College Is for Suckers

Jared Johnson

Chadd

PHL 202

26 October 2015

College is For Suckers

In today’s society, it seems that the choice to go to college is a no-brainer. For most of my generation, it has been, almost religiously, preached to us that values of college and how necessary a degree is to have any chance of being successful in today’s world. It’s easy to see what provokes this attitude when you go job searching. It is almost impossible to find a decent paying job that doesn’t require at least a bachelor’s degree to even be considered. It’s impossible to be competitive in most job markets today without a college degree. But I think there’s more to college than just acquiring a prerequisite to most jobs. I think college is an opportunity to make lifelong friends and grow into a more aware, critically thinking, member of society. Therefore, I think I should go to Cal Poly Pomona to study Mechanical Engineering not only for the highly acclaimed engineering program, but also the opportunity it gives me to broaden my horizons and my attitudes.

Let’s start with the most obvious motive behind going to college in general and specifically Cal Poly. This is the idea that, if you got to college and graduate with a degree, you will earn more money than if you didn’t attend college at all. In general, high school graduates make ~$28,000 without a college degree. With a college degree, that number increases to ~$51,000 annual salary, independent of any specific degree or major. When looked at in the scale of lifetime earnings, a college graduate will earn almost one million more dollars than their non-college graduate counterparts. These numbers alone would convince a lot of people to pursue a college degree, but when factoring the price and commitment that college is, it might not be so convincing to some people.

Specific to my situation, is the decision by me to pursue mechanical engineering at Cal Poly Pomona. I chose Cal Poly Pomona because I knew I wanted to be an engineer and...