Is College the Only Option for Success?

From a young age, most kids have been brainwashed to believe that college is the only path to success in life. Is it? Is college the right choice for everyone? Or are there better alternatives? These are questions that have been asked many different times but it seems like there has been a lack of a clear-cut answer. There are many different things to consider when looking at colleges as the only path to success.

The brainwashing of kids seems to start as soon as kids step foot in a school. They are told over and over for the next 18 years that “you have to go to college then get a job”. What if kids were told that they shouldn’t go to college but instead start an online business or go to trade school? If kids were told that they had options other than college, maybe the college dropout rate wouldn’t be where it is currently at. In the American Dream 2.0 report which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and endorsed by state lawmakers, college presidents, civil rights leaders, and business leaders, they give statistics about the dismal state that the U.S. college system is in. Of all of those who enter a U.S. college, “46% fail to graduate within six years”. Of the Hispanic students who attend a U.S. College, “only 42% graduate within 6 years” and the figure for African American students is even lower as “only 37% of African Americans graduate within 6 years”. How can the “only” path success have almost half of everyone who goes there fail out or drop out? The top three reasons students drop out are to support a family, to work and earn money, and because they can’t afford college. While students are in college they are stalling any income they could be making during that time and for many students and...

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...0 which gives them 2 additional years of generating income and possibly saving for retirement and closing the pay gap between themselves and a college graduates lifetimes earnings. At thesimpledollar.com, it says that “the average trade school degree costs $33,000.” That is almost 100,000$ cheaper than the cost of the average college education which according to the College Board, “the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2013–2014 school year was $30,094 at private colleges, $8,893 for state residents at public colleges, and $22,203 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.” Those are huge sums of money to pay for the next four years and when taking into account that the earning power of a college grad also depends on the institution they attend, you see that you are forced to pay the highest amount to a return on your college investment.