Is It Even Worth It?

Here’s a buzzkill: The collegiate world that your parents grew up with — where you go to class, get good grades, graduate and get the career you majored for — no longer exists.

Up to 80 percent of people choose a career that doesn’t correlate with their major. The career development offices at both WSU and Gonzaga say that, in recent years, it’s taking three to six months longer for graduates to find starting positions at businesses with career potential.

Meanwhile, as graduates scramble, technical jobs are becoming more abundant and degrees can often be acquired through two-year courses or certification tests combined with “on-the-job” hours.

Pile all that frightening shit on top of an average student loan debt of $18,771 for Washington college graduates in 2007, and students are left with a logical question: “Is college worth it?”

“This my personal opinion and not of the company’s, but I think college is waste of time,” says Jody Ladd of Spokane Industries’ Human Resources division.

Spokane Industries is a company that engineers, designs and fabricates metal products. Ladd estimates that only 10 percent of their non-labor employees have degrees. Many employees work their way up from labor positions, learning the finer points of skilled positions through on-the-job training.

College is touted as the vehicle to chase your dreams, but even conservative estimates show that only half of students go through college without changing their majors. “Why are you in college if you’re pulling the ripcord from what you believed all these years you [would wind] up to be,” e-mails Joe Filippi, a Port Orchard, Wash., native who skipped college and went right into the work force.

At age 25, with just a high school diploma, he makes six figures as a crane operator at a Western Washington steel mill. After an honorable discharge from the U.S. Coast Guard, Filippi networked with friends and business owners until he found an employer that he had high chances of landing a job with.

“I had slowly worked my way from the bottom all because I chased that goal [to make enough money to not obsess about budgeting],” he says. “College is great if that’s what you need to get there. Don’t assume life will fall perfectly into place because you have some bullshit degree in philosophy.”

Although, says Ladd, for people going into a field like IT management, they are going to want some formal training. Ladd’s advice for young people trying to get into a career is: “Get on with a company and take night classes — that way you get both experiences.”

“There’s a difference between book smarts and on-the-job experience. There is a lot of knowledge that can’t be found in a book,” says Ladd. “[Potential employees] with on-the-job experience usually have more common sense, better aptitude and a better work ethic.”

“Students who graduate with a degree have these incredible general skills developed, like analytical thinking, ability to communicate effectively, persuade others,” retorts WSU career development counselor Stefany Unda. “Our role as counselors, teachers and faculty is to translate those skills into things that are desirable and marketable for employers.”

Unda adds, “With a lot of students, we want to encourage them to pick a major that fulfills their heart. If you love fine arts — my goodness, you should pursue it. Finding a career outside of your major isn’t a bad thing.”

In fact, there are some majors that translate unexpectedly. Philosophy majors often score higher on the GMAT (the entrance exam for business graduate school) than most business majors.

UC Davis biology graduate Erich Meyr hasn’t donned a lab coat or touched a beaker in years. “I wish you could actually intern before you did your degree, like after high school. You should be able to see what people actually do in the field you are interested in.” Halfway through his degree, he realized that biology wasn’t his passion, and he tacked on an arts minor. He now works as a program interface designer for videogame developer Insomniac (developer of Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet and Clank).

Even though he admits that if he had to do it again he would have majored in art or design, the Carpentaria, Calif., native finds college’s ultimate gain is something more universal.

“It was worth it in terms of my own personal growth,” he says. “Other friends who stayed home or didn’t go to college hadn’t really changed when I got back. Some matured eventually, but that wasn’t until they left. I learned how to study, be academic and be social. Overall, it helped me as a person.”

That sort of personal growth is where Whitworth history professor Dale Soden finds a degree’s value. “It’s more than just a job. You’re going to change jobs. Your interests change. The economy changes. It’s for life outside of work just as much as it is in work.” 

A liberal arts degree, he says, is a tool to understand and be active in aspects of society ranging from politics to the arts. “We’re in the midst of an information revolution,” Soden says. “We’re being besieged by information. The people with the ability to research that information and interpret it are going to be valuable people.”