This week we’re continuing our 2 part series on the pros and cons of going to college. In this episode we dig into the different ways you can be strategic about getting educational opportunities, what it could look like to get an education without incurring a ton of student debt, and so many more things to consider as you look into choosing a college or deciding if you should even to at all!
Welcome to Business Talk Sister Gawk! I’m Bekkah! And I’m Ruthie! And today we are doing part two of “Should I Go to College – the Pros and Cons.” The first episode was “The Pros and Cons of Going to College.” Same topic, we’re going to be covering a little bit more of each and with us today is our sister Rachel who we talk a lot about and sometimes we call her Rophy, so if you have listened to the first episode you probably know we switch back and forth between those two a lot. Okay so the first thing we’re going to be talking about as a pro for college – the social benefit of those group projects and being with people in college. We always start out with the positive because it’s more fun that way.
Pro: College Can Help You to Grow in Your Soft Skills (Social Skills)
Bekkah: One of the things that I notice is that when you get into a group project or a class with a smaller number of people where you actually do more participation the positive thing about that is that you have access to a bunch of people who are specializing in the same thing to bounce your ideas off of. That can be a good thing and it also can be, if the connectivity or the resiliency of the group is strong in which they can handle conflict, a great place to navigate through issues especially in terms of social interaction. When we talk about those social skills and you just learn so much about everybody’s personality and their skill sets whatever if you notice there are certain things you can do in certain environments and certain things you cannot do based on the major that you have or whatever.
Pro: College Allows You to Network with Older Students Who Can Help You Navigate the Culture
I remember as a younger person in college being guided by older students and saying, “No, no, no. You shouldn’t say that because of these things or you should be careful of this because that could be a touchy subject or whatever.” I would have never known those things if I hadn’t been in an environment with other people that were studying the same thing and an example of this, I was in new york and we were touring an agency for marketing whatever and I just was like, “Hey, has anyone ever told you you have like the most beautiful eyes?” And like I thought it was just like you know this guy had really beautiful eyes and one of the ladies looked at me and she’s like, “That is not how you like talk to people in business!” And all of a sudden I was like, “Oh! I’m sorry!” He was very gracious and was like, “Oh, yeah! No, like a lot of people actually tell me that!” So I wasn’t the only person but at the same time there are things that you should maybe not say because that’s not the right environment to say that in.
Pro: You Can Take College Communications and Psychology Classes That Can Help You Forever
Ruthie: Right, yeah. And there’s that piece where you’re learning like from just kind of osmosis of other people and how you’re seeing other people interact but then also I would say from a communications class perspective you learn a ton! I learned so much from my psychology classes and from communications classes and stuff that I still apply today and still go back to and different counseling classes and things that I took. I don’t know, I think that’s really valuable to be able to have those practical skills that you’re learning in a group setting. Those classes can really help you develop those things. Yeah, so that was another pro that I had.
Rachel: Yeah to add on that pro, like some of the classes that I highly, highly recommend for literally everyone: statistics and at least a base level psychology class.
Ruthie: Yes.
Rachel: Those two yes so important helpful for the rest of your life.
Pro: College Can Give You Time to Research, Debate, Create New Things
Bekkah: If I were to add on to that it would be interpersonal communication classes or just communication in general. Oh my word. I learned so much. The thing that colleges used to be, if we go back to the history of what they were for. First of all, they were for only wealthy people, right? When we talk about university institutions it was only for the people who literally were not out in the fields sowing like corn or whatever else you know as farmers because they had the resources to send their kids to higher education and when we think about that that’s where people started to debate and network and talk and come up with ideas and create scientific experiments and all this stuff.
When we think about, “Oh, well, that’s not fair.” Okay maybe it’s not fair but when we think about all of the contributions those people have made to society in terms of the scientific things that happen even if you go as far back as like kings used to literally pay people to do scientific experiments and figure out why is it that meat rots or like whatever. All of these different things that we’ve learned and grown as a society people had to research and figure out how to do. As we’ve gone through all of these different things if you look at even the development of the United States and those conversations of debate and how those transferred to the entire making of our political system and all of this stuff those all happen as conversations and huge arguments many, many times.
