I just want to add: Two years ago, I was a sophomore in college and experienced a crisis of which degree to choose. I wanted to follow my passion (English), but I really wanted a stable income. I was a crying, panicky mess (I don't handle big life decisions well) as I Googled "is college even worth it?" and this video popped up. I was already a big vlogbrothers fan, so I clicked and was instantly comforted by John's in-depth and ever-rushed analysis. I knew what I had to do. Thanks to him, I chose English, and six months out of college, I landed my dream job. Right now, I'm typing this from my office (granted, I'm re-watching this video instead of working, but I pulled it up again for a coworker) where I'm deliriously happy and satisfied with where I'm at. Thanks, John. You and Hank keep up the fantastic work.
The only people who I hear saying "money doesn't matter, do it for the love of learning!!!!" are people who don't actually have to worry about homelessness or poverty. Money doesn't buy happiness only if you're already living comfortably.
Austin Carter Untrue! I'm going NYU. One of the biggest, most accredited university in the US. And I am DROWNING in all the money I owe them. It's nuts. I don't have it WHATSOEVER and I need to take out a ton of loans. And most of the people who go here are in the same boat.
+Felix Umbrella The ones who are smart enough to realize loving to learn is what pulls them out of poverty are the ones who dedicate themselves towards opportunities that arise from going to a university instead of slaving away for years trying to achieve 40k a year. And there are plenty of those students that come from disadvantaged places in top and other good universities.
I love the professors who make it clear that if you are in their class to "get a grade, GPA, Diploma, etc" then you're in the wrong class, but if you'd like to better yourself and your understanding of the world then stick around. This way of thinking about school has actually helped me to get better grades because I am more passionate and interested about what I am learning.
As much as I understand that thinking, I kinda hated those profs because for many of my peers (I live in India), college was a means to an end: almost all of us were there primarily to land good jobs right out of college, and profs who would seek to twist the road from engineering freshman to qualified job interviewee weren't always well received
I'm in my second year of college. I started writing novels in my free time during high school and everyone said that I had incredible potential as an author. with the day in and day out, the stress, the sleep deprivation, and the mental exhaustion I can no longer find solace in creating a story. the only relief I get now is in video games and pacing. I can't help but feel that college life has been the death of my once peer-admired creativity.
Same. My first existential crisis was when I was 6. It happened after I did a finger painting, and wondered whether there truly was more to life than that.
Chris Ramirez Damn, that explains a lot... I'm the youngest person in my department at work and just seeing how excited all the older people get over free food, talking about their kids/grand kids and the new chrysanthemums they just planted in their yard... it just kills me inside to think that's what my life might be reduced to in 10 - 20 years
PayneTheReject I know exactly what you are saying. Everything seems trivial and pointless, and arguably it all is. But, hell. We are already here so we might as well get something out of this coincidental, miserable, and miraculous gift known as life.
try just to relax .. nah that's worse .. what about doing something seriously crazy ?!! like sky diving or traveling to volunteer .. it might open your eyes and see more positives of this life .. as they call it present .. focus on what you have .. not what you're missing.. try it just give it a try .. I don't have an idea about my future image .. I know no one do but I'd always planned for everything and now in college I feel like .. I can't handle it .. the college live .. the tasks the and the and the and the .. I want to travel and make people happy but without having a college education I can educate myself .. I know I can .. I believe me .. I know it's sounds creepy to tell everything .. but I felt comfortable.. 😂😁
As a recent graduate, I couldn't have said this any better. Life is about your experiences and what you learn from them, and college exposed me to diverse ideas and people for which I will always be grateful.
I actually did a paper as a junior in high school on whether college is or isn't worth it. I came to the conclusion that it IS worth it. And I found the best way to go through it is to not go off to university straight out of high school. I stayed home and got a job took a couple classes at the local community college. I was pretty happy. Fast forward 3 years and I'm less than 1 year away from graduating with an associates degree and I'm less than 3 years away from a bachelors degree. College shouldn't be rushed. People tend to forget that college is also a time for kids to grow up.
Starting salary for a Forestry major, $55,000 a year. Doing a career I love for the rest of my life. Priceless. College (mostly) is more about opportunities than it is salary.
College could be worth it if it were actually what it's advertised to be. It's just not, though. College is about working to prove you can work, teaching students to devalue their own work, and getting people to follow instructions mindlessly. That garbage is not useful in the real world. You need to value your work, to be self directed, and most importantly, find ways to accomplish your goals efficiently. The actual subject matter of college is great, the academics are usually fantastic. But the structure, the atmosphere is so counter productive that college becomes detrimental. You have to unlearn how to write after college, because in college you're taught to be as wordy as possible, but in the real word you want to make your point quickly. You have to learn to charge people what you're worth, after being told your work was worth less than nothing for 4+ years. You have to find your own solutions to problems after spending your entire life knowing there's an answer key already made. It's just... ugh. College doesn't prepare you for life, if anything it does the opposite. Which is a damn shame because the academic side of college, the part people actually go to college to access, is still vital. Also, while the pay after college is usually higher than before, it's still not worth it financially. It's in your 20's and 30's that you need money the most. That's the time when you don't know what you're doing. That's the time that you're most likely to make expensive mistakes. So that's the time you can least afford to be in debt. Yes, college will get you more pay in the long run, but college students literally starve in the short run. You can afford to have less pay later in life when you've already figured out how to be frugal and make good financial decisions.
/\ This But college is different for everyone. Depends how your will to become better is. I know people who went to college and succeeded. I know people who didnt need college and succeeded. I also know people who went to college and got lazy(after partying and drinking) working at McDonalds. Life is easy in America(still)
I've been in the computer animation career for over 10 years... most people who are in charge... didn't go or didn't finish college. I didn't go to college and I usually find myself in supervising positions over people who went to college and get paid exactly what I get paid. Heck, I didn't go to college and usually find myself knowing more about things, in my career or otherwise, than my college graduate counterparts. My brother didn't even finish high school and now runs a regional truck dispatch office... My sister and brother in law both went to college and still work as servers at restaurants... College, while an advantage, doesn't mean shit if you don't have it in you. I wager how you were raised at home has more to do with how well you will do in life than anything you can learn in college.
That's not really fair. You're setting it up as only people from stable home environments can become successful, which isn't true, as many people advance through their own strength of will and perseverance.
when did your brother become the head of that regionial dispatch office? the world has changed considerably in the past century and i would argue that a degree is the baseline standard for any job that requires any kind of education, my sister graduated from berkeley and interned at goldman sachs and was offered a position to stay my cousin graduated from a local university (or college which is what you americans call it) and works at morgan stanley as a private banker
I concur. In western Europe, logistics used to be a flagship of sectors where one could start at the bottom rung and rise to management. Nowadays, you'll have a hard time becoming any sort of manager or head of department without a Bachelor's or Master's. Want to become a forwarder/dispatcher/administrative clerk and don't have a degree? You can, but you'll probably have to start as a blue collar worker or low-paid administrative assistent and work for a few years to get more reponsibilities. Note: I'm loosely translating job titles here.
