Caleb Ritch

Mrs. Thomas

4/9/18

UWRT 1103

Over the course of the semester we had two group conferences where I shared my

paper with fellow classmates. In both of these conferences I learned of a lot of stuff to

revise in my paper. Whether it was from word choice or sentence structure, the things I

learned in my paper were very helpful to allow me to produce what I produced today.

Lastly, in those conferences I was able to think of other ideas to put in my paper

whenever I was feeling that I could not think of anything. Without that help I probably

would not have been able to do it.

Is a Bachelor’s Degree Worth It?

How many times during your childhood were you told that all you need in your life

is a 4 year education and a bachelor’s degree? The belief that most Americans hold is

that a degree is all you need to succeed, but is that really true anymore? The feelings

around most circles, specifically people with ties to major companies, is that major

companies are now looking for more qualified people who have degrees and have gone

up and beyond the norm to be in their business. Every luncheon or career workshop I

attend, a speaker will tell me that nowadays a bachelor’s degree does not really mean

much anymore. For example, Bryan Caplan who gives many luncheons about

economics and finance at George Mason once said, “at least half of the 67 percent

premium earned by the average college graduate can be explained simply by the talent,

knowledge and discipline that they already had when they arrived for freshman
orientation.” Kaplan wants to explain that college is not necessary, because you do not

learn any of the hard skills needed to succeed on the job. He agrees with most other

speakers when he says that college is honestly not that important because you are not

distinguishing yourself. They say to me that if everyone else has a bachelor degree,

what makes me diverge from the norm?

Over time there has been a gradual shift in the general consensus of the

American population towards a four year college degree. The so-called “necessity” of

getting a degree is no longer held in that same regard anymore. During my research on

this topic, I came across an article titled, “America: Abandon Your Reverence for the

Bachelor's Degree” written by Mary Alice Mccarthy, a senior policy analyst at New

America, she had previously worked for the US Department of Education and Labor. In

this article she blatantly tells her audience that bachelor degrees are not that important

anymore. Instead of totally tearing down bachelor degrees she brings a different

perspective which is called an “upside-down” degree. This is a degree in which kids who

do not feel they are meant to get a college degree can get the proper experience to

succeed. Mccarthy says, “They will do better if they start by learning how to master

certain tasks or behaviors and then explore the more abstract concepts behind the

actions.” She is referencing the education system in how you spend four years in

college and do not learn anything that is helpful for your actual job. She says with her

“upside-down” degree you get that proper experience, while still “attending” college. I

agree with her on certain points she presented about her “degree”. It is a well-thought

out alternative that should be considered in the future.

 The next title I came across in regards to believing that a degree is not worth it

was called “Half of recent college grads underemployed or jobless,” analysis says. This

article was written by Hope Yen, a writer for the Associated Press. She is a political

analysis and has many different pieces of political analysis on many different prominent

sites. The pictured she wanted to portray throughout her piece was that college kids are

graduating and not getting hired for any prominent jobs. Yen believes that there is no

point at all in going to college for four years and just doing the bare minimum. She says,

that if you are average, “you will end up underemployed just like the other 53.6% of

college students.” An astonishing fact that I found in her article was, “About 1.5 million,

or 53.6 percent, of bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless

or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a

low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust(rise of the internet) erased job gains for

college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.” To me this fact is so

surprising to think about because you can not just go to college anymore and believe

you are going to get hired. You must go in to college with the mindset that you have to

be special and separate yourself from everyone else. I really enjoyed reading this article

and while I agree with her on some points, I still do not think that going to college is

pointless. Yeah, you might make more money faster and you will not be in debt, but

your ceiling will be so much lower. With a degree and extracurricular activities you have

numerous possibilities.

When I first started this paper I struggled to come up with an idea to write about,

but eventually I came across the worth of a degree. I then tried to find many reputable

sources to put in my paper, which is when I thought of performing a survey on fellow

college students and adults who were out of college on what they thought about

whether a degree is worth it or not. Even though the population of the survey is small

the 27 people that I responded generally represent the population of students or future

students. I thought the results of this survey would be one-sided with most people

stating that a degree is essential, but the results were actually half on the worth it side

and half on the not worth it side. In my survey, the first question I asked was “What is

your perception of a Bachelor's Degree?” The response to this question was that 59.3%

believe a degree is essential or you will not be able to succeed at all. The other 40.7 %

