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PART 1
EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS
THINKING REALISTICALLY
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TRAP 1
EVERYONE MUST GO TO A FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE
Be true to how youāre wired
Many people saunter into a four-year college with far less critical thought than they give to the decision to buy a car. Iām not talking about the question of which four-year college to attend; Iām talking about the decision to go in the first place. Too often, itās more of an assumption than a decision.
This chapter is about examining that assumption. Like a snowboard, an iPad, a car, or any other major purchase, a four-year college education is a product. Itās something you purchase ā with lots of money. Unlike other products, it also costs you lots of time. Itās dangerous to assume itās necessary to buy something, especially if that something comes with a hefty price tag. Itās smart to consider if our desires fall under the umbrella of āneedsā or āwants.ā And no matter what you may have heard, four-year colleges are not for everyone. Theyāre especially not for everyone whoās barely eighteen and has just finished high school.
Perhaps youāve never asked yourself whether or not you should go to a four-year college. Maybe you think, Of course Iām going to college! High school is wrapping up soon. What else would I do next? Rest assured, you havenāt picked up an anti-college screed. Iām assuming that anyone reading this book is either hoping to get a degree or is in the process of getting one. And for good reason. Just about all of us need some kind of degree, certification, or advanced training to be successful in the twenty-first century workforce.
But that doesnāt mean everyone should pursue a bachelorās degree immediately after high school. What kind of training to get, when to get it, and where to get it are decisions you should make in a deliberate manner. If what youāre after is a ticket to the middle class, a bachelorās degree is not the only way to get there, and depending on how youāre wired, it may not be the best way. Let me at least give you several equally valid, less expensive, and less time-consuming alternatives to consider.
A four-year college is too expensive to wander into just because itās somehow expected of you or because you have nothing better to do. Only go to a four-year college if it makes sense.
Three Reasons to Reconsider the āGo Right to a Four-Year Collegeā Assumption
1. Getting accepted into a four-year college may not mean much. That probably sounds weird or even rude, so let me explain. Throughout most of U.S. history, getting accepted into a four-year college was itself a big deal. It meant you had done well in your previous schooling and that your teachers along with the college admissions folks recognized your potential for greater intellectual feats. College was for the few, not the many. But itās not like those who didnāt go to college were condemned to a life of poverty. They went on to enjoy meaningful jobs, stable careers, and middle-class lifestyles. As recently as 1970, only one in four members of the middle-class workforce had any formal education beyond high school.1
But then low-skill jobs started disappearing, and college graduates began to see their earnings rise dramatically, particularly those in fields like technology, finance, law, and health care. High schools and parents got the memo and ramped up a campaign to pitchfork more teens into the halls of higher education. By 1990, about six in ten high school graduates immediately headed to college, and by the year 2002, that figure had reached 65 to 70 percent, where it remains today.2
As the number of students going to college was rapidly increasing, the number of colleges was also on the rise.3 You may recognize the terms supply and demand. When there is a lot of demand for a product ā higher education, in this case ā it invites more participants to enter the market. More than one out of three of todayās four-year colleges did not exist in 1980. As these new colleges popped up, many of them implemented an open admissions policy, a trend that had begun a decade or two earlier. As long as an applicant met certain minimum standards (test scores, high school GPA) ā and in some cases, no standard other than a GED or high school diploma ā they were guaranteed admission.4
Now where did this open admission trend come from? On the one hand, there was a sincere desire to give everyone a crack at a college education. To the extent that a slew of high-paying careers were increasingly accessible only to those with a bachelorās degree, colleges viewed minimal entrance standards as a means of avoiding elitism. The value of everyone having equal access to all that America represents had gripped the nation in the days of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. Colleges were simply following suit. If someone had completed high school and aspired to earn a bachelorās degree, why would you deny him or her that opportunity?
But thereās also a more cynical interpretation: The colleges wanted the extra business. Tuition dollars are the lifeblood of all but the most elite colleges and universities. New colleges in particular often feel compelled to attract more students in order to pay their bills, service their debt, and develop their limited and often dilapidated infrastructure. In 2013, education expert Jeffrey Selingo estimated that one-third of all colleges were on an unsustainable financial path, and another quarter of colleges were in serious risk of joining them.5 And a 2014 survey of college and university presidents found that only half were confident in their institutionās financial model over the next decade.6
Colleges that are desperate for tuition dollars are more than happy to squeeze a few more students into a classroom. The upshot is that if you graduate from high school and have a pulse, you can probably get into college somewhere.7 Frank Brock, a former president of Covenant College (a respected Christian college in Georgia), put it this way: āStudents used to worry about getting into college; today enrollment-driven colleges worry about getting students.ā8 Thatās why you probably have a large box of college advertisement mail and why you see ads and billboards for colleges everywhere, especially niche graduate programs in fields you didnāt know existed.
