The Pros and Cons of Going to College: What Your Guidance Counselor Isn’t Telling You
I have a question for you:
How much time did you spend thinking about whether or not you wanted to go to college?
The answer, of course, should be a lot of time, but I have the feeling that might not be the case in reality. It certainly wasn’t for me. I just assumed I had to go to college so there wasn’t much thought at all, more thought was put into where I should go to college.
Now more than ever, students and their parents should be putting a lot of thought into this decision.
Why?
- The Price of a college education
- The value of a college education
- The job market
- The future
All of these things should be reasons to consider the pros and cons of going to college and the reasons why you make your decision. There is no right or wrong answer, and each student and their family need to consider all of the pieces when thinking about the decision.
What You’ll Learn After Reading This Article:
1. When you should be making the college decision
2. The pros and cons of going to college
When Should You Decide on Whether or Not You Want to go to College
The short and easy answer here is…whenever you want, but I get paid by the word so I’m going to give you more than that. (that was a joke, kind of).
If you’re taking the traditional route, it’s really a good idea to start thinking about whether or not you want to go to college by the time you are a freshman or sophomore in high school at the latest. When I say thinking, I mean really considering the pros and cons, not just thinking about playing basketball for the University of North Carolina (I definitely didn’t do that).
You might be feeling anxious to have to think about it as a freshman or sophomore, but it’s a good idea so you can make your four years in high school productive. If you do decide you want to go to college, the sooner you can decide the better so you can make sure you take your PSATs and SATs on time so you can get accepted into college with the rest of your age group.
Here’s the part where I’ll go back to my first answer though and say you can start thinking about college whenever you want too. To my knowledge (and I will admit I’m not a lawyer) there is no law that says you need to decide whether or not to go to college by the time you graduate high school. You can certainly take a year or two to explore yourself, your country and other countries after you graduate high school.
It's also important to realize that you probably don’t want to be in college for four years when you’re 29 years old either. The closer you are to the average age of a college freshman you are when you start college the better, so you have time to explore different career paths, etc. when you graduate in your early 20’s. As a parent, the last thing you’ll want to do if you’re in your 30’s with a kid is decide you want to go back to college.
With all that being said, let’s now dive into what you’ll want to consider when making the college decision.
The Pros and Cons of Going to College
I don’t like to be negative, but lets start our list off with a con:
Con: The Cost of Going to College
You can’t make a list of pros and cons of going to college and not mention one of the biggest financial decisions of your life.
The cost of going to college for many colleges across the US, compares to buying a house, cars, you name it and it’s just as major of a financial decision. I’ll even make the argument now that it can be a life changing financial decision if you make the wrong decision.
Most 18 year old college freshman I know don’t have a spare $40,000 or $50,000 for their first year in college, even if they got a lot of money from their grandparents for their graduation party. Taking out scholarships because not everyone gets those, the most “normal” way kids are paying for college is through “financial aid” aka student loans.
These are awful. Plain and simple. Many of these loans at the end of four years add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Happy graduation, now you have started paying.
And guess what?
If you fall on hard times later in life and still have those loans, everything else will get taken away from you except for those, you get to keep those forever. Till death do you part.
So how can you avoid this con of student loans:
1. Don’t go to a college you can’t afford. This seems like obvious advice, but if it was so obvious, the student loan business wouldn’t be a billion dollar business.
2. Pay off your loan before you graduate. If you are reading this and have already taken out some loans, remain calm. You’ll avoid much of the pain if you can find a way to pay it off before you graduate.
3. Seek out forgiveness plans. Many of these are scams so be careful, but there are government loans that are eligible to be forgiven.
For a deeper dive into affording college, check out our article on it here.
Pro: You’ll Meet the Minimum Requirements for Many Jobs
We can argue about the value of college from now until the end of time, but the fact is, as I write this article now, it is still the gold standard in the job market.
That may change in the future, but the reality is a college degree is still extremely important.
If you don’t believe me, try to apply for a few jobs on any job board (which you shouldn’t be doing a lot of but that’s a different conversation for a different article). Unless you’re applying for minimum wage roles like Customer Service Rep or something along those lines, many of the jobs you’ll see require at least a Bachelor’s degree.