This is really reassuring. I want to go into animation/ screenwriting/ directing and I kept telling my parents that it's not about what degree I get. It's about the skills I have, you know? It's about the work I put in outside of class too.
There's obviously a direct correlation with how much you study and how well you do. I was an average student with a 3.6 GPA through high-school. Until I got into Calculus.. That shit is beautiful, by far the best subject, and teacher I've ever taken. I was in AB first semester but I was compelled to challenge myself even more. I moved to BC second semester and lemme tell you.. I would sleep late and wake up early every single day. The AP test came around and I knew I had gotten a 5 as soon as I walked out of the testing center. A 5 in BC Calculus.. yet i was ranked 105 out of 540 in my class. Point being: do what makes you happy. Don't get sucked in to the bullshit routines and change it up every now and then. I partied the hardest my senior year, but ironically got the best grades that year. Oh, and as far as college goes... lol just look at Bill Gates GG mate I'm out
I was explaining this to my mom just this morning. When you go to college, you're majoring in yourself. So when you're paying for college, you're also paying for your own self-esteem and confidence, understanding of social cues, time-management, skills in things you are passionate about, and general abilities that will help you live your life. This of course does not make the letters from the bank come any less frequently :-(
I enjoy and respect your opinion. I believe that most jobs don't require a college degree. We need better secondary/primary education. And we need to have more respect for trade schools/ community college as a nation.
Damn! John Green's words sooth me like no other. I have all these worries and then bam! John seems to address them directly. I love this man! haha. Such an inspiration.
In a book I am reading right now named: To investigate, research and report, you can find the quote: "If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance." in the first chapter. They don't mean expensive as a economic factor alone, but the time and energy you need to put into it are also factors that make it expensive.
On the flip side, there are a lot of ways to enrich one's life without going to college (and they don't necessarily involve vomit). I've been taking college classes for most of the last 30 years. I was also in the Navy. I've earned most of my money without using my college education, and I've had bad experiences working in office environments. I'm glad I went to school, just because I value knowledge, but I am despondent over my economic misfortune.
I dropped out of community college in my freshman year Nothing interested me , i always wondered why they insisted in giving me a bunch of useless classes that i didnt need why cant they show me the job and period ? I am now looking to a career in truck driving.
kaz9781 i understand exactly what you mean!! i think its those two years that make you want to quit! those two awful years are what made me quit! i hated how it took me two years of useless european history to be able to gain access to my first business education class and when I finally got to it it had nothing to do with how napolean almost conquered europe!
kaz9781 same here :/ through the whole semester all we did was basically read four essays..for what ? I could've read them on my own. That class was not even worth half of what I payed (which was 1,200)
Crisley Leon yeah I had a teacher who was only there to tell us that all we had to do every week was submit and essay and we would get point for turning it in On time! He didn't really care how good your essay was, just it had to be turned in on time because he hated grading papers on different times. He said it was easier for him to read them all at the same time and hand us participation grades plus "critique" our writing for future use.
I know this is completely irrelevant to the video, but this is the first I had noticed of it. When you're on stage, you're told to move around to keep the audience's attention. You do this very well with video cuts where you change position in the camera's view. Just giving a compliment where it's due. You are probably one of the more intelligent minds on youtube(and on publicly accessed internet in general), both in explaining and presenting your information. Great job.
Education has to start actually teaching skills primarily at all levels because information is abundant and root learning is not necessary with the whole internet in your pocket.
I believe this is also dependent on your degree and how well you did and/or your passion. I know a fair bunch of people who forced their way through engineering courses, hating every minute of it, barely graduating and ended up not being an engineer. Because doing what you enjoy certainly shows in performance and employers see that. Bottom line: College is not for everyone; if you're there to learn and you do it well, you'll be fine. If you don't do college, that's fine too. I know many who're well off without college.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to make a middle class salary, YOU NEED TO KNOW PEOPLE. Getting into debt all for a stamped piece of paper is not worth it in todays' economy. It's all about who you surround yourself with and your attitude and ambitions toward something you want.
College is hilarious, let me tell you why: College is what gives you the ways and knowledge to fight life and earn good money. It's also really fucking expensive. And complicated. So to attend college you need to fight life and have good money. Well, shit, if you're already fighting life and have enough money to afford college, what the fuck do you need college for?! --A college student who's been having trouble with his registration this semester (seriously, classes start next week and I'm still struggling to get everything cleared and ready for me to start, then come the overly expensive books).
I just want John to know that I've been watching this weekly for about 6 weeks, since the beginning of the semester. I know the reason I'm in college is so I can be a teacher, which is a job that can't (I think) be attained without a college degree. So I have a purpose. Once I accomplish the degree, the purpose will change slightly to "getting a job real fast so this interest doesn't rack up."
Kendra Brecka jobs such as teachers and nurses and doctors I agree should require a college degree because teachers are litteraly in charge of molding the future generation, but they obtain horrible salary for working with sometimes horrible children.
Thank you for pointing out that the worth of something does not always depend on economic value... I chose a small, private university with a pretty high tuition rate, and am probably going to be paying those loans off for a really long time, but the experience and knowledge gained was priceless. Horizons expanded, friends gained and lost, and a fulfilling (if somewhat low wage) job working with adults with developmental disabilities. Worth it, definitely.
I'm helping my daughter with research for college scholarship essays and I enjoyed the comic relief your video provided while also presenting some valuable subject matter! Great job!
+bad Karma curse you still in college? well if you are, continue with your studies, unless you find them useless to your future, then leave, none is forcing you to study a useless course, not that im saying its useless.
thanks for the advice, today I was really wondering, if materialism will help me go further in life and if my goals towards an intrinsic fulfilled life is idealistic, but your comment reminded me of what is most important.
I find what makes the difference between a good job and a bad job are the people you work with. I had a great time making $5 an hour cleaning up dog poop at the vet in my 20's. My first decade of making much more than that totally sucked, but, now, same job but some people have moved on, pretty nice. On topic: Only $10k left of my student loans left. Graduated in 1996.
Just ask yourself "Do I need to go to college to do what I really want to do it in life?" If the answer is anything but a resounding "yes", just don't go.
For what degree I chose, I comprimised. I knew that pure math wasn't likely to pay the bills, and I also knew that electrical engineering had a lot of math. Now I am studying electrical controls in the first year of my masters. And thankfully, it has a lot of interesting math, and still leaves me employable. It also helps that I am Canadian, so with just 3 years of saving up, some scholarships, and some RESPs, I have been largely debt-free.
ALWAYS GO TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE. At least at first. Community colleges are less expensive, take less time, the course load IS easier, and most state universities will accept transfer credit from a Community College. In almost all cases, it is possible to get the same degree in the same amount of time for way less money if the first two years are done at a community college. A federal Pell grant might be a drop in the bucket for a university student, but it has outright PAID FOR my tuition, books and fees, with some left over. If I were to go on to a university, I would have a loan on two years of school, not four. Less capital that I could pay off faster, less interest. There is also a non-tangible benefit of attending two schools rather than one: culture. I've attended three schools, and the lessons I've learned outside the classroom are at least as valuable as those inside, and they've been different at each school.
