Why did I go to College?

As you sit looking at your student loan bills, you may ask yourself "Why did I go to college?"

Your three children are playing in the next room, and you lovingly watch them play, doing the "love math" in your head to figure out which one you'd be more willing to sell off in order to pay down your crippling college loans.
(Am I sick for saying it or are you sick for knowing what I'm talking about?)

In a recent study in Ohio, researchers found that in 2009, college students graduated and inherited an accumulated college debt of $25,000 or more, dollars per student.
That is a lot of money for a group of people that are not promised a job upon graduation.

There are a lot of degree holders flipping burgers and bagging groceries.

So I say to America, Why did you go to college?

Am I damning higher education? Not hardly.
Am I saying not everyone needs to go to college? Absolutely.

Are you going to be a nurse? Don't waste your time, scholarship money, and state funds going to a four year state school. Instead, go into a condensed 18 month program designed for your profession.

Liberal Arts degrees are for people who will be going into fields of study and sciences. Don't waste your precious time taking Theatre and Philosophy when you have no plans to utilize either.

 A lot of good people are sending themselves into a debt spiral because society is telling them to.
Society says that going to college is the right thing. Society says that no matter the job you do, you need to have a four year degree. Society says if you are going to be successful you are going to have some sort of degree.
Frankly, it's time we tell society to go shove it.

Society fails to realize, by sending you into a debt which you have no means to keep up with, it is ushering in the next financial crisis.

A myth floating around in the college world is that as soon as you graduate you are going to be given a job and spoon fed six figure salaries. FAIL.

No, you are going to have to hunt, beg, probably move, to find work in your field. And that is if you are lucky. You will probably end up like most American grads and take a part time job during your search in order to pay your bills and keep food on the table. Six months or so later when the hefty college bills start coming in you may have to bump up on hours at your part time job to afford your new bills, possibly go full time. All this happens, you lose the time you were using to search for a better job and you start getting angry and depressed. You did all that work and now you are back to cleaning floors at the Entertainment Arena or cleaning out the toilets at the golf course. Finally after a year or two of stress, failure, and crippling debt you give up and just keep your mediocre job. Maybe get promoted to manager..maybe. So much for that B.A. in Social Sciences or Business.

Now think back a few years to the housing crisis. Why did that happen? Because people who weren't ready for large house payments and the responsibility of having a home they couldn't afford in the first place, starting getting those homes. The banks knew they could rook them out of their money so they gave the poor saps a loan and BAM, two years later everyone is defaulting and fleeing the country. People lost everything they had (which was bought on credit anyway so, no big surprise there) and then had to forfeit their home. They simply didn't have the means to support their debt.

In short, people bought a home they didn't need and couldn't afford, they had no plan to pay for it and when the free rides and sweet deals ended and the collector came calling, they ended up like Marie Antoinette at the French Revolution. A belly full of cake and decapitated.

Sound familiar?

Millions of Americans (past, present, and future) have gone into college programs they didn't want to go into or need to, without the means to support themselves and the debt they would incur. Once the subsidized loans, the FAFSA money, and the mommy/daddy handouts were done and they had their degrees, the bills started coming in. The tidal wave of debt grew bigger and bigger, and when the banks and government (who are really the culprits for setting up public opinion and enslaving the masses to a perpetual debt) came calling there was no money or plan to pay the tab. Bankruptcy and marred financial records will now forever follow the student who ended up with nothing but a belly full of cheap beer and five dollar pizzas. Oh, and a piece of paper with a shiny sticker on it (a degree).

So the question you must ask yourself, why did I or why am I going to college? Is it right for me? Will it truly benefit me? Look deep inside yourself before you throw yourself on the burning pyre that is college debt.