Published in The Siskiyou, November 14, 2005

When I was in high school, a Bachelor’s degree seemed like an unattainable luxury and evidence enough that you had really made it in life. When did this change? Has a Bachelor’s always been so worthless? Or has the demand for higher education gone through inflation just like the price of bread?

Last year three of my close friends graduated from a 4-year university. Each one seemed to have their future career established, obtaining at the time what they felt was their dream job. One by one each dream job failed. The nursing student lost her position in labor and delivery because she didn’t pass the boards. The environmental science major began counting the years to retirement when she realized her cubicle job didn’t challenge her intellectually. The computer science major lost his position at the prestigious private university when the school proved not to be as globally aware as was stated in the brochure. The nurse gets to retake her test in the winter. The environmental scientist gets to lower her expectations, and the computer science major gets to move back home and send out massive amounts of resumes, again.

Then there’s a cousin of mine, a high school dropout, who recently retired from Microsoft at age 35 and has two houses, a boat, and a live-in nanny. Of course this is the exception rather than the rule. Three years ago, at the end of a 3-year hiatus from my college education, I was barely making enough to survive. Those who spend four years in college straight out of high school long for the day they’ll be freed from the shackles of midterms and research papers and oral presentations. For me, school is a nice vacation from the real world. It is a step back from adult responsibilities and a step forward in meaningful intellectual development. I’d much rather be spending my days researching the history of the dictionary than punching numbers into a keyboard.

But what happens when it’s all over? What happens when I have the degree in hand and have to make a living once again? Will I be any better off than I was three years ago? Will the wealth of information I’ve gleaned from SOU have any kind of bearing on establishing a career? Sure, most of us will be in debt for 10 years, but unless we’re graduating with a very specialized degree, it’s not going to mean a lot unless we keep going. If we do keep going, our debt increases and we run the risk of becoming overqualified and, as a consequence, unemployable.

It seems a shame that our society demands a degree at an increasingly higher price, while devaluing that degree less and less in the working world. There are no guarantees that all our hard work will pay off the way we think it will. All that being said, higher learning for the sake of higher learning of course has no price tag. We may not have a sure future, but all we can do is keep plugging away and taking pride in our accomplishments. Our debts are increasing day by day, but just think how far our minds have come.

Copyright © 2005 Shannon Luders-Manuel