Maybe youād be the first member of your family to graduate from a four-year college. Everyone is pushing you to just waltz into the financial aid office, secure a slew of loans, and get on with it. But just because a college wants you doesnāt mean you should want them. And just because a college wants you doesnāt mean youāll graduate, which leads me to the next point.
2. Almost half (44 percent) of those who start off at four-year colleges or universities havenāt graduated . . . six years later.9 Almost no one starts college thinking he or she is going to be in that statistic, yet thatās where almost half of incoming freshmen end up. Graduation rates are much higher at some colleges than others, but high school academic performance and a studentās financial status are remarkably good predictors. So the good news is that you can size up your chances of making it right from the get-go. Of those who finished high school in the bottom 40 percent of their high school class, three out of four will not complete a bachelorās degree, even if given eight and a half years to do so.10 Among incoming students told they need to repeat high school level coursework (a.k.a., be remediated), only one in three will complete his or her bachelorās degree in six years.11 The upshot? If high school academics werenāt your thing, a traditional four-year college probably wonāt be either.12 Do something else.
Financial status is an even stronger predictor of college success than high school academic performance. Regardless of academic ability, itās reported that among students whose families are in the bottom income quartile (lowest 25 percent), only 8 percent will earn their bachelorās degree by age twenty-four. But if your family is in the top income quartile, your odds of having a bachelorās degree at age twenty-four are better than 80 percent.13
How much sense does that make? Itās heartbreaking. Many of us grew up believing that social mobility ā the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can begin life in poverty but rise as high as your talents, efforts, and accomplishments take you ā is the birthright for all Americans. But weāre not seeing enough of it these days. Good people of various persuasions are debating how to increase social mobility and college graduation rates, but since this isnāt a public policy book, Iām not planning to go there. I want to focus on how you can beat the college debt trap. Today. Regardless of our broken system. Because if thereās one thing Iāve learned, itās that you canāt wait until the world is perfect to start doing what only you can do to build a better life.
FACTOID
The United States has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. While seven out of ten high school graduates go on to college, less than half of twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds (44 percent) have a college degree of any sort.14
Weāll talk later about how to lower the expense of college. For now, letās just observe that itās important to count the cost before even starting. Make sure you have what it takes to graduate ā financially, academically, and in terms of personal commitment and discipline. A four-year college or university can be a great investment, but you really do need to graduate.
Caveat: Regardless of your family income, if you were a top student in high school, or you did well on your SAT or ACT, do not assume that four-year colleges will be too pricey. There are schools out there with the resources to be generous to students like you. More about this in Trap 3.
3. Attending a four-year college is superexpensive. This isnāt a reason never to pursue a bachelorās degree. Itās perhaps a reason to delay that pursuit until youāve earned or saved enough money to at least start college relatively debt-free. And if your parents are planning on helping you pay for college, they could use the extra time as well. Avoiding loans, especially in the early years, is a great strategy, because the less time interest is accruing, the less you end up having to pay back.15
Even if you go for a bachelorās degree, there are expensive ways and inexpensive ways to earn one (as weāll discuss in Trap 3). The former can lock you into years of crushing debt, as it did for my friend Michael. He spent five years at a community college followed by four years at a university until he finally picked up his bachelorās degree ā and more than $80,000 of debt. Some ten months after graduating, he landed a job with the county as an environmental safety inspector. Heās now thirty and living with his parents, who are helping him pay off his loans and avoid bankruptcy.
So if a four-year college isnāt the best move for you, or at least not the best move right away, what else is out there? Let me walk you through a few alternatives, all of which can save you tens of thousands of dollars now, and none of which close the door on getting your bachelorās degree later.
Alternatives to Going Straight from High School to a Four-Year College
1. Get an associateās degree in a strategic, marketable field. In 2014, of the 18 million students in undergraduate programs, 7.3 million were at two-year colleges.16 Thatās not terribly lopsided, but many of those two-year students donāt ultimately earn associate degrees.17 They just pick up credits on the cheap and, if all goes well, transfer them into bachelorās degree programs ā usually a smart, cost-saving move.
Thereās nothing wrong with wanting a bachelorās degree. Itās what I did, and it worked out great. But hereās the thing: Depending on what field you pursue, there may or may not be a job waiting on the other side. A 2010 report from Georgetown University economists predicted that future job openings for college graduates will be split roughly fifty-fifty between those requiring bachelorās or advanced degrees and those requiring associateās degrees or occupational certificates.18 But in 2012, bachelorās degree recipients outstripped associateās degree recipients by about 75 percent.19
Part of the problem is that many high school guidance counselors, teachers, and parents look down on associateās degrees as second class, mere consolation prizes for those who canāt cut it at ārealā colleges, and one-way tickets to a lower income and a less fulfilling life. So they push everyone to the four-year colleges and universities, which, as I explained earlier, virtually any high school graduate can get into these days.
But are these negative perceptions about associateās degrees accurate? The graph below shows the annual salaries for t...