+rlrsk8r1 I'd suggest only going to a community college if there's a plan involved. Many students at community colleges don't have a plan and then fall behind their peers.
I'm sitting in front of my computer watching this on the first week of my second semester of college and questioning the truth of everything this man is saying.
I wouldn't worry about it too much, I went to a rather expensive state school here in Illinois. Left me with about 80k in loans, I have no issues paying my monthly loans and still having more cash left over than I would have had if I didn't go to school. Even though our tuition is rather expensive at over 15,000 a year it was worth it. The thing that really pisses me off though is that if I would have lived a mile north (in Wisconsin) I could have almost cut my tuition bill in half due to their lower cost of education.
So... does college lead to more existential fulfillment? What if you go to school too become an MD, and so you do, but you hate it. You'd be happier as a plumber. Then the $$$ might pay-off, but it wasn't "worth it." I think it comes down to "what do you want to do" and does college significantly aid in that task. I think too many people who aren't ready, or who just aren't really wired for "study," go to college. IMHO.
I find university that my first year there (which was about a year ago now since i'm out of money) ended up leaving me with a lot of cynicism. I found that most of the professors had such a different standards of essays/homework/exam that it was hard to tell what a class is really going to expect out of you. I found one english class tried to get to become more active in trying to change our political system, but seeing just how far down the corruption hole goes just left me feeling empty. It was so damn hard to do the essays. For some reason, I couldn't figure out what were good books to do essays on, I could only write for an hour or two before my writing became a bunch of garbage that I later deleted. I couldn't believe what my classmates were willing and able to do what I had so much difficulty with. I grew up very poor, so seeing the huge dents the university took out of my government assistance always left me feeling stressed and upset, during university I became a recluse. I just became a very unhappy person and I didn't even know if what I wanted to study since the subjects I enjoyed (english, literature, and history) weren't jobs I'd want to do. Really, I find now that there's three jobs I'd like to be. A veterinarian/assistant vet who writes and draws in his free time
This is how I feel. Maybe I can't say much because I only went to community college for a year (part-time school and work), but the prospect of gaining a degree and maybe shaving off costs for art school seemed folly. The amount of time I would spend in school trying to bring up grades in subjects I've always had a stressful time trying to simply keep at a C average would all be cutting out time I could be using to improvement my art. I would not turn down the opportunity to go to art school if given the chance, but the idea of spending the tens of thousands required for what amounts to putting yourself into a classroom setting in order to bolster motivation to practice seems, well, not worth it if you already practice and study everyday. Especially when having a nicely done portfolio can land you scholarships, internships, or actual jobs. The degree might show employers you have been able to work with people in a similar job setting (which these schools (hopefully) place you in). You then take priority over those with a nice portfolio but no degree. Is that money really worth a bump up in a que which you may not even have to enter? Especially since the good schools I've heard of seem to be close to $40,000. I guess all I'm trying to say is that it feels like college encumbers me both mentally and physically. I enjoyed a few of the classes I took, but trying to deal with both work and school, while also trying to improve my art outside of the couple art classes I had really breaks my fortitude and will to give a shit about any of it. The reason I continue is because I'm passionate about it and losing that seems like far more detrimental than getting a piece of paper that confirms I am capable of something that employers can see regardless by looking at my portfolio. There's always that part of me that feels as if I'm being short-sighted though. :/
That was me. I should have waited a few more years and given myself more time to really figure out what I wanted to do. But while my family never really said anything one it, some how I still felt like I was pressured to go to college as soon as possible, like the school system made it clear that if you don't go to college right out the door of high school, you are some how a failure. I study more on my own then I ever did independently in college, and I've learned more on my own. College just left me with constant financial battles (which eat up my creativity with worry instead), and crippled my views of my own work. It's really hard for me to see anything I do as being good, even though I know technically on par with people who's work I admire. But I just....can't see that in my own work anymore and that problem didn't appear until I went through college. And I've learned more about being an artist on my own then anything I learned in college. About the one thing I do miss is having project direction. I don't always know what kinds of projects I should do to work on a particular skill.
Zachary Heiner Let's not forget to mention the shitty elitist culture in universities. I was frowned on from day one because I was a college kid as well and transferred over for 2 years. Yeah, students I talked to had this attitude that I cheated the system and did not have the stuff to make it in first year, which is rubbish. my teachers even had this attitude, they would ask why I did not get in my first year, which i did not even apply to do. Weird that all these people act like they are so ahead of the curve in comparison to me, yet I keep to myself and little do they know that I am a Deans List student with a 3.8 GPA in my 4th year ready to graduate. Yup, I like school, but the environment could do better with more passion and idea innovation than all this social status seeking i see. Quite a bit of ignorance, but never feel lesser because of not going to university.
Couldn't agree with this video more. I watched this back when I was still deciding whether or not to go to school, and after graduating with my bachelor's degree (and then another round in a one year course for event management, which hasn't panned out yet due to a certain global pandemic), I couldn't have previously imagined the context and critical thinking skills post-secondary education has granted me.
I think the problem with U.S. university is not so much the cost, but that most of them are in the middle of nowhere. This forces students who are spending 10-15k a year on tuition while studying 40+ hrs a week to somehow move out of their parents homes and support themselves at the same time. My education would have been close to 60k, but due to having to take out loans to pay for rent I'm closer to 100k.
"Everyone needs to go to college" is the biggest hoax of all time. Kids are going to college to get a 100k degree to get out and make 40-50K a year as opposed to a guy who goes to a 2-year trade school, a degree that costs 15K, gets out and makes the SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY being an electrician or a plumber.
You're the one of the most gifted and brilliant persons I know. I became interested with you when I have seen the trailer of Fault in our Stars.I found out that you're the author. Now I found myself watching all your life-changing videos and I can't wait to read all your books. Thank you so much. Thank you so much
Hank, I'm currently a mechanical engineering student, and i've been very ill most of spring semester, I've had 2 surgical operations and four courses of very strong medications that have been making me feel even worse. Today, I thought to myself: I can't do this anymore. I've lost all drive for engineering, but this video reassured me: everything is going to be ok. And, you're right, life isn't solely about economic fulfillment, its about enjoying what you do as well.
Why the hell would you spend 30k a year on a state university? I understand why government funded universities are often seen as bad for government budgets, but I think the UK has a happy medium. The cap in the UK is 9k a year, no matter how good the uni or expensive the course is to run. Oxford, a law degree, doesn't matter. Medical school, however, is the one outlier: it can cost up to 100k a YEAR per student (it works out about 250k total), but this is a) subsidised by the NHS who then get to choose what they pay the doctors and thus make up for it with lower doctors wages and b) this is pretty much the only course in which this happens. Med students still only pay 9k/year. Also, you don't have to worry about the risk of choosing a non-STEM degree (much) because you don't have to start paying it back until you earn £21k/year, and even then the instalments start off tiny. It's only those who earn decent amounts who actually have to pay back their student loans.