Pro: College Can Give You New Perspectives on People’s WorldViews Different Yours
Universities used to be the place where you went to have conflict with people on purpose to come up with new ideas for getting things done. I think that that’s a huge benefit to going to a college that, in some ways, might be a little bit more lost than it used to be. I think the benefit of universities now is the fact that you can meet so many people from so many places that you have not grown up around and they have a completely different world view or perspective or even a language that is not primarily English at the start of their life.
When you talk to those people you start learning how big the world actually is and how different people can have different understandings of the same issue in life. That can be a really healthy thing to see other people’s perspectives. It might not mean that you agree with everything but it can be a really great place to get a better understanding of how many different things are out in the world and how maybe one solution may be a great fit for one community, but it’s not a great fit for every community because culture and worldview and belief systems can be completely different based on where you live and in the environment in which you grow up in.
Especially, even looking at the difference between people who live in a big city versus a rural area, the solutions that are going to help a class or people in a community can be completely different. College is a great place to see those differences and come up with or learn from what worked well in one community and how it can be applied maybe a little bit differently in another community.
Ruthie: Then on that same note too, the structure of college in general, if you are a go-getter *stammers like a noob*
Bekkah: You’re going to do well!
Pro: College Can Give You the Credentials to Be Employed in Certain Fields that Require It
Ruthie: If can work in your favor. With those programs and things that Bekkah was talking about, there definitely are fields that you cannot get into without going to college. Like you can’t just be like, “You know what? I think I’m just gonna become a nurse!” You have to actually go to school for that, so there are certain things that you have to do. For me, I’m really interested in digital marketing but also financial coaching that’s what my personal business is, I coach people on their finances and a lot of that you can self-study for and you can do different research on your own.
That’s something that I spend a lot of time in but also it’s something that I have to be very meticulous in scheduling out my time to be able to do that. To be able to be consistent in the information that I’m learning and being really intentional about actually seeking out learning those experiences. Whereas in college, there is built-in accountability. There are structures in place I don’t think they’re all really great structures, to be honest. I think they could really figure out their whole grading system and all that could be revamped and made better, but anyway!
Rachel: It also defends the professor.
Pro: College Can Give You Accountability to Care About What You Learn
Ruthie: Yeah! True! But I think that there’s that accountability piece so if you’re not as much of a go-getter and you’re not going to be a self-starter to learn all those things on your own, college is a really good route because it’s you have all of that accountability built in, basically.
Rachel: That was super helpful for me, honestly. I’m not that personally self-motivated. I need people to be like, “Okay, this is what you have to do!” I’m like, “Oh…. Okay…”
Con: College Can Require You to Pay Really Expensive Room & Board Fees
Ruthie: A con of going to college is definitely how expensive it is. Specifically, on-campus housing is super expensive like just room and board is insanely expensive. If you’re going to go it would make more sense to, if you’re able to, live off-campus. That can help a lot and then you can buy your own groceries. Also, just know yourself. What would be healthy for you? If you’re not someone who’s going to make your own food then maybe you do need to eat at the dining center or whatever until you kind of develop those skills for yourself. That’s something that to keep in mind is that room and board is really expensive. What was that?
Rachel: Ramen for days.
Ruthie: Yuck… No thank you…
Con: College Has Very Strict Rules About Certain Things You Have to Follow (Like Parking)
Bekkah: Okay, I’m gonna add this one because I have a story about how I got a parking ticket by Ruthie borrowing my car.
Ruthie: *shhh shhh* That’s one of our cons for going to college is parking tickets.
Bekkah: Parking tickets! It’s like that’s how the university makes money or something! Oh, my word!
Ruthie: I tried to pay it off right away and then I waited a little bit too long I paid it off and then they gave me a fee and I didn’t pay off the fee and they come Bekkah and I was like, “Crap! I was doing so well!”
