On Nov. 5, an 18-year-old college first-year won a local West Virginia House of Delegates race. This young woman, Saira Blair, competed against 44-year-old Martinsburg attorney, Layne Diehl, and won a majority vote. With just one semester of college under her belt, she will now have authority as a lawmaker and has decided to take some time off from school to focus on her career.
Some Millennials today are similarly opting out of college, instead going after dreams and career goals that do not require a degree. One Huffington Post article advocates this choice, as it says that today, “48 percent of employed college graduates have jobs that do not require a four-year degree.” This statistic is alarmingly high, as essentially half of all college-aged students are finding success without spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of painstaking hours on term papers and testing.
The main message here is that schooling may not be for everyone and is not always an essential path to success. Even if this path has been engrained into us since our parents began putting away college funds, college is a choice. Less and less today, students are seeing it that way, as it is now categorized as a fundamental steppingstone to the rest of professional life.
Instead of choosing which college to go to, Millennials could be making success for themselves in other ways. With no debt and responsibilities, risky explorations with some risk could be a better way to go.
Currently, according to the Huffington Post, “Millennials have contributed $1 trillion to the national student loan debt.” Clearly, these college-aged students have some investment money that could be spent other ways. Taking a chance, as generations before have done, may no longer be considered as conventional to America’s upper-middle class. But why?
At Elon University alone, two out of five students will come out of school with loans, and no guarantee of a job. At $41,914 per year with room and board, it seems reasonable to assume that the slip of paper you receive at graduation would get you well on your way into the field of your choice. Still, no college or university can make assurances like that today. As of now, according to the same Huffington Post article, “Millennials are the most educated generation in human history, yet they have the highest share of people who are unemployed in the last 40 years.” Because of increasing job competition and a recovering economy, students are ending up living with their parents longer after college to get back on their feet after getting slammed with debt.
Obviously, a college degree is useful in numerous professions. Yet, several top employers today still voice their opinions that hard work and the ability to learn quickly on the job are two of the most appealing qualities in a worker. That being said, why do these employers still push the need for a degree at all? It is not just colleges, but all of society that has elected this concept of college as vital to future success.
Doomed if they don’t go to college but doomed with thousands of dollars in college loans if they do, society is quickly isolating Millennials. Future generations are being led into an endless cycle of disappointment. With that notion in mind, why are we all so quick to enter into a four-year university when a chance at independent success and an early career path is an option? We, as college-aged citizens, must decide if this college path should continue on a more individual level.