Not Everyone Should Go To College

Not everyone should go to college.  It’s a sad reality, but it’s a reality nonetheless.

I certainly don’t mean that certain demographics of people should not go to college.  Far from it.  Equalizing the opportunity to attend college is an admirable goal that we should pursue.  But the reality is that half of all college grads have jobs that don’t require a college degree.  The solution, then, isn’t to push for more kids to attend college.  Indeed, pursuing that course would exacerbate the issue.  So many students graduate college and find themselves drowning in student debt.  When they enter the job market, they end up taking jobs they could have performed four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars earlier.  In this way, trumpeting this goal actually harms the people it intends to help.

We need to equalize the opportunity to succeed.  But we need to realize that we can’t just blindly declare that everyone should go to college without examining the facts.  It sounds attractive politically, but it’s certainly not prudent policy.