Is College Worth It?

I graduated from college at 21 with a degree in Animal Science. After using the money I had saved working and raising heifers during high school, working while in school, and taking three paid summer internships, I still had about $25k in school loan debt.  

I also had a maxed-out credit card (~$3500) and a whopping $20 cash. I used that $20 to pay for gas to drive the 400 miles to my parents' home.

A degree in Animal Science from an Ivy League university, which cost about $120,000, afforded me a job with a starting salary of $43k a year.

 That was in 2001.

Now, let me dig into some comparisons.

The average starting salary for that job is now $65k—$75k; an inflation adjustment would suggest a salary of $75k. Okay, so it's in the range, but a recent graduate is definitely getting the low end of the range.

The tuition now costs around $352K, $88k per year to get the same degree I received.  Inflation adjust what I paid; the tuition should be closer to $225k. Hmm!

At one time, the salary to tuition cost was $1 earned for $3 spent; now it's $1 earned for $6 spent.  Adjusting for inflation, the ratio would be just over $1:$3 ($65k salary to $225k in tuition).

I failed economics at Cornell, so take the following comment for what it's worth: the economics don’t jive!

The cost of education has outpaced the potential earning potential by nearly 2x.

Why College?

For many years, the prospect of higher education was the mobility needed to escape a lower economic class.

In many cases, the opportunity of earning potential early in the 20th century was $1 earned for $1 spent or even better.

Gaining an advanced education provided a superhighway of opportunity to escape the mundane grunt work that encompassed the less educated society.

It provided a knowledge base and skill set that could not be acquired elsewhere.  It also offered a network of connections that created the jobs to make those upper-middle-class fortunes.

Lastly, it helped fill the roles needed in an ever-growing and advancing society with more technology and expertise requirements.

College degrees became a status symbol for the degree holders and the families whose children achieved it.

As a college graduate, in many communities, Lauded established an aura and honor one could “take to the bank.”

Yet some Andrew Carnegie-type immigrants still had little formal education and created massive financial holdings.

Those were the anomalies, not the norm of the day, right?

The Beginning of the End

My parents were the first college graduates in their families, and they both earned master's degrees.

For me, college wasn't an option; it was the option.  As much to learn and get educated as it was to find a career away from the farm.

In the late 1990s, the societal pressure upon schools was for high school graduates to attend college.

Public and private schools boasted their students’ college acceptance rates as a ‘job well done’ and justified their performance as teaching institutions.

The said, unsaid, saying at the time was you had to go to college to make anything of yourself or end up toiling away at one of the factories around town.

And even think about not going to college to work a trade.  Wow, that was as good as saying you wanted to be a ward of the state and live off food stamps and welfare for your whole life.

Again, I failed in economics, but it's easy for me to see that the connection between the value of education and earning potential has been decoupled.

The Perfect Storm

Ken Rusk is a self-aggrandized ditch digger, a blue-collar business owner who defied the popular logic of the time and jumped with both feet into, yes, digging ditches. Ken not only created a thriving business but has helped many others create a life for themselves and their families.

In his bestselling book Blue Collar Cash, he shares the many virtues of engaging in blue-collar work.  He applauds those who have and will in the future choose to do work that someone needs to do and forgo the heavy cost burden of college education to be lost searching for work.

In our conversation, which was this week’s podcast episode, he shared the Perfect Storm that has befallen our education system and the American workplace.

First, trades have disappeared from education. In the early part of this century, schools, under pressure to prepare students for college, swapped out woodworking for computer programming classes.  

Along with this came the second element of the Perfect Storm.  Dirty work, work that would leave stains, dirt, or callouses on your hands, was shamed.  I have lived this.  

I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons I went to college was to pursue a career that didn't involve living and working on a farm—even though the education path I started on was to work with and support dairy farms!

Lastly, the third element of the Perfect Storm is the parental pressure for kids to go to college as a status symbol. 

This was so driven into our culture that parents would lie about or deflect what their kids would be doing after graduating high school.  The fear of telling someone “yeah my kid has no idea what they want to do in life so they are going to work for a year to figure it out” drove parents to take out a second mortgage on their home to get money they didnt have to send kids off to school they didnt want to go to, to take classes they hated, and develop avoidance habits that would hamper their life.  All in the pursuit of status!

Education Costs

When Kelley and I opened and ran a gym a decade ago, we often shared that education costs, either by paying a university or by paying to learn it through business failures.

There is no doubt in my mind that education is worthwhile.  But what you pay for it matters.

Many leaders and businesses today face the difficulty of having highly educated employee candidates who have no idea how or what to do in their jobs.

The leaders and business owners then educate their employees at a cost to the employees and their organization. The employees quickly learn that their multiple six-figure educations didn't prepare them for the "real world."

A Better Way

I am by no means an abolitionist of formal education. Yet, I think we need to let people choose based on their desires and preferences earnestly and not attach personal value to a career choice.

We need farmers, doctors, lawyers, carpenters, construction workers, plumbers, computer programmers, nurses, teachers, salespeople, servers, chefs, care providers, etc.

We need them all in our society and befalling one as more or less meaningful than others….well the pandemic taught us the reality of what is “essential” or not!

Success does not come from a degree.  It doesn't come from a title or ownership.  Success, as the great Earl Nightingale taught, is "the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal."

Additionally, this is another complementary definition of success: being liked and respected by those who know you the best.

Summit

The challenge of leading a business is hard enough. Now, add in being an educator, and the challenge can seem overwhelming.

As I mentioned owning and running a business from scratch with zero previous industry experience, our gym, created massive learning experiences.

These experiences would have been less costly if I had a community to share with and learn from.

On May 7th and 8th, I will host the 2nd annual Impact Driven Leader Summit.

This year, we have an unofficial theme, and it’s culture.  Culture Matters, Winning Culture, Connecting Culture and Creating Culture.

Be a part of the event and learn from some of the best culture-focused leaders in the country.

As a kick-off to promoting this event, you can reserve your seat for less than the price of a plane ticket. This offer is limited to the first 20 seats, so get it locked in now.

I can't wait to see you in May

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.