Collegiate Dilemma

     It's going to be difficult in the future for me to encourage my kid to go to college. Yes, I understand that life two decades in the future might be vastly different than it is now¹. But the way things are right now in the current American job market, a college degree is not all it’s cracked up to be.

     I wish that somebody had sat me down and explained some things to me. First, a college degree by itself is not the magic key to a better life. My wife has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and an Associate’s degree in culinary arts. Guess which one has ever landed her any job, ever? I have the oft-sited and even-ofter-maligned English degree²…although in all fairness, that did land me a job for about five years. A job that only ever hired me as a temp for—at best—nine months out of the year. A job that subsequently closed the site in my state and laid us all off. So, yeah, I guess I’m not counting that one right now.

     Nobody should be really surprised to hear that getting a college degree doesn’t instantly get you a pertinent job. What many people are surprised to hear is that there are many occasions in which having a degree will keep you from getting hired. I’ve had more than one prospective employer tell me that my degree makes me “overqualified,” that they won’t hire me because I’ll think I’m too good for the job and will just quit as soon as my “real” job comes around. I try to explain to them that I have an English degree, and cleaning bathrooms is actually right about my level of qualifications, but to no avail.

     Secondly, I wish I knew that there is no shame in going to a trade school and learning how to do something useful. In the school system where I went to high school, there was a Career Center where kids could opt to go to learn trades. It was a pretty standard assortment of things: cosmetology, machining, landscaping, etc. In our school system, people turned their noses up at the Career Center kids. These were viewed as the blue-collar workers, the ones who aren’t smart enough to go to college and make something of their lives. The teachers and the guidance councilor only perpetuated this bias. Well, I was “smart enough” to get through college with relative ease, and now I make less than $10 an hour. My step-brother-in-law learned a trade and was making twice that right out of high school. And, again, I will mention that my wife is a chef, and working in that field has made her happier and more satisfied than anything she ever did with psychology.

     Now, calm down, I know what you’re thinking. It depends on what kind of degree you have. And you’re absolutely correct. Degrees in the sciences are very important and are definitely a worthwhile endeavor. If you want to be a scientist of any flavor, college is most assuredly for you. Or if you plan to keep going to get a Master’s or Doctorate, that’s good too³.

     This is what I’m going to have to talk to my kid about, though. This is the talk I was missing as a teenager: what do you actually intend to do to make money? Note that I am specifically talking about making money. If you would have asked me then what I wanted to do with my life, my answer has not changed: write. And write I do and forever will. But, let’s face it, it’s not the kind of job you can really rely on. If—God willing—my kid is also creative and artistic, I want to make sure they understand that they are going to need to have a plan for a day job.

     It hurts to say it, though. I still have this ingrained reaction saying: “Of course you have to go to college or else you won’t amount to anything!” I don’t want to act like college isn’t an option, and I definitely don’t want to be that guy who stomps all over people’s dreams and tells them they’ll never make it as an artist. Certainly if anybody had told me that as a teenager, it would have just driven me even harder to write in that lovely contrarian way of ours⁴. But I don’t think a healthy dose of reality is going to do anybody any harm. I don’t think my writing would have suffered if I hadn’t spent those four years and tens of thousands of dollars (that I’m still paying) on my degree. The hard truth is you’re going to need a job that actually pays the bills while you wait for your career as an artist to take off.

     All I’m really arguing is that teenagers should put a little more forethought into their post-high school plans other than “go to college.” Because they can drink cheap beer and have unprotected sex with complete strangers without having to worry about waking up and getting to class in the morning.

¹ What with all the jetpack death-matches the robot overlords hold amongst the flooded coastal cities.

² Which means I’m allowed to make up words like “ofter.”

³ Unless you’re getting a PhD in the humanities, in which case you are qualified to do nothing but teach other misguided students and perpetuate the cycle.

⁴ By which I mean all creative types. Let’s face it, you have to be a little rebellious and nonconformist to really be artistic.