College: Is It The Biggest Scam In The United States?

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College education in America is a bad joke. Instead of preparing the next generation of leaders for the jobs of tomorrow, the college education "industry" has become a giant money making scam. We constantly preach to our high school students that they "need" to go to college and we tell them to not even worry about how much it is going to cost because a college education is "always" worth the money. Then we lend them outrageous amounts of money so that they can pay the gigantic bills for the "education" that they are receiving. But the truth is that the quality of education at America's colleges and universities is absolutely abysmal these days. Nearly half of the nation's undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don't make academics a priority, a new report shows.  Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago, the research shows. We already have hit the 1 trillion dollar mark for student loan debt earlier in the year. College tuition has increased at a rate 6% higher than the general rate of inflation for the past 25 years, making it four times as expensive relative to other goods and services as it was in 1985. How then can we say that the higher education system is working? Students pay way more for sub par education that is getting worse each year. With these institutions bringing in so much there is bound to be a drop off in effective teaching and corruption can flourish. Professors seem to no longer care about connecting with their students but are more focused on writing their books or doing their own research. I have come across this numerous times throughout my education. Asking a question is almost frowned upon. The only advancements that I see being made are embracing of new technology. With that move toward advancing technology, basic things are being looked over. E-books are incredible devices and I am a big proponent of them but not so far as to lose the ability to write reports or do basic research. Everything is at our finger tips now and that can be a problem. Students have to realize that a 4 year degree now is not worth what it was 25 years ago. Yes, it cost much more but the added benefit it provides does not in most cases seem to support the financial burden that is placed on those who borrow for school. I recently performed a job shadow along side another associate who had a Masters degree in Business Administration with a specialization in Leadership. I am still working on completing my associates degree and we were both looking at the same job. Now, granted maybe that degree would give him a step up in the hiring process, but maybe it would not. I know a handful of people who have worked hard at getting degrees but did not get into work environment to gain that experience and they are not even consider for positions because they have no experience. I am finding more and more that experience is valued much higher than a degree in that field. There are always exceptions to this rule and people who have gotten degrees and gone on to do amazing things that the degree launched them to. As a whole I feel those are few and far between. The list of people with degrees that cannot find a job in their fields continues to grow though. Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants. All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree. That should alarm you. How can these people getting degrees only be able to land these kinds of jobs? The system is broken and is no longer preparing people for the "real world" it is preparing them by giving them a piece of paper and a empty promise. The more I dive into the field of insurance and talk to people who are working at a high level and make a very good living, the more I hear that they did not go to college. They worked hard, got the designations and certifications in their field and got the work experience needed to succeed. It just seems to me that more and more students are diving farther into debt to get that coveted degree, and then when they graduate they cannot find anything more than a high school graduate level job. The sad thing is, is that school tuition is just going to increase, books are going to increase, and the focus of actually producing high level professionals is going away. Schools are focused on profits. They are businesses and I firmly believe that they would take a student who can pay cash with horrible grades over a student who is an A+ student but needs financing. They want to see their bottom line grow. Is there a way to fix this? I think we can, but it is going to take a gigantic shift of focus to achieve it. This shift is something that I don't think will ever happen because there is way too much money tied into higher education in America. Is a degree worth it? Possibly. But do not bury yourself in student loan debt that can never be paid.