+Zoe Adams As a college student from the USA, we spend 30k a year on college because that is our choice. Many of the colleges have different courses that they specialize in and if you want something you actually enjoy, you go to the college that does it well and suck it up. Many people agree with you that college in the US is bonkers and should totally be reevaluated, hence the reason that Bernie Sanders is so popular among college students.
If you are going to college, just be smart about your major. Spending 150k+ on an Art History degree from a private institution maybe isn't the best idea.
Hey, John, great video. I find myself contemplating this question all the time. I will be a long time paying off my loans. I ended up getting a job that has nothing to do with my degree but I have a passion for it and cannot imagine doing anything else at this stage in my life. I spent a lot of money, and am still paying back a lot of money for school. But what I learned about society, people, and life is where I noticed the true wealth of university. That being said, I believe post-secondary education is becoming a lot less about education and more about schools making money while just putting people through.
Highschool > Military > College > Debt Free. Booyah! I suppose you can supplement military with scholarships. But seriously, even if you get a free ride through school by becoming a football player it still doesn't compare to gaining work experience which can be equally as valuable to a degree for higher level positions(you often times need both) but you get paid through the GI bill as you go to school and can take advantage of the basic grants offered by the fed and your state. Of course military isn't for everyone and can be rather difficult for many especially the physically unfit or undisciplined.
Aside from the debate about the actual monetary cost of a college education, I know that I have come through my college years learning more about the world and the different subjects and being a more educated and informed citizen, which I think is also very valuable. We don't have enough educated and (i want to say scientifically because I'm in the science field) literate people, and college really opens the doors to having a good general understanding of how things work, and I think leads to generally more well informed and rational people. But going back to the money. Yeah, it's brutal!
I'm honestly considering about dropping out of college; so far, it's nothing but bullshit: "Okay class, make a 800-1000 word paper about a time you failed. Alright class, respond to two peoples' discussion post(s). Make sure to have 250 words. Be thoughtful. Don't say I agree or I disagree, explain yourself. Alright class, read this case study. Support your thesis and give your reasoning(s). Cite your sources. Use APA format." I could go on, but I think you get my point; who the actual fuck would use this as a life skill? When will I ever need to use APA format? What valuable information do I gain when writing a 800-1000 word essay? I can answer my own question: No one; never; nothing. Throughout high school I've always gotten good grades; "A"s and "B"s all the way. I ended up with a 3.5 GPA. I felt Highschool, for me personally, is something everyone should do, as it is still part of the K-12 schooling (Kindergarten to 12th Grade). After that, my parents (just like many others) pushed college. I absolutely hate that society has developed this notion of thinking. It's 2016 for god's sake. People make a living off RUclips. People own their own business(es) without a college degree. People can make computer programs without going to college. You get the point. My grandpa only had up to a 10th grade education; that's it. He was working for my state's police department and fixed cars on the side. He never had any debt. I absolutely love that about him; he was self motivated and independent. Overall, I feel college is a waste of time and money. If you want to be a doctor/scientist, then yes, you will need college. Other than that, college is practically pointless for any other degree; graphic design, programming, business, animation, video production, you name it. You rack up debt for a few years or more, then hope you get a good high paying job to pay for all the money you owe to the government. *Side Story* This one kid in high school always bothered the shit out of me; he always thought he was better than everyone else. Always got an "A" in every class, college driven, and always ate my fucking food at the lunch table. Well, let me tell you what man: While you're drowning in debt, once you get out of college, I will have paid off a $250,000 house as well own a $100,000 Tesla. Oh, and I won't owe the government a penny for any of it. If you guys want to be successful, get a job as soon as you get out of High School or are in High School. In the mean time, think about you. Think about your passions, motives, and values in life. Get a side business going. Teach yourself programming, graphic design, whatever it may be, online! There are a LOT of great resources online nowadays. The most I've paid is $25 and that's for Lynda.com. To be honest, I've learned more on Lynda than I have in college, and I'm in my second semester of my freshman year. TL;DR : Success does not mean taking the "college" route.
+Landon Hughes i regretted high school a lot because of that, im not saying i was one of the smartest students in school, but i focused everything in order to gain entrance to university. i ignored everyone around me, including my friends, i only ask them about school work or/and exams. which probably why i feel lonely, few wanted me to get a girls number but thats irrelevant to this subject. once i gained that entrance, i didnt know what to study, i was in a buisness course around that time. up until the census date, i dropped out, (before gov paid the semester), and decided to take a break for awhile. i had a lot of thought about it, and i found buisness wasnt ready for me and i wasnt ready for it. i wanted to study accounting in the buisness school and from the way i was headed, it wasnt the right direction. getting B's, C's and D's was terrible, but thanks for your story, i found it interesting and it reflected a bit on my life :)
I am in high school and I was really stressing college expenses and I saw this and this has soothed me more than any teacher or parent ever has about expenses. Thank you so much, John.
Well John, perhaps in the US there is (or was) a salary difference between ordinary and qualified jobs, but in many countries there isn't much difference. For instance, in my country, a graduate will earn around 1000 euros in a qualified job, pretty much the same salary he/she'd get in a regular job. Yep, sure, he/she can always get promoted or work somewhere else with a better pay, but the point is that college education in itself doesn't mean much. What's important is what you do with that education afterwards. For instance, I used to work with young engineers a few years ago, this was the most usual conversation topic during lunchtime. They were always complaining about how unfair it was to end up earning just 1000 euros after having finished an engineering degree (which is very hard). Their idea was to graduate and then "live the easy life", to extend their hands and get loads of cash or something like that. They didn't seem to realize that for that to happen, they would have to be smart and create that value somehow. You are a clear example of what must be done, John. Most history graduates in my country get stuck with 1000 euro jobs, why? Because most of them don't try to do stuff on their own, it seems like they always expect for the money to come from their boss, instead of looking for ways to earn it themselves. You graduated, but unlike them, you became a writer, you started CrashCourse, you did stuff on your own, most importantly, it was good stuff, and you knew it. That's my point, an education doesn't mean much by itself, it's what you do with it that really matters.
Tell that to my friends that graduated and can't find a job and are now in debt and working at a coffee shop. And yes they graduated from an accredited college (Kansas State University)
College is absolutely worth it. Doesn't matter if you major in a STEM major or a liberal arts major. You know why? Because there's a lingering student loan bubble. And it's HUGE. It's approaching a size that's larger than the mortgage bubble in '08.. There's no way that all of these kids who are getting degrees with huge amount of debt over their heads will realistically be able to pay off these loans (similar to how a bunch of home owners were not able to pay the mortgages they contractually agreed to prior to the mortgage crisis). The debt may be forgiven, especially considering that a majority of student loans are made by government agencies or private companies that are closely tied to the federal government. Get your education while you can. If worst comes to worst, you simply pay off your student loan for the rest of your life in minimum payments until the loan is called off (I think 25 years or so)? Not a big deal.
So... basically you're saying you should definitely go into debt, even for a COMPLETELY WORTHLESS DEGREE LIKE LIBERAL ARTS, off of nothing but the assumption that the US government will forgive you for voluntarily giving away tens of thousands of dollars that never belonged to you in the first place? And of course, if that never happens, the worst case scenario is nothing more than paying off your student loans for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? Is this some sort of joke? Not a big deal? Umm... I don't know what planet you come from, but being in debt for your entire life is kind of a big deal.
