A Kansas State University freshman has recently ignited an internet frenzy. Billy Wilson finished his first semester with a 4.0 GPA, but is dropping out because he feels that college is a “scam.” In his Facebook rant posted last weekend, Wilson declared that “(in college) you’re spending thousands of dollars…just to get a piece of paper.” He also went on to let readers now that “(we) will all see (the scam) someday” and dismissed most of what is taught in colleges as “things you will never use.”
College is not the be-all, end-all solution for a happy adult future. It’s fine to decide college is not for you. It’s fine to make other plans outside of getting a degree. However, I have a problem with one student dismissing the entire higher education system as a “scam” and dismissing most of the curriculum taught in colleges as “things you will never use.”
College is more than just technical training for your future career. While I am attending college in hopes of getting a better job in my future, that is only one small benefit to completing my bachelor’s degree. We go to college to develop solutions to the problems we face as a society. We go to be exposed to different groups and different ideas. We take classes not to prepare ourselves for a cookie-cutter 9-to-5 career, but to learn about the world we live in.
I feel like I am in the ideal position to challenge Wilson’s assertions on the value of the American college education, because, having completed one semester, I feel as though I have as much knowledge on the subject as he has. I have learned so much in my first semester—both inside and outside of the classroom. I took a class on the Muslim population, and became more educated on a group I knew little about. I took a political science class, and was exposed to many shades of political opinion. Outside of the classroom discussion, I would have never listened to people who so totally disagreed with me. These discussions helped improve my understanding and tolerance.
I even feel like I had a valuable learning experience in my dreaded Calculus class. I am going into the social sciences, and likely will never “need” to understand integrals and derivatives, but I think it’s important to be exposed to higher math. It’s always a good life lesson to be challenged in something you may not excel at. After all, problem solving skills are valuable in any profession. Additionally, as many professions become more technologically advanced, more fields of employment require higher math. For example, I found myself using algebra, a skill many students in high school thought we would “never use” at the blue-collar job I worked before I attended college. Though it wasn’t required in my job description, using algebra for basic tax analysis saved me countless hours because I had a formula to complete my task instead of hours of guesswork.
Additionally, the experiences I’ve had outside of the classroom have been invaluable to my education. College is, for many people, the first time they are exposed to several people from totally different backgrounds, and my experience has been no exception. I have six roommates at school, and we all come from different backgrounds. Outside of a college campus, I can’t say that I would ever have this experience. Obviously my roommate who lived in the city her entire life has had different experiences than my roommate who hails from a town of 2,000 people, and learning about our differences has taught me a lot about understanding other people.
The only portion of Wilson’s argument that I agree with is his assertion that universities make way too much money. Tuition is ridiculously overpriced, and universities make thousands of dollars off of students who are struggling to pay for fees, textbooks, and housing. However, I don’t think a long-winded rant against every aspect of higher education is the solution to this problem. If we want to solve this problem, we need to vote and become involved with organizations that want to lower the cost of college education. A rant against the very establishment of higher education itself is not the solution. Honestly, higher education is a privilege for many students. Just because it didn’t work for one student doesn’t make the whole system a “scam”