A Letter to the Non-College Bound American Male

Dear Young Man Planning to Skip College:

In the wake of this spring's college decision deadline for America's two and half million prospective university students, I have been thinking about your situation.

I heard someone muse out loud the other day about how a young person could do well to simply lie about having a college degree. While reserving ethical judgment on such an act of treachery, let's consider the practical pros and cons.

Claiming to have attended college is indeed less expensive than actually attending college. Few prospective employers confirm college credentials anyway. And the fact that nearly six in ten American college students today are women indicates that cynicism about college is on the rise among young men.

That is understandable: You could be earning money and gaining fulltime work experience for the next four years. You would also be liberated from student conduct codes, dormitory food, grades, and expectations that you show up to class on time. On your own, you can buy books and read them at your own pace, if you choose to read at all. You can act on your personal preferences for people and study topics.

But here is what you would miss out on.

If you attended an elite research university, you would be asked not to live according to your preferred schedule, your preferred circle of people, or even your preferred topic of study. I hope you would come to see that this is to your benefit. We would prod you to reinvent your preferences, in a way that would make your life bigger than you could have known.

We would help you build a support system that you would need to spend four years outside your comfort zone - regularly being confronted by persons who are not like you, with beliefs and backgrounds unlike yours, capable of testing your own deepest assumptions.

If your goals include, say, starting a business in Massachusetts, I would ask you to consider living for a year in our arts and humanities residential college, so that you could gain the insights that come from being around students and faculty who excel in "right-brain" thinking.

If you're an aspiring artist or performer, I would ask you to spend some time surrounded by the "left-brain" crowd, who have a disciplined, structured approach to their endeavors that could rub off on you in propitious ways.

I'd encourage you to pursue a double major (or at least minor) in a field entirely unlike your own. In a world of flux, you don't need to spread wide and thin; you would gain more inventive insight through a certain mastery of at least two unrelated realms of knowledge.

I'd ask you to attend at least a dozen special events a year in which we feature both ancient and contemporary arts and humanities, to illuminate the most timeless human values. Those timeless values spur dialogues among future philosophers, pharmacists, social workers and scientists - and all of them go away changed.

I'd ask you to perform some original research or works of creativity. That isn't simply to pad your resume, but to help you understand that you are a contributing part of a nation that is the world leader precisely because of its creativity and innovation.

I'd push you to spend a semester or longer abroad, not basking in some favorite vacation destination, but studying in a rising economy -- one that may challenge you culturally yet which will impact your future life and career prospects whether you wish it to or not.

And I would expect you to build lifelong, intense bonds of community with your fellow students and your faculty mentors and your school football team and your favorite causes - because the sorts of affiliations that you create between the ages of 17 and 22 are the template for the manner of community that you will have during your entire life. Life is all about being a part of something bigger than yourself, and a great alumni network is one of the most powerful - and supportive - examples of this.

As a result, I believe you would be as ready as possible for a world of change -a mature adult able to live in a society whose culture, commerce and demography will resemble neither today's world nor our best predictions. You will be better prepared for jobs that do not exist today, ready to capitalize on new possibilities - possibilities that are being created, in all humility, at America's universities.

By skipping college, you could gain a head start on a full-time pursuit of money. By attending college, you may decide that a full-time pursuit of money is not your goal. By skipping college, you can do learning on your own terms. With a basic college education, you will have a better capacity for the sort of lifelong learning that will be your lifeline.

By pretending to have a college degree, you can get past employers' demands for a minimum credential. By attending college, you will see that college is far more than a credential -- and that the person that you can become is more meaningful than the person you may want to pretend to be.

You have been asking yourself, "How can I afford to go to college?" The only reasonable response is, "How could you afford not to?"

And don't worry. The food in dormitory cafeterias is far better than it used to be.

Comments

[wagadog]

Bullshit. All of it.

First, get it through your head Mr. Everybody Works In White Collar Professions.

They DON'T. You ASSume that we won't see through your White Collar False Dichotomy. What are the TWO choices you present young MEN with?

Go to college or lie about it?

Sorry. You lose.