***** TLDR: Nope. Still useless. At the end of the day, college is an investment. The fact that they're still selling people an "education" in shit like African American History, art history, philosophy, music therapy, dance, English Literature (in a fucking English speaking country, like, what the fuck?), and even religion and women's studies is fucking absurd. You wanna learn that shit? Go to the library and read a book. The reason why it's useless is because it's something that you shouldn't need to waste 4 years of your life on. Here's the way I see it: if you're only going to college to get a degree, not learn anything, party your way through, and get some sort of credential at the end, don't even go. College is for an education. If you want to learn something that you can learn on your own, on your own time, for free or relatively cheap, going to college is a WASTE OF TIME. Things like entrepreneurship (which we need a lot more of), programming, consulting, investing, and tons of other things people go to college for really aren't necessary. And any of the "jobs" (that probably don't even exist out there) for the people that majored in that BS are probably given to the following people: A) People with connections. B) Hot women (let's be honest). Face it. The real world values doctors, engineers, scientists, programmers, technicians, and people with real skills like plumbing or electrician or something, because those are things in society that we NEED to function, and things that people value and are willing to pay top dollar for (of course that's not all but you get the picture). You know why teachers get paid so little? Because they have an easy as fuck job with 4 months a year of vacation time off. The reason is simply that the highest paying REAL jobs are the ones that A: nobody REALLY wants to do, and B: actually require a SKILL. If you go into college to study "dance" or "music therapy" or "art history" you're a moron and you wasted your money. Not even saying this to offend, but it's the truth. Now, if you're rich or something, and you already have a job lined up for you, or mommy and daddy are paying for your schooling, and you genuinely just want to take a class in those things, I have no problem with that (even though college is basically just highschool 2.0, I don't know why anybody would want to have to sit through a class and take tests when you can go out and learn something yourself). But if you're expecting a job at the end of that you're insane, unless you make one for yourself.
Crumbusto I just wanna get this straight ... you do realize that every single day, adult human beings receive money to dance, to help hurting people using music therapy, to enrich our culture by curating museums and writing books and preserving historical sites, and indeed to use every one of those "shit" degrees you mentioned? Like. I have a BS in engineering here, okay, and I will never look down on someone who doesn't get a "hard" degree, because the number of jobs (without which our civilization would become a dull gray dytopian monotony) in the "soft" areas of study you mentioned is significantly larger than you seem to believe. In fact, my chances of getting a job after I finish a master's in archaeological conservation are way higher than my current options with my BS. Also, kindly revise your opinion of teaching, because as a substitute teacher, I'd like to see you live my life for one WEEK and then tell me it's "easy as fuck." SUBSTITUTE TEACHING is a hell job, and it's so much less involved than being a full-time teacher. Teachers are underpaid because jackasses like you interpret a profession that's dominated by women as "easy."
Mari Hagemeyer Oh god. I thought this thread was done. I'm not gonna bother going into detail. I'll just spit some blurbs. I mistakenly wrote music therapy, I meant something else. You don't need a degree to be a dancer, musician, artist, writer, or any of those types of professions. You also give no examples of what you're even talking about other than the museum thing which is one exception (and a very small one at that). I HIGHLY doubt that (unless you went into a stupid field of engineering or you're just dumb), plus you're comparing a masters to a bachelor's which doesn't even make any sense. Also I find nothing hard about going into a classroom, sitting down, checking an email, handing out assignments and explaining what to do with them, answering questions about something that is easily remembered that anyone can learn, and grading papers, all coupled with 2 to 3 months of vacation time a year plus the fact that you basically don't really even have to think very hard. Don't even try to play the "women" card here. I could go into that into an entirely different discussion, but I'm not going to. Please, try to explain to me the hell that is... SUBSTITUTE TEACHING
lol at everyone saying the only way to make money out of college is by ONLY majoring in STEM but the harsh reality is that companies will start giving those jobs to people outside the US because they want cheap labor. who's to say they aren't doing it now? Most of the people that i know who are successful are either one of the 3 or all of these 3 things: lucky, hardworking, or really cheap. so just save up dudes!
STEM ain't a free ride to success and yes the big companies do want the cheapest labor not necessarily the best when it works out for them.. only watch this is if you want to be mad.. ruclips.net/video/TCbFEgFajGU/видео.html
If you are wealthy, have money, go to the best college that you can and pursue a career with livable wages.. If you do not have money and want to go to college. Do not take student loans if you can avoid it, or you will like be a prisoner of the loans while working at Taco Bell. Once you graduate, you will find out that your hard work and investment allowed for excellent personal development. Or, the chances are that you will find out that having a college degree barely, if any, gives you an edge on the specific job market than having a high school diploma without the 50 k in student loans, at a 8% interest. You may be confronted with a situation where a part-time worker with less experience and training and less education than you gets 40 k bump in pay, while she worked not as long or hard than you, just because she has long hair and a nice rear view. College is not what it used to stand for.
on the last day of high school, my math teacher had us all watch a couple videos he liked. two were about how student loan debits can take over ones life, and another was ripping on current day college kids and how we were not prepared for the "real world" and we had time left and the teacher asked if we had any college videos we wanted to watch. so i had the class watch this video and 3 separate people came up to me and thanked me for showing this video saying that it made then feel much better about life in general.
Sure, you aren't related to me through a bloodline Mr. John Green but you have shared enough wisdom/advice in under 7 minutes than I have received from genetic family in the past 16 years, 5 months, and 28 days that I have lived. Thank you and Insta-sub.
Yeah. College is "worth it" all right.It's totally worth being labeled as OVER-QUALIFIED in every single job out there. It's totally worth getting evicted because you can't get a job at Target because a degree implies that you won't stay FOREVER. It's totally worth never knowing when your next meal will be. Totally worth not able to get a job scrubbing toilets just so you can at least put a cheap burger in your stomach. So worth knowing that jobs are in fact plentiful, but nobody hires qualified people anymore. So worth it knowing now that in America of all places, "bettering" yourself is a gigantic taboo. If you really think college is "worth it", you have never, ever struggled. Period. And don't even get me started on the student loans that many colleges FORCE their students into signing for. Don't get me started on the fact that most students DO NOT WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE BUT ARE FORCED TO BECAUSE OF ABUSIVE DRACONIAN PARENTS. Oh wait. This guy looks like he's in his 30s, meaning he likely attended college in the 90s/early 2000s, back when college was still RELEVANT. So ... he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about ... Generation X-er's have not struggled with the current anti-collegiate business world.
I'm sorry for my lack of understanding, but why would someone who graduated college by applying to Target? I do not believe college is to blame in such an example. Also, there's nothing saying you can't leave the states. Though I only have anecdotal evidence, I hear that US-educated people are in high demand elsewhere in the world.
Jon K If someone professes college to be worth it, they have never struggled. If it was worth it for them, then they were able to work an illegally unpaid internship, the only way in which to achieve an actual career today.