Bekkah: Yeah, no, they sent me a letter in the mail because they had my license plate and I’m like I wasn’t even at this university!
Ruthie: It was me. I did that. I didn’t tell you. Okay, so parking tickets! Big con of going to school! Big con! One more con, Rachel was gonna talk about the falsehood of the “full college experience” and how people think you need that and why that could be a con.
Con: College Can Be a Gateway to Bad Friends and Immature Decisions
Rachel: Yeah so the full college experience in quotes.
Ruthie: Define what that is. What do you think when people say that?
Rachel: Basically, the whole thing part of life. Like you go to do classes but you come hungover because you’re partying with your friends every other day. It’s because you can get all that social aspect and all the fun crazy stuff to create memories. What you end up with is, especially, if you’re going on a scholarship the loss of scholarship you’ve completely wasted your time because you’re not learning anything.
I had a friend in AIT which is like specialized army training anyway where one girl literally got kicked out of college because that’s all she was doing was having this party life. Her second year in her grades just tanked. She got nothing from it. When she told me she’s like, “Yeah after all of this army stuff I think I have more discipline. I’m gonna go back to do it but I’m basically starting completely over because all the credits I was going for is completely dumped.” And she learned nothing so she’s having to completely redo everything.
Ruthie: And lost her scholarship too.
Rachel: Lost her scholarship. She wasted it. She wasted all of it and not to say a diss on her. I’m actually very proud of her for trying again because I think she’s gonna do amazing things because she learned now you know that she had wasted her time and she had to deal with very disappointed parents. Having to move back home and you know a little bit of shame there, you know. It’s important if you go to actually put into the learning in order to take any of it out. That’s kind of that this is your investment so use it wisely.
Con: Spending Money on College Means You Don’t Have Money for Other Learning Opportunities
Ruthie: Yeah and another con that I had kind of on that same lines of what Rachel was talking about, anything you want to do above and beyond what you’re doing at college is kind of on your own dime. Like if you want to sign up for a specific program or something like that that you heard about in the community center or whatever that’s not grant-funded or you want to develop a program or do different projects or things for your degree it’s pretty much all, if you don’t get funding for it, you have to fund it yourself and pay for it for yourself.
If there’s a program that you know will be used like Excel or learning a bunch of Microsoft products and things like that, that’s kind of on your own dime and you have to be able to put in that money. Unless there’s some kind of program through your university which look into that! Find out if there are things but if there are internships, you usually have to be the one to do the legwork to find those things. A lot of times schools do have things available that you can work with them but anything above and beyond comes out of your pocketbook. Also you have to pay for your own books which is dumb. I feel like that should be included in tuition or something. I don’t know! It just seems like there should be something that they’re giving us!
Bekkah: Or those professors that write their own book and then make you buy it to take their class.
Ruthie: Classic. The heart of entrepreneurship right there.
Con: College Makes You Pay to Learn Rather than Getting Paid to Learn at a Job
Bekkah: In academia. Okay, I have another con. The thing about going to college is that you pay to learn rather than getting paid to learn and I think that there’s actually a lot of businesses out there that you can work for or even non-profits that have a very structured and streamlined onboarding process that basically can train you from the ground up at a skill without a degree. If you’re like, “Man! I want to learn this but I don’t know if I want to do it for the rest of my life, but it would be a good skill to have. Maybe I can have knowledge of this industry and transfer it to something else whatever. Anything you learn actually will be applicable to anything else you do in life.
For the most part, the people skills the relationships those things are things you can never replicate and you learn a lot from. When you’re learning at a job so you get a job and they have that 90-day time frame in which any work you do that’s training is tax-deductible so they take full advantage of that in the first 90 days. That’s almost like a little semester of school learning something, right? People don’t even think about this. I think this is a huge thing. Learning software, that is huge!
