Droves of college students will return for the fall semester this month, unpacking aging cars while their parents write checks from shrinking 529 accounts. And they will wonder, Is it worth it? Is it worth the time? The rising costs? The inconvenience?
Nineteen-year-old Dale Stephens would gladly offer his answer. No. He believes that college is a waste of time and money, void of “real-world experience” and unnecessary for the job market, which is the primary motivation for most people to pursue a four-year degree. So he has launched the Internet-based “Uncollege” movement. He says he wants “to change the notion that a college degree is the only path to professional success.” The truth is, he bashes college. Plain and simple.
WeathersTrue, college is extremely expensive, and many courses and assignments can seem unnecessary. But Stephens’ movement is flawed at its very core. His assumption is that a four-year college education is valuable only if it provides a graduate with “professional success.”
If that were the only reason for college, it is still a good reason. College grads earn more than their peers, and keep jobs longer than their peers. But the value of a college education exists not only in the potential earning power it may provide, but in developing the potential in the person as well.
College cultivates discipline, responsibility and determination. But even more, the academic experience is a worldview experience, a marketplace of ideas. College should teach you to think, not only about yourself, but also about your world. College helps you take your “real-world” experience and see it in the grand scheme of human history, to understand why you matter, and why your job is about more than just a paycheck.
Do you really want CEOs with no framework for professional ethics? Scientists who have not been taught to consider the ramifications of their actions? Politicians who have no concept of history? And do we want to churn out the next generation of the Church without giving them the acuity to defend their faith in the Christian market and in a culture full of bad ideas?
Peter wrote, “Prepare your minds for action” (1 Peter 1:13). Rightly taught and wisely used, college is still one of the best places to do just that.