To do proper welding, pipefitting, carpentry and any other number of highly skilled and often rather dangerous TRADES, college IS a complete and total and utter waste of time and money.

Skilled Trades are learned in APPRENTICESHIP programs through TRADE UNIONS.

And, they accept women.

The building trades are one job asshat white collar MANagers like yourself can't ship overseas.

[wagadog]

Oh, and BY THE WAY, C. L. Max Nikias, Union jobs in the skilled trades PAY MORE than MOST of your "requires a college degree" bullshit white collar (or pink collar) KISS THE BOSSES ASS service jobs. The kinds you have to take if all's you've got is a pathetic College of Arts and Leisure Suit BA...as opposed to, say, an engineering degree...where you MIGHT make more than the guys building the roads and bridges and power plants you designed. But often not, and no union either.

So what do you go to college for, to learn that it's OK to be treated like shit on the job? To look down on unionized skilled labor?

Geeze you college boys crack me up.

[Deborah]

You can not default on college debt. It follows you, collecting interest and growing. The jobs are gone, but the debt for that miraculous college degree rolls on. I believe many who are facing retirement will find their social Security checks being withheld to pay of the college debt they incurred 35 years ago.

You can't pay a debt if you don't have a job.

[byrok67]

As a manager, I have hired hundreds. Today's technology allows me, with a few simple clicks on the computer, to obtain anyone's educational experience, criminal history, and anything else relevent to the application process.

People can only get away with lying when an employer fails to do their job properly. If that is the situation, then hiring a liar is the least of that particular company's problems.

[kymera]

Going to college is acknowledging that we do not have all the answers, and learning how to get them. It is finding out that the world is bigger than any of us, and developing the network to bridge the gap. It is participating in the complexity of human diversity and scientific truth, but understanding the simple basic tenets that guide them. If you practice tolerance, personal responsibility and social responsibility, consider yourself educated.

[frankp37]

These schools all have programs to benefit women now, and almost never anything for men. This plainly violates Title 9 but no one ever does anything about it. The assumption is Title 9 is for women even if it doesn't say that anywhere in the law. Of course, this is true for civil rights laws in general. They're all completely biased, as if they were "intended" to rig the system against white men. Even foreign students are treated better then white men. There were several professors from USC at my school and they were the worst of a not very good bunch. Half of them lack basic English skills and the other half have contempt for Americans. They think they have the whole diversity things figured out. Just a few years ago the campus was nearly destroyed in the riots because the locals hate them so much. They should let OJ back on campus and have him clean house!

[LordMoon]

Going to College is not a guarantee of getting a job.

But it is a guarantee of a long period of debt. You will be required to take classes that you don't want to take, with the dubious rationale that they are good for you will of course be required to pay for everything.

And since a degree really doesn't mean much in today's job market, you will be encouraged to attend Graduate school, this will almost certainly mean life long debt.

But don't worry even when your 65 if you haven't paid off your student loans by then, the government will alow your social security to be garnished to repay them.

Our society, wants you to be in debt, in fact it appears to be the most important product of our country, so your debt will grow by leaps and bounds, until the entire focus of your life will be paying your debt to society.

Does that sound like a prison sentence?

In other countries, University Education is Free. Maybe that's because they believe an educated member of society contributes so much both economically and culturally.

We do not feel that way in the USA. We like to take advantage of our vulnerable children in anyway possible.

[KillTheMessenger]

Not to mention that nobody who has not attended college but claims having done so will pass even the first five minutes of a serious job interview. Few people seem to realize that professional employers actually ask the future employee non-trivial questions about their field of study. This is not really about testing their college education but about finding out if the candidate possesses real world experience BEYOND the college degree. I have not been hired by a single employer in my life where the hiring manager did not ask me questions which required more than the knowledge I needed to have to get my masters degree. If I had failed even one of those questions, I would not have been hired on any of the positions I held in my life.

OTOH, if someone manages to pass such an interview without having been to college for real, they can claim to have just passed the probably hardest con man diploma possible. Congrats. Now you can go and join Ocean's 11. Or any political party of your choice.

