I think that for most people, university is a waste of time and money

When I went to college, I knew why I was going. I had been working in construction for a while at that point as a summer job and found that I was quite good at it. Despite being just a teenager I was always being given higher and higher levels of responsibility that was normally reserved for people with considerably more experience than I had. I also knew that as far as getting employed by larger firms was concerned that there was normally a requirement of having a college degree for consideration in employment. I feel as though this requirement is actually quite stupid because when I was in the Construction Management program there were very often times that I knew more about the things we were studying than the person with a PhD in it that was standing at the front of the classroom. Techniques and of course, technology, had changed a lot since most of the professors began their doctorate work and they were now passing on antiquated information as if it was somehow useful in the modern world. Since I needed the grades to pass I didn't argue with them or worse, tell them that they were flat-our wrong, because there is no way that someone that took all that time to get a PhD in something that I would argue doesn't need or warrant such a certification is going to acquiesce to someone who is 20 years old and is for all intents and purposes, completely at their will.

src

There were some classes that were useful from an engineering and booking or tax standpoint, but most of the classes that I took were either incorrectly reflecting the modern construction workplace, or they were in no way related to it but were for some reason a requirement of all students regardless of what their major was. I feel like the generic one-size-fits-all 4-year program requirement is a load of BS and it is designed simply to fleece people of money. In all the classes I took in college I would say that only about 4 of them actually even applied to what the construction management world is actually like and very few of even those 4 were terribly helpful in making me more adept at becoming a part of that world. For the most part I feel as though the system just makes us jump through hoops and now that I have been involved in the industry that my degree is meant to qualify me for, I wouldn't say that going to university was in any way helpful to me other than opening doors to certain companies and banks that would require me to have said qualification in order to be considered in the first place.

Now that I am an employer I am actually LESS likely to hire someone if they have a college degree than if they have a bunch of experience because the people with the degrees have their heads filled up with incorrect information and they are normally quite stubborn to come to the realization that this is the case. Over the years I have found university educated non-engineer types to be more trouble than they are worth. That isn't necessarily their fault of course. It is just that they have been programmed over 4 years to think a certain way and were assured by professors that the way they were being taught is the correct way or in some cases, the only way forward.

src

I'm not trying to suggest that all degree programs are a waste of time. I only know for sure that mine was but I also knew a lot of people that were in college just because they were told that this is what they were supposed to do by guidance counselors and the world at large and yet most of them would probably agree with what I am saying here in that what they studied didn't prepare them for their careers. In fact, almost all of the people I stay in touch with from college don't work in the field they got a degree in. I only know a handful of people that think their degree programs prepared them for what they do as a job now and one of them admits that he could have learned all of that stuff by going to a few classes at a community college or in today's time, simply learn it online for free.

The reason why this has come back to my mind is because a friend of mine's daughter is applying to colleges right now and the girl has no idea what she is going to college for. I mean she has no endgame in mind as far as what it is that she would like to do for a job and this is exactly the same situation that I encountered with most of the people that I met while studying myself. Other than the art students and the people that were pre-med, they were all just in college to be in college and a lot of them changed their majors multiple times and eventually just graduated with a degree in "whatever."

One thing I definitely do remember about many or most of the people I attended university with was the fact that they were taking out massive amounts of student loans and many of them are still paying those off to this day. I think this is the true reason why people are pressured into going to college: To make money for the universities and the banks, not to actually educate people.

I'm sure there are a few people out there that genuinely feel as though their college experience was helpful and to those people I say "in what capacity?" Was what you learned relevant to the actual working world or was it just that the job you ended up with was unavailable to you prior to having a degree. I recently saw a line from Stallone's character in a show called "Tulsa King" and the speech goes something like "If you show an employer that you have a degree it shows that you have what it takes to stick with something for 3-4 years and not give up." It is easy to understand this logic but it wouldn't surprise me if that line was thrown in there at the behest of the university-oriented union of some sort. For me personally as an employer, I haven't noticed much in the way of anything useful that comes with the people that I have hired with university educations and I have also noticed that at least in my industry, the college educated ones will often use a smaller organization such as my own as a springboard to potential corporate positions in much larger firms. Basically they are less inclined to remain loyal.

I talked to my friend whose daughter is about to go to college next year and basically he agreed with me because his experience was the same but it appears as though the high school kids are being pressured by guidance counselors as well as certain university sales representatives that come along and basically tell them that if they don't go to college that they are going to be subjected to a life of poverty. I do not agree with this point of view and think that much of it is a brainwashing scheme to keep the very large business that is university education raking in tons of money.

I have no children but if I did I would say to them that if they have a specific career in mind then perhaps, just perhaps university would be useful to them. However, I know plenty of people that thought they knew what career they wanted to go into only to have this idea change dramatically while they were in the process of spending 50-100 thousand dollars figuring that out. I think it wouldn't be a terrible idea for them to perhaps leverage the people that they know to get a job inside that industry at a low level first and at least have a look at what it is really like... or perhaps just take a few classes at a community college to "get their feet wet" and see if the interest is genuine, or if they have been tricked by a TV show or film into thinking that these careers are much more lucrative and exciting then they are in reality.

I see very little benefit to most university educations other than benefitting the university. I regret attending and if I could go back in time I would have just kept working in that field, doing the best I could, and then perhaps just claim to have a university education in that field after a certain amount of time. Chances are they are not going to check because most jobs are awarded because of nepotism and whether or not you can nail the interview anyway.

That's how I feel about it anyway. I think a lot of people are senselessly putting themselves into debt over something that isn't going to actually benefit them.