believed that a bachelor’s degree is not that important. They believe that college is not

required to succeed. The second question I presented to them was, “Is a Master's

degree required for a high end job?” The response to this question was that 70.4%

chose that No, it is not as you can do enough during college to make yourself

marketable enough. The other side had 29.6% chose that yes, you need a masters for

fortune 500 companies to come recruit you. The last two questions I asked them were

about their perceptions of college beforehand and how do you feel about college or how

did you feel about college? The responses to these two questions were varied with

some saying that they believe “I feel in today’s society it is harder to get a well paying

job without going to college and getting a degree.” Other responded to the question

with, “I feel like college is just a society roadblock because I know several people who

didn’t go to college that are very successful” and “I have been able to support my family

on a career having only an associates degree.” This survey really opened up my mind

to the viewpoint that college is not needed. It enlightened me that not everyone believes

that college is a necessity and that I should research whether that is a viable option.
 A very intriguing article I came across one day while researching was titled, “Four

Reasons Why College Degrees Are Becoming Useless” written by Jonathan Newman

for the Mises Institute. The Mises Institute is a publication that exists to promote the

teaching and research in the Austrian School of Economics. Newman wrote this article

because he wanted to shine a light on colleges and how the education they present

you, does not advance you at all in your career. One of his main points is that college

graduates receive little to no improvement in their critical thinking skills. He uses

evidence from the Wall Street Journal which says, “At more than half of schools, at least

a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of

evidence in a document or interpret data in a table.” I actually agree with this point that

Newman believes because I feel that a lot of the classes at college are professors who

just spout an endless amount of useless facts at you. These facts are not at all helpful

for you further down in your career, but is mainly for the professor to just show off his

“vast knowledge”. Until this gets fixed, facts such as these that Newman is presenting

are going to increase at a rapid pace. Later on down the article, Newman declared,

“Trade schools and self-study offer better outcomes for many”. He displayed to his

readers that the facts show trade schools and self studies are offering more

opportunities because they are cheaper and require less time. Newman presented a

fact that said 30% of college males are dropping out of college and going to trade

school or seeking other activities. All of these facts astound me. But I still stand by the

fact that a degree is so important. Newman brings great facts to prove otherwise, but

the majority of higher-up people in companies such as Amazon or Apple have degrees.

There is only so far you can go without a degree.

 After reading that article, I came across another one that veered off the path of

believing a degree is not worth it and instead believed that a degree is very important.

This was a rather interesting article as it was more related to stats and facts than

personal opinion. The article was titled, “Work-Life Earnings by Field of Degree and

Occupation for People With a Bachelor’s Degree: 2011.” This was a survey brief

performed by the American Community Survey(ACBR). The American Community

Survey is an ongoing survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. The statistics and findings in

this brief came from the census performed by the American Community Survey Bureau.

It was published in October 2012 by a writer named Tiffany Julian who works for the

ACBR. In this brief they set out to find the statistics of work-life earnings for people who

had bachelor degrees and the difference between the specified fields. Julian explains

how they used a specific algorithm, “ a prediction but an illustrative example of the

magnitude of differences in earnings based on factors such as education and

occupation added up over a work life.” This algorithm allows ACBR to provide accurate

statistics to allow readers to understand. For example, one fact that they were able to

find was that, “The difference in work-life earnings between workers with a high school

diploma and those with a college degree is about $1 million and the difference between

the estimate for workers with a college degree and the estimate for those with a

doctorate is another $1 million.” I believe this quote is so important because it backs up

my belief that a degree makes a massive difference. It shows that by just having a

degree you can easily make $1 million more than someone who did not attend college.

The ACBR even went a step further and analyzed how much you can earn with a

masters degree and they found that, “How far one goes in school can mean a difference
of about $3.2 million. Even within one level of attainment—the bachelor’s degree—what

one chooses to study in college and the careers pursued after college can also mean a

difference of $2.8 million.” This graph accurately displays all the findings that Julian and

the ACBR came across.

The purpose of this graph was to represent all of the findings in a way so that an

average person could understand. This graph shows the average earnings a person

makes over a work-life in their specific division with their highest education being a

bachelor’s degree.

