College May Not Be Worth It Anymore

College(ˈkälij) May Not Be Worth It Anymore

By Ellen Ruppel Shell(SHel)

Last year, New York became the first state to offer all but its wealthiest(ˈwelTHē) residents(ˈrez(ə)dənt,ˈrezəˌdent) tuition-free(t(y)o͞oˈiSHən) access to its public community(kəˈmyo͞onitē) colleges and four-year institutions. Though this Excelsior(ikˈselsēər) Scholarship(ˈskälərˌSHip) didn’t make college completely(kəmˈplētlē) free, it highlights the power of the pro-college movement in the United(yo͞oˈnītid) States.

Recent decades have brought agreement that higher education is, if not a cure(kyo͝or), then at least a protection against underemployment and the inequality(ˌiniˈkwälitē) it engenders(enˈjendər). In 2012, President(ˈprez(ə)dənt,ˈprezəˌdent) Barack Obama called a college degree an “economic(ˌekəˈnämik,ˌēkə-) imperative(imˈperətiv) that every family in America has to be able to afford(əˈfôrd).”

Americans strove to rise(rīz) to that challenge(ˈCHalənj): A third of them ages 25 to 29 now hold at least a bachelor’s(ˈbaCH(ə)lər) degree, and many paid heavily for the privilege(ˈpriv(ə)lij). By last summer, Americans owed more than $1.3 trillion(ˈtrilyən) in student loans(lōn), more than two and a half times what they owed a decade earlier.

Young people and their families go into debt(det) because they believe that college will help them in the job market. And on average it does. But this raises a question: Does higher education itself offer that benefit, or are the people who earn bachelor’s degrees already positioned to get higher-paying jobs?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/college-useful-cost-jobs.html