Admissions Academy Blog

The Value of a College Degree

•  Posted by Sarah Ziegler on August 5th, 2009 in Academics, Articles of Interest
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CNN this week featured an article about a recent college graduate who is suing her alma mater, Monroe College, claiming that their career services office hasn’t done enough to place her in a full-time job. She claims that the career center showed favoritism to students with a 4.0, rather than her 2.7 GPA, and she’s suing to reclaim both her four-year tuition and extra damages for the stress that her failed job search has caused her.

Whether or not the suit has merit, it does open up a conversation about what college is, or should be, for. In their statement, Monroe College replied that, “it is clear that no college, especially in this economy, can guarantee employment.” Four-year colleges are institutions of higher learning, and while Census data shows that the earning power of college graduates is higher than that of only high school graduates, colleges at best can provide career assistance, not guaranteed career placement.

Some have argued that this article reinforces the idea that a bachelor’s degree is becoming increasingly less meaningful, that in order to secure a professional job with a living wage, students have to attend graduate school. But one of the New York Times blogs took up this issue not too long ago:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/. The argument that an M.A. now is like B.A. years ago, or that a B.A. now is like a high school diploma years ago, misses a more important point. Why do students graduate from colleges with educational experiences that do not adequately prepare them for the “real world”? To take it a step further, why are students allowed to graduate from high school with meaningless educational experiences? Standardized testing pass rates are on the rise in New York City, for example, but the feel-good news misses the fact that the number of students who are advanced or highly proficient is shrinking.

If anything, the suit may be indicative of a larger problem in the U.S. educational system; students shouldn’t have to go to graduate school to get an education that prepares them for jobs. Advanced degrees hold value when they provide students a skill set that can’t be taught in college, or when they’re used as a means for students to change career paths. But if a generic master’s degree is a band-aid for what should have been taught in high school and undergraduate college, then perhaps it’s time to demand better of our school systems.

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