It seems lately that I've had a lot of conversations with people about the value of college. It seems I'm always either defending it to my friends or I'm convincing them that some job will come up that allows them to use their brain. Being the optimist is becoming harder and harder for me. Soon I will have to be paying my immense debt back to some collections company the Government sold it to. I've really been racking my brain about whether or not it was worth it.
On the one hand, if my life is a series of statistics, going to college was a good idea. According to the O.E.C.D. as a graduate from a four year university I'm supposed to make 84 percent more than a high school graduate. Maybe. In fact it only really puts me in the right odds to do this. It essentially gives me more chips to put on the roulette board, but I could still be making all of the wrong decisions here. As you can see I'm not the only one in the casino. It's also infuriating to see that the only one who doesn't seem to be profiting here is me. Again, according to the O.E.C.D. the government makes a profit of about $231,000 on each American who graduates from colleges. I would be fine with this fact if I were any closer to using my degree in a career setting and making a higher income to be taxed. But I'm not.
And it isn't for lack of trying. I've hit the job Market hard, really hard. The problem is, once again, I'm not the only one. According to the United States Labor Department, the percentage of Millennials who are unemployed is a whopping 16.2. Follow that up with the Harvard study that says most of them are employed with a part time job anyway and you have a recipe for hopelessness in the job market. We are told time and time again that we'll make more money with a college degree, but, correct me if I'm wrong, I think we need a job first. The problem I foresee is that everyone has a degree, there is supposed to be a staggering 1.8 million additional bachelor degrees given out in the next YEAR, suddenly my degree feels less like a golden ticket to a career and more like admission to a rat race.
But maybe that's not why I went to college at all. Maybe I went to college for awareness. If you believe as David Foster Wallace does, then maybe you went to college for awareness too. Maybe you feel that the life lessons, lifetime friends, appreciation for your capability and belief in your mental discipline is essentially invaluable and whether you finished College or not, maybe those things can't be quantified or qualified with where you are in your life right now. Maybe you loved college and you're just scared that a promise has been broken to you and maybe you know you need to make new promises to yourself to help you get through this. Maybe you'll never trust a promise from generations "wiser" than you again, but you can promise yourself that you're going to do everything in your power, every little thing, to get that worth back one tiny, insignificant moment at a time. Maybe you think this is naive and stupid, but without it you'd drown in your crippling monetary debt and the debt you think you owe in expectations. Or maybe you don't think any of this and you're just really angry. I think maybe that's O.K. too.
Thanks for Listening,
Kyle
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