Following the trend of the support of a four year degree I read an article titled, “It

Still Pays To Get A College Degree.” This was article written for Forbes by writer Susan

Adams. Forbes is an online and physical publication that covers many topics from

businesses to education. Susan Adams is the managerial editor for Forbes’ education

section and has been writing for them since 1995. The reason she wrote this article is

because she wanted to break the growing misconception that there is no point in getting

a degree anymore. She concedes the fact that yes, there is that anomaly every once in

awhile that becomes a billionaire off no college education. Adams implores that that is

not the norm and you must have a college education if you want to be above the

average group of people. An example that Adams used to sketch her idea was during

the recession that people were getting laid off left and right but, “the benefits of a

college degree were palpable.” Before the recession, people with high school degrees

only had their employment rate at 55% but after the recession it came out at 47%. This

compared to the a person with a bachelor's degree which started at 69% then went

down to 65% after the recession. The comparison between the two during the recession

shows the benefits of completing a college education, not only do you have a much

higher chance of getting employed but your job security is much more stronger when

the economy takes a downturn. If that was not enough evidence, Adams presented

another statistic that was very telling. She presented that, “Young people with B.A.s saw
wages shrink 5%, from a weekly average of $681 before the recession to $645

afterward. Those with associate’s degrees experienced a 12% drop, from $512 a week

before the recession to $452 a week after. Those with high school degrees suffered a

10% drop, from $438 pre-recession to $394 after.” What makes this stat insane is that

four years could change your life completely. Four years of education is the difference

between $300 a week. I personally believe that statistics like these should be talked

about more because students nowadays do not comprehend how important a college

education is.

I have this viewpoint that students do not understand the complexity of the

situation they are in because my own brother is going through this situation. He was a

really smart scholar when he was younger as he got a 1440 on the SAT and a 32 on the

ACT. If you ever knew him in person you would know that he had a vast cavern of

knowledge inside his brain. This would make one think that he probably graduated early

from college and then went on to get a very successful job. That is where you are

wrong. His senior year of high school he got accepted into UNC and decided to attend

college there. He only lasted two years there as he failed out. You might be wondering

how a kid that smart could fail out, but it is actually pretty simple as to why he could.

The newfound belief that is emerging everywhere is that college is not a necessity, so

students are going in with the mindset that they are above college because they are

geniuses and should be offered a top-tier job immediately. This belief causes them to

attack college with a lack of care attitude which in turn ends them up out of college and

working a job in the service industry. That is currently where my brother is at, he works

as an assistant manager at Mcalister’s Deli. After working in this industry for two years
he has begun to realize that there is a very low ceiling and without a degree you can not

climb the ladder very high at all. He hopes to one day go back to college and get a

degree so he can advance in life and not be stuck making 30,000 a year working as an

assistant manager. The story of my brother is a prime example of the importance of a

degree. I hope this story enlightens people on the importance of a degree.

As you can see the debate for the worth of a bachelor's degree is heating up.

Both sides feel that the arguments and the facts they present are more striking than the

other. I personally believe that a degree is essential for succeeding in life. Without a

degree you can only get the jobs that have a low roof and no big monetary value. When

you come out with a degree and a lot of extra curricular activities compared to someone

who dropped out of college and went to trade school, 90% of the time you will get the

job over them. That is why I have come to the realization that I will stay in college, get

my degree and just accept the debt that comes with all of it.

Works Cited

Adams, Susan. “It Still Pays To Get A College Degree.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 11
Jan. 2013, www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/01/10/it-still-pays-to-get-a-college-
degree/#3a206a0519ef.
 Julian, Tiffany. “Work-Life Earnings by Field of Degree and Occupation for People With a

Bachelor’s Degree: 2011.” American Community Survey Briefs, Oct. 2012.

McCarthy, Mary Alice. “America: Abandon Your Reverence for the Bachelor's Degree.”

The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 5 Oct. 2015,

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/reverence-bachelors-degree/408346/.

Newman, Jonathan. “Four Reasons Why College Degrees Are Becoming Useless.”

Medium, The Mission, 19 June 2017, medium.com/the-mission/four-reasons-why-college-

degrees-are-becoming-useless-acb401064cbc.

Ritch, Caleb. “Inquiry Proposal Survey.” Google, Google, 19 Mar. 2018,

docs.google.com/forms/d/1BpzfL_fA9JMEFyav7Rdx_AhRnDR_MhkkNCQwJZ4gJFE/edit.

Yen, Hope. “Half of Recent College Grads Underemployed or Jobless, Analysis

Says.”Cleveland.com, 23 Apr. 2012,

www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/04/half_of_recent_college_grads_u.html