[January]

The temptation is to be snide, with focus on "elite university" and the formula given us for finishing school students. USC I hear is a roaring party school, but the surprise is to find a dean of academic affairs who avoids teaching students how to study.

So far, the inflation of education costs has been met with student loans and parents who believe such malarky--the ones for whom this article was written. I realize that the business of education puts business ahead of education. It is our times.

But the university's job is to teach students how to become what they already are: students. I know it is not easy. I grant that it requires some sugar coating to make the medicine go down. I realize that you need more students battling to get into your school, because that will allow the school to provide its traditional comforts to faculty and staff.

The lie of higher education is about an automatic connection between lifetime economic benefits and completing educational requirements. The significance of a higher degree has been steadily cheapened. One can hardly turn around without bumping into someone who at least has a college degree if not a PhD.

I say to each bureaucrat in higher education, you are holding down a slot that a million others could fill just as well. It's a pity, since you could really do something, instead. I trust you will accept the burden of guilt as lack of education erodes the US.

[JBS]

Yeah? How ya' gonna' pay for it?

[KillTheMessenger]

Be a German citizen. University used to be free and is rather cheap still. Certainly less than what you will pay for rent and food. Same holds for most other European countries. And you do know that almost half the employees at your national laboratories are not US citizens, right?

[ccwpmarcus]

Get a job and take out a loan. That's what I did. Funding school is not impossible. It just takes a bit more effort and sacrifice than people are willing to give.

[ccwpmarcus]

I find it a bit off that so many people are speaking out against going to college. Sure you can learn anywhere. Sure you can get exposure to a wide variety of experiences and opinions. Most people won't though. Life catches up with you, and getting those experiences get shuffled down the priority list. More than anything, going to college is symbollic of you putting your education and personal growth up there with your life's highest priorities: family, freedom, health.

I could go on and many other examples, most carbon copies of ones given above, but that's a waste of time. What college really gives, I think, is versatility. It instructs you how to learn, how to adapt and how to cope with the unfamiliar. Anybody can learn a skill, and do fine, but the real test is comes when the skill you have is no longer useful. Are you equiped to adapt, to find another career, to cope? Do you have the option to simply stop and go do something else? College gives that option. It lets you pursue nearly anything, in nearly any field. I don't think that anybody could make a convincing argument for those skills losing their usefulness.

[Paw1]

Maybe if your USC tuition were less annually than the typical cost of a brand new Mercedes CLK, this decision would be substantially easier for those males to make.

[OnTheCusp]

Lazy, game-boy playing guys! If the chicks can find a way to get to college, (and they only earn .77 cents to a male dollar) can't these soft dudes do it, too?
If not, why not?
Because they can't even read this article....they are too busy with nintendo, those poor, stupid boys.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

Maybe because those 'chicks' are going deeper into debt than ever to do it.
During the 80's and 90's thousands of American Males went to college and tech schools to prepare for all those information technology jobs.
Where are all those jobs now? Outsourced to Singapore,India,China etc. Maybe they have just decided the whole thing is an expensive con game.

[Paw1]

Get a clue, Cusp. Title IX made sure males had the deck stacked against them when it came to admissions and scholarship cash. Only reason no one's talking about it is because it's politically incorrect to take a position on affirmative action for men.

[akhmed]

The moment you said that college offers a more regimented schedule than regular work, I lost you. I found college an extension of adolescence with occasional classes, and people who were out in the working world prior to college approach it with a greater seriousness and get more out of it, for the most part, than the mass of clueless 18-year-olds who mindlessly waddle in.

[jmpurser]

I would say be sure to get an education but in my experience going to a University was nearly useless in that capacity.

Good luck.

[dadw5boys]

TECHNOLOGOLY IS CHANGING SO FAST A GENERAL DEGREE IS REPLACING THE BACHLORS DEGREE ANYWAYS.

START A BUSINESS YOU DON;T NEED A COLLEGE DEGREE JUST STUDY AND WORK HARD.

[Gingerously]

How can anyone argue with this eloquent statement?

[hopeless277]

Send me a check, pops.