Bryan Berry You have to start somewhere man. If you go to college today, you need a job that pays you at the bare minimum $12.50 an hour. So at roughly $2,000 a month, you can pay your rent, pay your bills, buy food, spend money on recreation, AND still put some money away. Today though, "college-related' companies do not hire entry level; they hire program directors, want 7 years+ of "work experience", and absolutely DO NOT want you to be college educated UNLESS you can afford an unpaid internship within that company; otherwise you are labeled as OVER-QUALIFIED. So, your only option is to work SEVERAL low-paying jobs at 80-100+ hours a week to try to save to afford to work an unpaid internship at a company. Such as Target. BUT these smaller jobs, especially the small businesses every politician cries about, will not hire you out of fear of losing you to something better "soon". They expect that a graduate will find a "real" job and leave. Thus you're a great "risk". A degree makes you LESS hirable today than ever.
***** Ok smart mouth. For one, I used Target as an example. But I have been rejected time and time again BECAUSE of my "education" that I was forced into. Wells Fargo literally said I was "too smart" to work there. My Wal-mart interview consisted of a 45 minute diatribe trying to convince them I will never find anything better. I've been rejected from video stores, from movie theatres, from gas stations - ALL because I have two degrees. I'm not even going to address your ignorant question about what my majors were. It's an irrelevant red herring and you know it when you consider that 80-85% of graduates NEVER enter their field of study. It makes absolutely no difference what you studied. Period. The so-called "college-related jobs" I cannot afford, because each one exclusively hires within their internship pools, at a rate of about 90%. Congratulations if you're rich enough to work for at least 3 months or so full time for free! If you're not, the only way to get ahead is to apply for SEVERAL low-tier jobs, such as Target, so that you can save up a bit of a cushion so that you then can illegally work for a period of time without pay. This is all common knowledge, and you're a moron if you disagree. But then there's your fantastic solution! My, my.Why didn't I think of that? Just leave college off my applications? Hmmm ... THEY DO BACKGROUND CHECKS FOOL!!! IT SHOWS UP ANYWAY!!! I did exactly what you pompously suggested for my current job at a gas station, and was grilled about it. The only reason I got the job was because my sister was a respected employee there back-in-the-day. But whatever. You're going to keep on pretending that you know things. But you don't.
***** Ummm, yeah forced. It's this crazy little phenomenon when your baby boomer of a parent threatens to kick you out and throw you out on the street, as a minor, if you do not cater to their every wish. Like go to college. Most students do not go to school of their own volition, but are forced to follow the wishes of their parents. You're the one that's full of it.
darkheart1721 It's not completely free ($98 per test), but yes, much cheaper than normal college classes. You also don't normally "drastically reduce" your debt, since you'll probably get out of one year at most of college. AP tests are a great thing but they're not some sort of magical solution to all your debt.
panynja At most schools they are free. The district or the state pay the fees unless you're absent the day of the AP exam. I know that every AP class I took was beyond worth it because I'm entering college this fall with almost 50 hours in credit. I'll go in as a freshman but by my second semester I'll have junior standing. That's a year of college I don't have to pay for. :)
I am so glad you made a video about this! I am fortunate and my parents instilled this idea in me since I was a kid. People make fun of my dad because he got his masters degree in Philosophy and instead of going on teaching became a stay at home dad while my mother was the bread winner (side note only reason I am around is cause my mom and dad met in a graduate level logic class!). Anyway, I think this is a really important issue to cover that many people don't so it's great that an influential blog like yours does!
In Sweden a teacher with a Gymnasium-level of education earns about 5-15% more than a person working in a store with no education what so ever. So we have a different dilemma here because while College/University education is free in Sweden, some professions that require 3-6 years of education earns minimal increases had they taken a job as a cleaner.
As it should be friend. :) The decision of what to do with the rest of your life shouldn't come down to "what will make me the most money?" it should be "what will bring myself and others the most happiness?" or am I just a deluded, foolish young girl with whimsical, unrealistic dreams for humanity as a whole? well w/e idc im still holding hope for something better...it can't stay like this forever right? ....Right?? D:
Bloodstainer But STX/Gymnasium is just a "ungdomsuddannelse". Its not higher education. I don't think you earn more or less with that if you dont continue education since it doesn't qualify you for anything except further education.
Harry McCusker Yes but you can start cleaning when you're 15 basically, you need 5 years of education to start teaching no matter what level of education. That's 5 years of education extra for about 30 000 sek per month when cleaning will give you about 19000-26000 per month
University costs £9,000 ($16,000) everywhere in the UK. It's only £3,000 in Northern Ireland, and you get it for free if your parents are below the poverty line.
Actually universities charge £1820 for EU citizens in Scotland, which the government will pay anyway. On top of this, you get up to £750/month through a bursary and a loan with negligible interest. I'm effectively paid to go to university, which is good because my family couldn't afford it otherwise.
Yeah, exactly, free education is seen as a long-term investment. Educating the population means that they can get better jobs ad pay more taxes, funding the state and providing a new generation with free education, health, social security, etcetera.
Makes me want to go back to Ireland, but no idea how much education costs there (Republic, not Northern). Won't happen in America since people hate the 'evil' socialism, but get a raging boner for the war machine, where lots of the US budget goes to. I wish America would just slice the War Department (Yeah, war department, since America hasn't fought a defensive war since before they changed the name to department of 'defence'). Oh well, I digressed into a mini rant, I just feel strongly about it, that's all.
Cal Dempsey Yup, my parents pay about €1800-€1900 a year to let me get my civil engineering degree. Scholarship (which is just a gift to every student who gets a degree within 15 years, otherwise it's a loan) is determined by you living at home or in dorms and by your parent's income. I got the minimum because I live at home and my parents make enough. But it's still €100,- a month. I'm happy with it and won't have any debts when I get my degree. Unfortunately, people who's parents can't afford to pay the €1800 a year for their kids will have to borrow the money. But it's got a very low interrest rate so it's not too bad. I was supposed to graduate this year but it's not gone too smoothly. Have to spend another half year (for which we'll indeed pay half the usual amount of money). Oh and every student gets free public transportation during either the week or on the weekends. Feels good not having a debt at the end.
As someone who graduated high school last summer and has just passed the midpoint in what I've been calling a gap year, I have recently decided that for me, at this point in my life and taking into consideration the things I want to do and be, college is not and would not be worth it. If, at some point in my life, I change my mind, I can go back and get a formal education but the things I want to do do not require a degree (I'm considering myself a seamstress at the moment). There are experiences I want to get and things I want to do with my life NOW that I would not be able to do while attending college. Next February, I'm going on a 12-day trip to Japan with a group of amazing people and will get to see and do things I could only dream of if I went to college and then spent the next 10-20 years paying off my student loans. Either this fall/winter (September-December 2015) or next winter (2016), I plan to spend as much time as possible working abroad in New Zealand. At this point, college would only be in the way of my dreams, both short-term and long-term.
