Continuing our dialogue ....

Now that I am in college, I feel  I am able to see that it is not for everyone. When your high school youre are told that you must go to college in order to be successful. When you are in college, no is telling you to stay and no one is telling yhou that you will leave successful. I feel that for the most part you will become successful if you got college, yet it is not hundred percent necessary. Nor do I feel like its a contradiction, no one said that college was bad, its just that its not a fool-proof solution. 

This post helpfully focuses attention on the individual, meaning-centered dimensions of certification.  I wonder too about the public dimensions: it seems that certification is a means of assuring some attainment of capability when situations are impersonal.  I have a friend whose job includes verifying the certifications of doctors working in the hospital where she works.  Do you think this is important?

You bring up some really great points about the real cost of attending college, even if one is getting financil aid and scholarships.  I am the first person in my family to attend college (though my younger brother does have a degree from a tech school).  When I was 18, my parents could not afford to keep a roof over our heads, my brother in his special ed program, and pay for me to attend college.  However, they made enough money so that I was not elligible for aid.  I ended up spending one very unsuccessful semester paying my own way through community college while working 30 hours a week in a restaurant and 20 hours at a retail shop.  I ended up dropping out and travelling and working for 10 years before going back to school when my family's income would not be counted against my need for aid.  Now, in order to get the aid I need, I have to work as little as possible, and just stretch money as far as I can. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I have been given, but it as been very difficult.  There are many hidden costs in attending college.  For instance, you mentioned text books, which are insanely expenisve, and there is also transportation, food, supplies, computers (it's virtually impossible to attend a four year school without one), clothes, shoes, and recreation. At the end of it all, there's a very good chance that I may not even get a higher paying job after I get my degree than I had before.

However, since everything does cost money, and since working is a part of life where you will spend at least 40 hoours a week for 40-60 years, I think that it is worth it to really consider the kind of job that will make you feel good about who you are and what you have contributed to the world at the end of the day.  Without a degree of some sort, it is very difficult to get a job where you are giving anything of value to others, or one were you are not being looked down upon.  I have had many, many, many different jobs over the course of my life, from washing dishes in a restaurant to working in an office for a fortune 500 company, and they have all left me feeling frustrated, wasted, lonley, and unfulfilled. I have had all of my financial needs satisfied by some of these jobs, but they were not worth it.  That is why paying to get a degree is worth it to me.  Plus, college has given me the opportunity to find people who want to do the same things I want to do, and people who want to help me do them.

This is not to say that paying for a degree is worth it for everybody, or that what I want is better, but that there are benefits to getting a degree that surpass the financial, and that there are costs which are difficult to explain as well.  

Yes in some disciplines, you can push through without the overpriced piece of paper - the diploma. Especially if you are self-employed, for e.g you dont need to be certified to start a blog and get followership, to open a confectionery or a sewing shop etc. However, if you are to get good business and i mean not trifles from once in a week customers,lets say you want the contract to manage an event, from the catering to the room decoration, unless you have strong recommendations, the person whose culinery and organizational skills pale in comparison to yours but who has a certification in project management is likely to get the contract, because  that paper is legal proof that she can do it. In fact, that she has experienced in doing it. So to roll in the big bucks, rather than peanuts, to do business with the government or private companies for example, you cannot help but obtain that certification. That is why we experience this immense pressure to pay beyond our noses to add some title in front of or behind their names.

This is a really interesting suggestion, but I worry this might not always be the case. What about students who come from very wealthy families and don't need to work while in college in order to attend? Do you think they feel the same level of pride in getting their bachelor's degree? Do you think students who do need to work at a job while studying might feel some resentment towards those who only need to focus on one of those things? 

My class had a discussion on the blackboard recently in which one student said that college was a privilege, but I don't think that's fair if that kind of certification is needed to be successful or get a stable job. The problem is that if we keep thinking of college as a privilege people will be less likely to see a problem in the fact that not very many can afford it. What do you think?

Nevertheless, our society runs on money and is structured to make it next to impossible for you to live comfortably without it. Money is such a divider of society. Money exerts such a strong pull because it gives us the lee-way to do and undo to a large extent. Remember "what you give is what you get" It is unreasonable to expect that those who have invested so much to improve their lot will agree that someone who invested nothing should be treated equally. I for one would expect that after all the stress of college, i should be placed on a higher starting salary than someone who only graduated high school. So lets look at both sides of the coin.That is not to overlook the unfairness that exist, like the current situation in the States, whereby the richest are taxed the least. How ironic? 

I believe one of the main pit falls in the U.S. education system is the fact that college is outrageously expensive. Even though financial aid does help as someone earlier mentioned there are lots of hidden costs. Activities dues, books, meal plan, and plenty of other things are just a few of the hidden costs of getting a college degree. I was reading in the Bryn Mawr newspaper and one girl was discussing the fact that she was worried that she might not be able to pay her final payment before graduation. The fact that she has to worry about that inhibiting her from receiving her diplomas instead of her grades is sad. I think the U.S. should adopt a system similar to that in France were college is free. However, by doing this there would be more competition to get into college but it would allow the people who really want to get an education to be able to. There is no perfect system but I believe individuals should not have to pay for education they should have to work for it.

This is a good point that you bring up about society's views and pressures that define what is and is not expected of its individuals. I feel that by bringing this up, you're adding another layer to this discussion. Because I agree with this comment, I want to ask you what you would instruct someone to do if they were incapable of paying this debt to society. If they didn't have the resources, the access, or the tools with which they could do this, how do you think they might be able to still contribute to society? Or do you think it is impossible for them to if they do not pay this debt? Also, I think something we can think about is whether the expectation of having a debt that must be paid off is somewhat based on the background from which each person comes and whether this expectation of "doing your part at the end of the day" really means something completely different in different situations and settings.

You bring up some very good points here. Especially interesting to me is the idea that having a degree is a form of proof that you have some education and that it is a means of getting an interview for a job, but that it can only take you so far - in the end it is your actual skills that will get you the job over that piece of paper. I also think that we need to keep in mind though, the experience and education gained from earning that degree. In theory, the degree symbolizes all of the knowledge that you have in that particular field of study and represents the skill that you have with that subject. Do you think it is possible though, that someone may have earned their degree but may not have actually acquired the skills and knowledge that it represents?

You also bring up the idea that you have to pay to attend college. In many ways this would be a class privilege - for having the money to attend college makes it much easier to do so. Do you think there are benefits to having to work one's way through college though? Furthermore, do you think there is a way for society to make it easier for lower-income students to go to college and have a shot at that degree that often seems so necessary for one to even be considered for a decent paying job?

I think that to a certain extent, all college educations are equally expensive and not all expensive educations are worth it. The money that some student's families have to pay sometimes do not go towards the academics and the knowledge we can obtain-- it goes towards making the athletic fields better, buying new plasma TVs for the dining halls or the gym, and so on. I think that the more money you spend for an education varies on what it goes towards. I would like to think our education but sometimes that is not the case...

Ultimately, why do we have to pay thousands of dollars just to get a degree for a career we are passionate about and willing to pursue? Not all of us have that kind of money. It just makes no sense to me sometimes...