Con: College Can Make You Pay to Learn How to Use Softwares They Train You to Use at a Job
If you know how to use a certain software there are literally companies that they outsource to, to pay them to work on their software because it’s just so much of a headache to try to figure out on their own to IT departments or whatever. Knowing how to do things can be done by getting real-life experience utilizing those tools and learning about a specific industry. The terminology, what’s going on there, what people need in that. You might find that each business obviously if you’re looking for a job every business is going to have pros and cons but you can learn a lot from any job you take about so many life character skills and what you appreciate about other people who do their job and other people that maybe aren’t doing it the same way. What’s the difference between those things and why is it so different? There’s so much you can study in just the way people work and the things that people do by not going to college and just getting a degree in life, basically.
Con: Going to College Now Could Be a Missed Opportunity for an Employer to Pay For It
Ruthie: Yeah. I am definitely a product of that. I didn’t finish a degree. It’s something that I do want to do long run and the business that I’m working for right now pays for a certain amount of college credits. When I looked for jobs that’s what I wanted. I wanted to work for a company that would pay for me to go to school and also I knew going into this job that I wanted to, literally, every day I’ve been saying to myself, “How can I absolutely maximize the amount of learning that I’m getting from this time of working here.” Whether that was in training and just like pounding out 20 different LinkedIn courses and learning as much as I can from them and taking really meticulous notes and figuring out how I can apply those things in not just where I’m working but in life in general.
When you go into any sort of work environment even if you were going to work at McDonald’s, go in with the mindset of “what can I be learning right now that will apply to the rest of my life? What are things that I’m learning right now that I could teach to other people?” Or things that I’ve been like, “Wow! This was a really dumb idea, I would avoid that.” How can I teach that to other people?” Then every opportunity that you have, every job that you have, every class you take if you go to college or not how do you optimize the amount of things that you can be learning from that experience?
And then actually, if you’re like me and you like to document things like crazy, then document the crap out of the things that you’re learning. And if you’re not then just get really good at telling other people about the things that you’re learning or figure out a way that you can utilize the things that you’re learning and maximize the time that you have doing whatever it is that you’re doing. That’s kind of, Rachel I know wanted to touch on this. I think a lot of times people think that they have to have a certain amount of training before they can actually apply for that job. Rachel’s going to talk about her experience with welding but a lot of places you don’t have to have a background in that at all. They’ll teach you everything. Rachel, tell us a little bit about that and what your experience was.
Con: Going to College Now Could Mean You Miss Out on Free Education in Industries Desperate for Employees
Rachel: Yeah so I just finished four and a half years of college. Graduated in the winter and I was like, “Well, environmental science, I need something in the summer as a baseline.” I just was looking around and found a painting job. I went there and they’re like, “Well, that’s not anything like you thought it was.” The job I was applying for. But then they borderline begged me to go into welding instead saying like, “We will teach you to go into welding!” I said like, “I’ve never had any experience. I’ll probably out in six months!” They’re like, “That’s okay! That’s okay! If you like it would you stay?” I’m like, “Yeah! Sure! I mean if you’re willing to put the resources for me to learn welding, sure! I’ll go for it!”
Honestly, it was a hidden talent! I absolutely love it! I was actually really surprised to be able to like pick it up so well and they basically had me shadow work with people and then I worked alongside someone who’s been there for 36 years and just kind of welded to the side of them. It was crazy because then they actually gave me after actually working alongside them for a while, they gave me actual training for two weeks and I got three certifications.
Which was actually more than most people down on my side of the shop. I tell you, I was there for a full year before I went into the army. It was awesome! I’ve never done anything – I still wanted to use my degree and that’s kind of why I went to join the army as a water treatment specialist because I wanted to help people, but yeah it was just like I didn’t need any of the education. And I still didn’t even use the education that I did in college.
Ruthie: At this point.
Rachel: At this point, I have not. I mean the different kind of classes that I have taken have been helpful. They really have been helpful. Especially, statistics. Love that. I use that actually a lot on just a daily basis. It’s like I didn’t even need the four and a half years of college that I took. If you find the right jobs, they were are more than willing to teach especially for welding and for a few different like electricians. Some of these blue-collar jobs because people aren’t going into it. They want people. I would recommend people consider you know learning on the side. Because a lot of people if you don’t know this, a lot of industries will actually pay you to take classes for you to work for them. So you’re getting double paid. Which is amazing. And if you’re going to go the Army route.