There are people who graduate from university studying something that is promised to have a high chance to get hired but never get a job. With the way our economy is these days, I really don't know if it's worth it cause there are tons of college graduates who weren't able to get a job after graduating no matter how high their grades were. I think the only reason I'm in college is because I'm in a program that is paying that $10,000 a year in tuition for me. (one of the benefits of having a disability.....). Who knows? I might be one of the lucky ones to get a job, don't know though.
One thing I will never regret about going to college, despite my lack of use of my degree in my current job, is the opportunities to learn, and grow. I learned things from amazing professors, and more about myself. And a lot of that caused me to grow as a person, and help myself come out of my shell from who I was in high school. I wasn't at all the person I am now.
I ended up droping out of university (which I enrolled in to learn to program) because it was costing me a lot and in the end I learned more from getting actually experience. I found it poorly paced, instructors very hit or miss and generally didn't learn very much so yeah I'd say it's not worth it.
Be who you want to be. Don't give a damn about what others think. Just move forward. Yes, go to college if it gets you to destination dream job. Even if you think you are not competent for a certain degree then give it a go and see what you can accomplish...despite the student loan people chasing you. lol
I'm only months away from ending junior year of high school and I'm honestly considering not attending college. My family doesn't have the income to support me even though my grades are pretty good. I also have no idea what I want to do. I'm afraid of being shamed because I'm in a co-ed advisory where college is a huge focus and I don't want to disappoint my advisors: 2 amazing people who have supported me. My family also pushes to go but it still makes no sense why a guy like me should go when he doesn't know what he wants to do. We get spoonfed telling us we have to go to college to succeed but I feel like the drawbacks cant be handled by me or my family. I'm afraid to tell them how I feel. My family has a bad history with college so they are rooting for me to attend 4 years. I'm not sure how they'll react.
I'd appreciate it if John recorded an update on his college perspective now, eight years later. I think we need to provide other opportunities for our young people. Too many college graduates can't find employment, and they are saddled with unbelievable student loan debt.
Im in the second semester of my first year at uni and still wondering if i should have taken history over geology despite job opportunities in history are narrow (except for the fact I can pretend to be John Green from crash course world History :)
Gufberg Are you in the UK? If so, how different is history at uni different from A-level in terms of enjoyment, relevant information, work load and overall experience of everything. Also is university of Kent any good?? Thanks! :)
***** Since i'm an Archaeology student (a very related field) i cant give you info from personal experience. I do, however, talk with a lot of the History students at my university. (I'm danish, not from the UK) In Denmark a lot of ambitious History students go to the University of York, Durham or Cambridge due to the excellent Medieval and Ancient History programmes in the UK. A few Archaeology students also do an MA or PH.D at York due to the excellent Ph.d opportunities there. How is History different from A-level? I'm not entirely certain unfortunately. I mean, i think i have a pretty good idea but since i'm not a History student i don't want to give you the wrong impression. I really advice to write a Professor at a university you're interested in or the resident student councillor. They're perfect for questions like that and Professors are very enthusiastic about helping up and coming students. I suspect the work load is pretty sizeable though. My field of study is basically a 37h a week job and we're told how UK universities have a more disciplined work ethic than ours, so ... yeah.
The problem is that not every person can work a job where they can "maximize fulfillment". That's what we all aspire towards, but at the end of the day someone is still needed to clean the vomit out of that urinal. Education is ultimately for people to obtain skills in order to perform tasks that benefit society. If you're skilled or smart enough to obtain fulfillment at the same time, kudos to you. But it's not going to be obtainable for everybody.
You over look one important factor in the value of a college education. You learn the skills to retrain yourself over over again. The skill set that is useful when you graduate has a half life of about 5 years. So life is a constant experience of reinventing yourself. Add to that the things in life we want to learn for the simply joy of it and college is a bargin.
Luan Cardoso The future, when you grow up, later on you'll understand. Why are we always healed to a standard of not fulfilled until we fulfill our future? Lets live in the now, if you aren't happy, change your life. There is no point in waiting for tomorrow to be a better day when you have all of today to live.
Pele warnock Except when working hard now and being unhappy temporarily will lead to a substantially more fulfilling future than there would otherwise have been. The future is one of the most important things to think about because if you ignore it you might end up making yourself absolutely and totally miserable.
This is a really common myth. You can get jobs in all kinds of sectors with degrees from the Humanities. I'm studying archaeology. Thats a one-way ticket into field archaeology/the museum sector. Most people today only ever consider computer science, physics or engineering as career opportunities. They're just being too narrow minded.
Sammich makers, MOST of them end up making sammiches. Making sammiches and not paying back their student loans. Making sammiches while blaming everyone else for having to make sammiches for a living. It's a noble profession--to make sammiches. They shouldn't be ashamed.
Shoey Not in Denmark which is where i'm from. The nordic countries still bothers to fund their cultural sector + we are significantly better paid than our american equivalents.
Yes. European archologists have an easier time finding employment because, well, Europe actually has a rich history. There's a lot more interesting artefacts to be found digging in Denmark than in say, Oklahoma.
At this poing, you just made me glad to have been born in Greece. I can't even concieve having to deal with paying for Univercity, or for textbooks, or pretty much anything when it comes to Education, apart from tutoring, since Univercities have a competition each year to get the best student from all of Greece, Cyprus, and soon some other EU states, and since it's a test, people pay some-times up to 20€ per hour to tutors for preparation, anyway, nothing is perfect. On the other hand it's funny how this is considered a major injustice in Greece's education system, while in the US the Univercities just slam the dor at your face if you don't have money, or can't get a loan... Democracy at work, anyway, my point being; What if we were like the US? What if when my mother lost her job because of the crisis, my family would still have to pay for univercity and I couldn't have acess to universal health care? I would probably abandon my studies in computer science, find a random job, and be unproductive and sad for the rest of my life! And to avoid all this you get chained by a loan for the rest of your life? What if you loose your job then, what happens? Is this how America treats its citizens? Oh and also; Socialism != Communism Capitalism != Democracy
In today's world a college degree is worthless. The only thing kids get from college is a drug habit. It's basically parent's paying a shit load of money so their kid can get laid, do lot's of drug's and party hard for a few year's. I'm not saying that's a bad thing just don't think it makes any difference in anything. In the real world a college degree is meaningless. It might of meant something 20 years ago but today it's pointless. I know many people that make over 150,000 a year and they never finished high school. College is a scam but if you have rich parents and time to waste by all means party on.
I doubt you're an expert on the subject of what college really is because you obviously either didn't go (or more likely, have not yet gone) to college. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself that it was (or will be) worth it not going? Or your parents who are trying to make you go (because there is a good chance you're actually only 14)? Did you even watch the video?
