With the end of summer upon us and thoughts turning to the beginning of another school year, I wonder how many people think of a college education in investment terms. Probably not as many who should.

Think about these numbers: between Veronica and I, we have 5 degrees, BA and MA for her, BS, MS, and Ph.D. for me.  I had 1 student loan for less than $5000 and Veronica had about $15,000 in loans for our undergraduate degrees.  Our graduate degrees?  Not a single penny in loans.  My Ph.D. cost me no more than whatever I laid out for textbooks and parking permits, probably less than $1000 over the course of 4 years.  The return on that investment?  I’m making about $40,000/year MORE than the job offer I turned down when I decided to go back to school.

Now consider my dad’s girlfriend’s granddaughter (got that?), she’s the one who spent the past year studying abroad in Italy and got my dad and his gf to come visit her.  She just started her 3rd year at a college that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 per year.  And guess what? She still hasn’t declared a major!

$80,000 invested so far, without a fuckin’ clue how she’s going to utilize that investment!  And don’t get me started on her parents idiocy, blindly assuming debt in the form of student loans so their daughter can do what exactly?

But I’ll cut her a little slack, a lot of people start their undergraduate education without knowing just what they want to study.  Look at me, I started out as a physical education major and now I’m a biomedical researcher!  What really bugs me are the people who complete their undergraduate education then continue on to graduate school for what are frankly pretty dumb reasons- “I’m interested in such and such”, “Well, since I can’t get a good job with my degree”, “I think it would be cool to study such-and-such”.  Intellectual curiosity and a love of academia are fine and dandy, but considering what school costs, those alone aren’t enough.

How about these reasons?
- You’re on a career trajectory that is going to plateau if you don’t continue your education and you’re pursuing a concrete career goal
- There’s actually a market for the skillset/knowledge that you’re pursuing.  For example, while Harvard is a fine institution of higher education, I’m skeptical that the price tag for a graduate degree in Germanic Languages and Literature is really worth it, unless you’re independently wealthy.
- State licensing mandates a graduate degree (teachers, some therapists, social workers, etc)

When I was pursing my doctorate, I worked in a lab with 3 other students, 2 of whom started the program right after completing their undergraduate degrees and 1 who like me who worked for several years before returning to school (that would be my former office wife Lisa, you remember meeting her, right Emmy?).  Three years after we all graduated, I’m thrilled with how my career is progressing (regardless of 10 weeks away from home!) and Lisa’s grant-writing and publishing record thus far is quite enviable.  Professionally-speaking, our careers are exactly where she and I wanted them to be at this point.

The other two, the two that started the program immediately after completing their undergraduate degrees, aren’t doing as well.  C is on her 2nd post-doc, barely earning a decent wage and floundering along without direction, not sure what she wants to do.  Not a good situation to be in, 4 yrs after earning a Ph.D.  And L has a decent job working for a major sports drink manufacturer in their R&D group, but it’s not what she really wanted, it’s more where she ended up due to our advisers influence, not her desire.

I could cite other examples, but you get the idea.  Work for a few years, find your passion, and THEN figure out if graduate school is what NEED, not just WANT.  Otherwise you could be saddling yourself with a financial burden that will take years to get out from under.

You disagree with me?  That’s what comments are for, lets hear it!

From Surviving the World, one of my favorite daily reads, always something good!