The type of degree you should get is worth bringing up, because all college degrees are not created equally. I can’t sit here and tell you what major and degree path to choose, although I can help guide you if you check out this article but you should carefully decide what path you want to take.
Con: Easy to Fail Out in Your First Year
This might be a controversial statement, but I’ll say it anyway:
College isn’t designed for you to succeed. Maybe that’s a good thing, because life isn’t necessarily designed for you to succeed either (not trying to sound pessimistic).
But, if you take an 18 year old kid who’s been living with his parents his whole life, throw him on a college campus in Florida surrounded by girls, alcohol, parties and no parent supervision, it can be a culture shock and living adjustment that’s difficult without factoring in the educational aspect.
The way college campuses are designed, they have more amenities than luxury hotels. I’m not sure why a 19 year old college student needs a fitness center nicer than the Ritz Carlton or food options better than downtown New York City, but there are enough distractions to put the educational part of college on the backburner.
How can you ensure your child is focused as a parent?
1. Don’t send them to a 5 star luxury college with a pool in the middle of campus: The more potential for distraction, the more distracted your son or daughter will be.
2. Prepare your son to be college student to be independent, so they don’t have a panic attack the first time they have to work the washing machine. (I brought my clothes home on the weekends, so I didn’t have that problem, thanks Mom.)
3. Treat college like a privilege, not a right. If you as a parent are footing the enormous bill for college, make them realize it’s not a vacation.
Pro: You’ll Learn Valuable Life Skills
Assuming you don’t fail out of college like in our last example, if you spend time living at your school, you’ll learn many valuable life skills.
Living away from your parents for the first time, you won’t have someone managing your day to day activities. For me, my first semester of freshman year was a bit of a shock to the system, and I wound up wasting too much time watching King of Queens (that was a TV show for you youngsters who have no clue what I’m talking about) and sitting at the cafeteria for way too long.
Here are a few of the life skills you’ll learn at college:
1. Time management
2. Socialization
3. Communication
4. Independence
College can be a great time to figure yourself out. Sure, you’ll probably make mistakes along the way, but that’s part of the learning process. As long as you aren’t making life changing mistakes, college can be an important time for self-discovery.
Con: You Can Become Too Focused on Grades
How can you be too focused on getting good grades you ask for?
Let me give you an example:
A friend of mine spent four years in a major she chose freshman year, not really knowing what she wanted to be. She took her classes for that major and was extremely focused on getting good grades in those classes so she could have a great GPA. She graduated in the top 10% of her class and received academic awards at graduation.
The only problem?
She had no idea what she wanted to do after graduation. She spent all of her time studying to win at school, she forgot why she was at college.
It’s important to keep your eye on the prize while you’re at college; realizing what you want to do and doing what you have to do to get there.
How can you avoid this con:
1. Understand the importance of getting good grades but prioritize setting yourself up for the future.
2. If you have the opportunity to network for your career, choose that over homework or a test if it comes down to that choice.
While it’s extremely important to get good grades, it’s more important to have a plan at the end of your four years so you aren’t sitting there with your student loan debt wondering what you’re going to do with your life.
Pro: You’ll Have Access to an Alumni Group
, One of the huge benefits of going to college is that you’ll be part of a group. It will be something you can use to network and connect with people.
In many cases, people will feel a connection to you even if you don’t personally know them once they find out that you both went to the same college.
One more story for you:
In one of my first jobs out of college, I applied to work at a radio station. It was a general application because I just wanted to get my foot in the door. I didn’t realize at the time, but the Assistant News Director was a graduate of Seton Hall University (where I went) and worked at the radio station there (like I did) and had graduated four years before me.
I want to guess if I got the job and in what department? You guessed it, the news department.
You never know where your college’s alumni are working and how it can benefit you in the job market until you start looking and networking.
Hopefully you’ve found this list helpful, and you can use it to reflect about your next steps after high school.
What to Do After Reading This Article:
It’s important that you review these list of pros and cons with the trusted adults in your life. If there are things you feel might sway your decision, talk about it. It’s the best way to get clarity.
If you feel like you don’t have anyone to confide in about your college decision, don’t worry, our coaches at Your Career Strategy are trained to help you make the decision that’s best for you. Click here to schedule a free discovery call and get clear and your goals and where you want to go.