I got the letter…I’m in! The college I most wanted to be accepted to has given me the opportunity to pursue my dreams. My brain is pulsating with excitement as I envision campus life and all it has to offer. New people, new roommates, new subjects of study, new girls…a whole new life. If I were any more excited, I’d jizz in my Joe Boxer yellow and black designer low-cut briefs!
The Job-College-Job Conundrum
First, let’s descend from the over-stimulated, irrational clouds of our imagination. Once the initial feelings of joy subside, there is only one logical question that will arise: How the f*** am I going to pay for it? University is expensive and private schools are labeled with a more than decadent price tag. The average public college in the US is approaching $10,000 per year. The run-of-the-mill private education costs over $50,000 per year. That’s a lot of living, travel, meals, and good times thrown away in the name of an “education”.
I’ll delve deeper. As a freshly admitted sucker…ummm…I mean college student, we should know that everything we’re learning or will be educated on is free on an obscure resource called the internet. All our books, workbooks, and materials can be found online for a fraction of the price your college charges in their bookstore. Most importantly, when we graduate (and we will because they give you ten years to do so with “free” tax payer money) we’ll hopefully find a gig in our field of study to pay back all those hefty loans we took out.
The Disconnect Of The Job-College-Job Conundrum
We should have figured by now that we are going to have to pay all this money back. So next question: How long will it take me to pay these massive loans back after I’ve found a job? I’ll concede this fact, college grads are more easily employed than their non-college equivalents. HOWEVER, the positions college grads are filling are not in their fields of study! Right now, university products are taking lesser paying, menial labor jobs away from the lower educated general public. Was this the purpose of you going to school?
Allow me to set this up. Most of my friends are in this position, but I’ll pick one. A young man I know, lets call him Drake, has a college degree in biology and is supremely intelligent. If you spoke to him, you’d immediately think he is from high society, regal almost. He walks with a confident posture, is painful handsome, and his brain is an awesome marvel to behold. Sometimes his mouth can’t keep up with his brain. Enough with the praise. He is now a bartender at a seafood destination in California. WTF! Chalk one up for the college experience. If you think he is a one-off, open your f***ing eyes.
Don’t take my f***ing word. Ask recent college grads if they are happy working the job they are working now. Ask if they have a job in their field. Giving it to you straight: we work a “temporary” job to pay for college, often losing sleep and health in the process. We then sacrifice 4 long years of our vibrant young adult years to obtain a cheap sheet of paper with a seal on it (break out the 40s). This decorated receipt is then used to show other people in the working world you’ve passed all the necessary course work. On the other hand, when no one is hiring (and they’re not) after a year or two of searching, we have to take a lesser job that we didn’t need any degree to get.
We work a job to struggle through college, wear that as a badge of honor, graduate in a number of years, try to find a job in our field, fail at finding one, then go back to the stopgap job we had before we started college. Tell me that isn’t f***ed! Continue to believe in the system and it will always let you down. I know, I know. Some of us think since some people (less than 1%) make $350,000 coming out of college, it’s justified to suffer through 80-hour weeks for 7 years. After 1 year, you’ll hate it.
Permit me to lay this on you, most founders, presidents, CEOs, and owners are hard-working college/high school dropouts with a determination to win. Their average salaries are $2.4 million with minimized work after the first couple of years. Which sounds better to you?
Why choose to be the employee when you can be THE BOSS?!
Professor X