed the

requirement of having a bachelor’s degree (Pew Research Center 2016). Of course, as with all

surveyed information, the results that are achieved are never really indicative of the population

studied but rather a subset of that population that is willing to take surveys on the subject matter.

Inside Higher Ed reports that in their survey they also came to a similar conclusion that students

attend college in order to have better job opportunities once they have graduated (Mintz 2021).

Where Mintz article falters is that he makes the mistake in not directly publishing the results of

their survey in his article but rather just references conclusions that can be made from the results.

The personal growth that can be achieved from attending college is another factor

considered by professionals when researching the topic of the usefulness of higher education. 62

percent of college graduates felt that their time spent at college helped them in their personal and

intellectual development as an individual human person (Pew Research Center 2016). This being

such a high percentage means that those who attend college think it was worth their time outside

of their added advantage in career finding. College also helps individuals explore their identity,

mature in their thoughts and behaviors, and developing competence in being a functioning

member of our human society (Mintz 2021). Something important to note is that most people

attend college in their formative adult years, meaning that they would probably complete all of

these tasks even if they were not attending a institution of higher education.

In conclusion, the information from the sources presented in this literature review would

heavily lead one to believe that the answer to the question of college being worth all of the costs

it brings being a firm “yes”. This leads to the obvious conclusion that in order to have a paper
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with opposing views it is necessary to find more sources that have an overall differing opinion

and offer statistics that help disprove the usefulness of a college education. Of course, as

mentioned previously, this may be difficult to find as those who write scholarly articles are less

likely to say that all of their commitment to education was a bad decision and they could have

been better off without it.

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Works Cited

Glastris, Paul. “What Is the Value of a College Degree?” Washington Monthly, 9 Jan. 2022,
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/08/29/what-is-the-value-of-a-college-degree/.

Lobo, B. J., & Burke-Smalley, L. A. (2018). An empirical investigation of the financial value of

a college degree. Education Economics, 78-92.

Mintz, Steven. “The True Purpose of a College Education.” Inside Higher Ed, 2021, https://
www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/true-purpose-college-education.

Pew Research Center. “The Value of a College Education on the American Worker.” Pew Re-
search Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 28 Sept.
2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/10/06/5-the-value-of-a-college-edu-
cation/.

Yoon, H., Yang, Y., & Morewedge, C. K. (2022). Early Cost Realization and College Choice.

Journal of Marketing Research, 136-152.