Higher Education, Worth the Cost?
by Stacey Kathleen Wenkel

Y'know, two years after graduation, I'm still trying to decide if the money my parents and I shelled out for college was worth it. I mean, I've got a diploma (from a good college, and at this point a pretty well known college), a BS (in English), and currently, a decent job... but I still don't know if it was worth it.

I screwed around a lot, I probably didn't take my classes quite as seriously as I should have (though how one takes chemistry seriously when it doesn't hold the slightest bit of interest is beyond me), and if I did the math that tells me I was paying $500 or something to sit in lectures, I probably wasted a bit of money, too. I went into college set on getting a BS in biology, and maybe minoring in English. I was set on that course because it was what I thought I wanted... and my father was a bit adament about me getting a BS. As I looked through all of the "elective" classes I wanted to take, I realized that I could double major in English and Biology. Of course, about the same time, I also realized that the English classes were holding my interest better, and I was enjoying them a lot more (this could be because they rarely happened before 10am so I could wake up before I stumbled to class). It was all downhill (or something) from there. I left LC with a BS in English and an adamant refusal to work somewhere that I'd have to ask, "Would you like fries with that?" I also didn't want to teach.

So there I was... with a BS in an artsy subject and I had to prove to people that just because my degree was in English, I knew how to turn on a computer, and better yet, I understood how it worked once it was on. I knew how to use more than word processing programs, and I wasn't afraid of a command line. Job hunting right out of college was one of the most frustrating experiences of my entire life and part of it was because I didn't have the degree that the places I was applying to wanted, and part of it was because I didn't have paid experience to back up what I did in my spare time (which was mess around on a UNIX machine doing little bits of sysadmin, little tiny bits of shell scripting, and such). It was a world of "We want practical experience and you must have this degree and you can't get one without the other" and it was annoying. One of the people I interviewed with told me that anyone who could turn a BS in English (biology minor) into a MAC/PC Technician position in a cover letter deserved to be interviewed. I didn't get the job, but still...

If I take all of the above into consideration, I can't see how the money I shelled out (and am still paying off) for four years at a small liberal arts college was worth it, especially when the first "real" job I got had a requirement for someone with a high school diploma and some FileMakerPro experience.

Though, there were a lot of things that happened in college that I probably wouldn't've experienced if I hadn't gone where I went, if I'd stayed at home and gone to a community college, or gone to one of the UC or CS schools. I'm not sure I would have become quite so much of a net-head if I'd transferred halfway through my freshman year (a thought that had crossed my mind because I missed my best friend), I doubt I would have met my SO, and I can't say that I'd've ended up with a BS in English instead of in Biology. So I guess if I look at it that way, the money was worth it...

This rambling initially appeared in Jackhammer on the Question of the Week discussion board for Issue 36, Volume 1.