Ruthie: You’re getting paid in knowledge and you’re getting paid in monies. *laughs at my own joke*
Rachel: I was thinking, they’re paying for you to take these classes and you and you’re working for them. So you’re getting paid in classes and you’re getting paid by them.
Con: If You Want to Join The Military, Going to College First Could Be a Missed Opportunity for Free Education
Ruthie: Yeah what were you gonna say about the Army?
Rachel: Oh, if you’re gonna think about those kind of routes like you’re interested in going the army route and you want to do education there are so many different programs. I’m not equipped to explain all these different programs that they have but I know the National Guard is really good with scholarships for college. If you’re going to go the officer route, if that’s what you’re thinking, you can actually go the officer route and do your full four years of college through them. It’s awesome. I kind of wish that I would have thought that before but I never even considered Army before I was already done with college and working as a welder.
Con: Some College Degrees Can Have a High Burnout Rate
Bekkah: A couple other cons that I wanted to throw in there that I think people don’t really think about when they start going after something, look at the burnout rate of people in that job. I think that a lot of people that I talk to who are doing teaching or something and they say, “Oh, I’m gonna be a teacher in like this community and I’m gonna work there for X years and then the government’s gonna forgive all of my student debt and everything.” That’s a great plan but when you look at the burnout rate of how many people are in those locations and maybe they just hate it.
It might just be the cultural environment of the school or whatever or the location. They’re far away from their family. A lot of times people who get their education forgiven by the government have to go to super remote rural places where they have no friends and family and work there for like five to ten years or whatever it is. That can be really hard on some people if they don’t develop that network community. Another place that I see a really high burnout rate is people who are super passionate about kids and they really want to go into social work to make a big difference.
The social work burnout rate is like an average of two years because it is so emotionally difficult to work in social work. I think that, first of all, you have to have a four-year degree to get a social work job, and sometimes you have to have a master’s degree. For the burnout rate that is crazy! If it’s that something that you think you can push through there are some people that I’ve met that have worked there for a very long time, 20 + years and they love it and that’s their life and they can thrive in that kind of environment with difficult situations. I mean, we need those people and that’s amazing, but know what you’re getting yourself into because that’s a whole lot of student debt to put on to get a degree in social work and then to say after two years, “I just can’t do this anymore.” Ruthie has some things that she wants to talk about loan payoff programs because she has some more info on that.
Con: Some College Debt Forgiveness Programs Could Reject Your Years Worked If You Don’t Pay Attention
Ruthie: Yeah so I don’t have any like statistics and things that I can rattle off right now. Good job, me, undercut what I’m gonna say before I say it *laughs at own self-deprivation* but I just know when you’re looking at those loan payoff programs look at how long the commitment is and look at how much debt you actually have to pay off. Because the odds are – okay not odds, but if you are a driven person and you can stick to a budget and you can figure out how much you need to pay off on a monthly basis and how fast you can pay it off and you’ve got a whole loan payoff program of your own, it would probably be more cost-effective for you to work somewhere and pay it off as fast as you can than making a 10-year commitment working for a place that offers a loan forgiveness program.
Because for a lot of them you have to actually stick through the whole time allotment that they say you have to be there for before they’ll actually pay off any of your loans for you. That can be just – keep that in mind when you’re looking at those loan payoff programs because not all of them are as cure-all as you think they are. And also be paying attention, too, because I know a lot of times when you’re in those programs sometimes they can shift the geographic region that it applies to and you might not know and so you might not be in that district anymore that has that loan forgiveness program and you don’t even know and you’re still working there and it doesn’t apply to you anymore. Keep that in mind when you’re kind of looking at loan forgiveness programs. I just wanted to add a note to that and then if you can pay it off faster than the loan forgiveness program.
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