Is College Education a Scam? 

Years ago, I argued with my Libertarian friends about the value of a college education. They saw it as a waste of time and a senseless expenditure of money. They thought this was especially true for anyone that majored in the Liberal Arts, which was my chosen field.

My argument came from my own experience. In studying literature for nearly seven years, I had developed skills that I believed were invaluable to becoming successful in life, regardless of one’s chosen occupation. Analytical thinking, for example, which is necessary for problem solving. And the ability to speak and write effectively, which is necessary for getting one’s ideas accepted in any competitive environment.

I still believe in the value of those skills, and of a Liberal Arts education in general. But back then, a degree from a public college cost less than $10,000 and a private college might have cost five or six times that much.

Today, it is much, much more expensive. And because it is so high compared to the financial benefits it provides, the cost is no longer justifiable.

So, I find myself sympathetic to the charge that a college education has become, for many, a scam.

The Jaw-Dropping Cost

According to US News & World Report, the average tuition for the 2023-2024 school year for a public college is $10,662 for in-state students, with out-of-state tuition averaging $23,630. For private colleges, the average is $42,162. That’s for one year!

The numbers are worse for elite private colleges, which have, on average, exceeded the $90,000 per year threshold. That means a family with three children could expect to shell out more than $1 million by the time their youngest child completes a four-year degree.

Millions of college students are taking out loans to finance all or part of their expenses. Many of those loans come with relatively high interest rates (6.5% to 7%), which makes it increasingly difficult for them to keep up with the payments. Some are simply giving up and declaring personal bankruptcy. Thus, in 2023, bankruptcy filings by young college graduates in the US hit an all-time high. This is happening at a very inconvenient time – just a few years post-graduation, when these young people are trying to begin their careers and their families.

You might argue that the investment in a college degree, however expensive, will eventually “pay off” because college graduates typically earn more than high school graduates. And that’s true. Male college graduates earn, on average, about $500 per week more than male high school graduates, which amounts to about $900,000 over their lifetimes. (The financial advantage of a college education for women is less, just $630,000 over a lifetime, which is largely explained by the fact that men put in, on average, about 30% more hours of work than women do.)

On the face of that, you might think that getting into $200,000 to $500,000 worth of debt is still “worth it” because of the lifetime financial advantage. But the debt figures reported are misleading. They do not include the cost of interest, which, depending on the interest rate and length of the loan, can add another 30% to the total indebtedness.

Furthermore, these are gross numbers. And like the numbers used to demonstrate a pay gap between men and women, the comparison is between the average compensation of all men and all women, without accounting for the fields that men choose to enter as compared to woman, or how many hours men work as compared to women.

When you measure the pay gap correctly – comparing like professions and like hours – you discover that there is no gap at all.

If, instead of comparing the gross numbers, we compare the average compensation of college graduates versus high school graduates with skills – such as the mechanical trades or the dangerous jobs that are predominantly done by men – it’s a different story. Here’s an example: plumbers vs. doctors.

On top of that, some of the world’s biggest companies – including Google, Apple, and Netflix – no longer require a college degree for most new employees. This, according to those businesses, is because so many young people today are able to self-educate the necessary entry skills, and then fill in the gaps after they have been hired.

The College Scam, written by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, makes this argument and many others.

“What is that piece of paper really going to do for you?” Kirk said in an interview with Fox News. “Maybe go to a community college or a tech school, take a gap year, go find a business owner that is in the profession that you might have an interest in and ask for a job, go ask for an unpaid internship.”

“The worst thing you can do,” said Kirk, “is go borrow money ahead of time when you’re not really sure what sort of skill you want to have.”

If you want to learn more about this issue, I’ve listed five links below that make additional points about why a college education, with some exceptions, may very well be overly costly and inappropriate for a large percentage of the American working population.

Click here and here and here and here and here.