Why College Matters--a Note to the Naysayers

There have been a lot of arguments lately about how college is bad for the US, how education is "dangerous," and how young people (and older people) feel betrayed by it. Many ask, why go to college if you're learning useless, old, irrelevant information that doesn't even guarantee you a job and drowns you in debt? Some even accuse colleges of 'brain washing' young minds with liberal dogma and trying to play Petruchio to their Kate (a Shakespeare reference--courtesy of your local English dept). Basically, in The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio 'tames' his prospective bride, Kate, by making her claim that the sun is the moon, that black is white, etc. So many detractors of higher education would say that we're doing much the same--teaching students that black lives matter, or that we live in a heliocentric system, or that Shakespeare had homoerotic tendencies and/or relationships (you know, things that everyone knows aren't true!) :)  But the bottom line for many critics is this: college simply doesn't pay off in the "real world" or break down into a tangible return investment for the time and money spent. 

To me, college is a lot like traveling to foreign countries: it doesn't magically make you cultured to visit France. You don't learn the language simply by eating a baguette--even from an authentic boulangerie. Going to Africa won't make you 'multicultural', and circumnavigating the world won't make you Magellan. It's what you do in your travels--what you see, experience, learn, and interact with that makes something happen. Blaming college for not 'working' is like blaming Spain for not making you a flamenco dancer after a two-night stay. In short, college is a lifelong investment, not something that 'pays off' in the weeks and months following graduation. 

Indeed, college is a beginning, not an end. It won't necessarily get you a job, but it will prepare you to get a job (and possibly, give you the skills to adapt to it--and thus, keep it). Yes, college is too expensive and yes, the curriculum has problems, but that's more an issue with how colleges are regulated by outside forces (which seem hellbent on making it toothless). All I can say is that college saved my life: I was a shiftless, unmotivated high school student with no plans to do anything but work at a local bookstore. College gave me ideas, purpose, resolution, and direction. It didn't magically give me a job or a paycheck, but it began to teach me why things mattered, and unveiled so many mysteries which I had simply taken for granted.

If you look at college and just see classes, fees, and requirements, then okay, maybe college is a roadblock. But if you look deeper and see that each class represents hundreds if not thousands of years of thought, discipline, and collaboration, you can never dismiss it so lightly or assume that it has nothing to teach you--or that it can do without you, either. College grows stronger by everyone contributing to it, so it gives more back to every single student. But if you sleepwalk through classes and expect to learn by osmosis, then you learn nothing, and the engine of higher education fails. It really is collaborative and requires active participation. It's not a 'pay to play' proposition (though yes, it should cost a lot less money--or ideally, be free). Giving up on higher education (and on education in general) is cultural suicide. No culture in history has abandoned its cultural wealth and knowledge and prospered. I doubt we'll be the first.