Eli Margins@eli_margins
Is a College Degree Still Worth the Investment?
I came across an interesting discussion on Reddit recently, and it's been sitting in the back of my mind for a few days.
Someone on r/questions was asking whether college degrees still have real value, or if they've mostly become expensive job filters.
What caught my attention was the story behind the question.
The person had spent 20 years in the military before going back to college using the GI Bill. They already had a career, didn't particularly need the degree, and ended up earning one without feeling like they'd learned very much.
Four years of education, a diploma, but not much of a change in what they actually knew.
I spent a while reading through the replies. Some people argued that college had genuinely changed the way they think. Others talked about being passed over for jobs they were perfectly capable of doing, simply because they didn't have a degree.
And I kept thinking about how strange that is.
We tend to talk about college as if education and credentials are the same thing. But they're not, really.
You can spend four years in school and leave without much curiosity. You can also spend four years working, reading, making mistakes, and learning things no classroom would have taught you.
Of course, some professions absolutely need formal education. I wouldn't want my surgeon learning everything from YouTube.
But for a lot of other careers, I'm not sure the answer is quite so obvious anymore.
There's also the money. Tuition, student loans, years spent studying instead of earning. That's a serious investment to make when the outcome isn't guaranteed.
And yet, I hesitate to say college isn't worth it. There's something valuable about being surrounded by people who challenge how you see the world. Some of the most important things we learn aren't immediately useful on a resume.
Maybe what bothers me is that we've bundled all of these things together. Education, career preparation, personal growth, and social status. Then we put a single price tag on the whole experience.
I don't think college has become worthless.
I'm just not sure a degree means what it used to.
Maybe the real problem isn't that college has lost its value, but that we've spent so long treating it as the only respectable path to a meaningful career.
And somewhere along the way, we started confusing the price of an education with the value of being educated.
