The New York Times posted an interesting article Thursday about “whether college makes the student or the student makes the college.”

This is an issue because colleges do not clear up the situation because they don’t do much to measure how much kids actually learn in college from when they enter at age 18 to when they leave at age 21. The article asks the following question: “How much does a college education---the actual teaching and learning that happens on campus---really matter?”

There are a lot of careers in which college degrees are not necessary. The article talks about mail carriers and how some have degrees. In reality, is the tuition and inevitable impending debt really all that necessary to be a mail carrier? Not exactly. You could also argue the current economic situation the article discusses. Right now, I can bet a good number of college seniors are out there paying tuition and studying hard but incredibly uncertain of their job futures due to the economy.

The article mentions that in the ‘30s, during the Great Depression era, the percentage of 17-year-olds who graduated from high school jumped to 50 percent, 20 more than its previous number. A lot of those boys would have been working if they could have found jobs. The article also says that during our recession, students have poured into community colleges.

The Times then mentioned a popular study by a Princeton professor who now is the Treasury Department’s Chief Economist examined high school students through their 30s and discovered that their alma maters did not really have a big impact on their earnings later on down the road. Kids from my home state, Pennsylvania, who went to Penn and Penn State really made the same amount.

However, the article does bring up an interesting point: Half of all students who begin school do not end with their four-year degree. They end up spending less time in class but miss out on the number one benefit of that degree---showing that they can finish something they set out to do.

Our Take:

Like anything in life, I really feel that college is what you make of it. You can choose to drink the entire time and be crazy, or study hard and not go out at all.  Or, if you can figure out how to manage your time wisely, you can do both and prepare yourself for a wonderful career someday.