As a counter point: I went to college, I didn't pick up a drug habit, I didn't get laid (though I did meet my future wife), and the classes I took not only helped me figure out what I wanted to do as a career, it made that career possible. And that is not even to mention the lifelong friendships I developed, the personal and intellectual growth I went through, and the invaluable experiences I had during those years. Are there people who never got a degree who are successful? Definitely. Are there people who did get a degree that they never used? Of course. That doesn't mean that on average a college degree is meaningless.
i am able to live in stl, mo, usa on about $650 a month, or about $150 a week. That includes rent, utilities, car insurance, two student loan payments, healthcare, gas. my car is paid off. if you are single, just squat somewhere, be alive. resist wage slavery
College is way overrated, overpriced and often not worth it. Consider the absurd cost of attending, the lost opportunity cost of investing in IRAs, 401ks, much delay in marriage, buying houses and cars, not even having children and 4 years of lost wages. College also delays young people from maturing, wasting away in the college life of drinking, sex and drugs. Colleges need to simply charge less for their educations, stop ripping off students for many courses in liberal arts that lead to nothing more than wasted time and money. Why not have high schoolers go to college for only two years and just get the skills they need for work and do it online from home.
How did you miss the most important issue? The real issue you failed to address here is how you'll be paying for it. After you graduate and your grace period ends, if you raked up as much debt as he's talking about, you might end up paying a monthly bill of anywhere from 1500-4K. And chances are you won't be making a lot of money when you get out, so you might end up living with your parents for a couple of years and you might be saving very, very little money. This can make life suck hard. Today, there are a lot of millennial bachelor grads who won't be able to have a decent bank account or a place of their own until they're 30. These were things their parents had pretty much right after they graduated. And by 30 they were getting married and buying homes. Since then, college tution has increased by at least 400%. This would be ok, if the dollar went up tremendously also, but it didn't. The state of things has ended up putting independence and maturity for an entire generation on hiatus. So is college still worth it now? I agree that you should go to become a better and more informed observer of the universe..............but... Can't you become that without going to college? You have the internet and pretty much every book on the planet available to you. You can attend free lectures and even seek out mentors if you try. Think of how much knowledge you have access to. Do you think that if you applied yourself you could use it to become the informed observer of the universe you aspire to be? Don't you think you could learn the things you want to learn for next to nothing if you just tried? I think if you tried really hard and put your all into self-disciplining yourself and made the most out of every advantage around you; you would be a far more informed, incisive and worldly individual then 99% of college grads. Or do you think you'd need college to spoon feed you into a better human being? The sad thing is, is that usually when you rely on college to spoon feed you, they're usually pretty bad at holding the spoon. Almost every college course spends roughly 4-6 months teaching you something that you could've mastered by yourself in 1 month. Now doctors, lawyers and other "serious" professions, definitely need certain professors to train them hands on and they need long 4-6 month courses because they have a lot to cover and need every bit of the time. But besides those few, 90% of college degrees are unnecessary programs that waste time and usually still don't end up covering everything you need to know. For most of the things they offer to teach, college does a terrible job at doing so. But colleges don't care that they're bad at educating because they know that knowledge is really not why most people go to college anyway. They go for two reasons. 1. To get a degree that will allow you into a profession in which you absolutely, positively need a degree to get in. These are the 10% of people who actually need to go to college. 2. To fit into society and not feel like a loser. 90% of people go to college to fit in. You go so society can look at you and not write you off as an uneducated idiot or a failure. Even if you've educated yourself on so many things and you have a good job as a manager of wherever, as long as you're not in college, to most of society it won't matter what you've accomplished or what you've learned. You'd still be lower in their eyes than a fresh faced freshman majoring in communications. You also go to college to make smarter friends, to get laid and to enjoy your youth. I.e. not feeling like a loser. Fomo. You want smarter friends, which you'll need college to get access to. You want to fuck people your age, and the most attractive ones are in college(and they really only want to fuck other college kids too). And you want to enjoy your youth, which college gives you a plethora of ways to do with other college kids. Yolo. Most girls don't want to be known as some dumb chick who didn't go to school. And most guys don't want to miss out on potential college ass. And not alot of kids want to dissapoint their parents, who are also trying to keep up with the Jones by having a kid in a nice university. So they'll get the loans, they won't care about the education or the major they pick and they'll jump right in. All they want is that name school, with the D-1 team, the good rank on the national list, the big endowment, the famous alumni and a pamphlet with the supple, attractive students on it. But no one wants to think of the real reason of why they're going and the insecurities that are driving them. No one wants to think about life after college and what daily life will be like as a financial slave. Today, no one really thinks about anything unless pertains to the present. The future is always so far away. So is college worth it? It is if you want to have some fun for 4 years, make some friends and then struggle for about 10 years in paying it back. It isn't worth it if want to choose other ways to educate yourself and get what you want and you're ok with most of society looking down on you and judging you as an uneducated individual. Like most things in life, if there's a good amount of hot sex involved then go for it. But if it looks dry, then why bother getting up.......
I'm 25 I make 55k a year + a quarterly bonus. High school is the last time I went to any type of school. Hard work is hard work. It can't be replaced by any type of degree
People on here that complain about college either... didn't go to college or are jealous of the MAJORITY of those that did and put in the hard work to have a better life.
Fun fact. 90% of all millionaires didn't go to college. Are you saying they are dumb and lazy? You people are the reason colleges still exist to rob money from you. Open your eyes dipshit.
I just want to add:
Two years ago, I was a sophomore in college and experienced a crisis of which degree to choose. I wanted to follow my passion (English), but I really wanted a stable income. I was a crying, panicky mess (I don't handle big life decisions well) as I Googled "is college even worth it?" and this video popped up. I was already a big vlogbrothers fan, so I clicked and was instantly comforted by John's in-depth and ever-rushed analysis. I knew what I had to do.
Thanks to him, I chose English, and six months out of college, I landed my dream job. Right now, I'm typing this from my office (granted, I'm re-watching this video instead of working, but I pulled it up again for a coworker) where I'm deliriously happy and satisfied with where I'm at. Thanks, John. You and Hank keep up the fantastic work.
You got lucky
+EPSGplayer Or she worked her butt off.
+Judy McCart no. Going to college doesn't mean shit.
this comment encourage me so much :) thank you!
+EPSGplayer It also helps that she's a chick too.
The only people who I hear saying "money doesn't matter, do it for the love of learning!!!!" are people who don't actually have to worry about homelessness or poverty. Money doesn't buy happiness only if you're already living comfortably.
And most people that are in bigger universities are the ones who don't have to worry about it
Austin Carter Untrue! I'm going NYU. One of the biggest, most accredited university in the US. And I am DROWNING in all the money I owe them. It's nuts. I don't have it WHATSOEVER and I need to take out a ton of loans. And most of the people who go here are in the same boat.
Why?
+Felix Umbrella The ones who are smart enough to realize loving to learn is what pulls them out of poverty are the ones who dedicate themselves towards opportunities that arise from going to a university instead of slaving away for years trying to achieve 40k a year. And there are plenty of those students that come from disadvantaged places in top and other good universities.
+Luna Star and read through this comment section! haha
I love the professors who make it clear that if you are in their class to "get a grade, GPA, Diploma, etc" then you're in the wrong class, but if you'd like to better yourself and your understanding of the world then stick around. This way of thinking about school has actually helped me to get better grades because I am more passionate and interested about what I am learning.
As much as I understand that thinking, I kinda hated those profs because for many of my peers (I live in India), college was a means to an end: almost all of us were there primarily to land good jobs right out of college, and profs who would seek to twist the road from engineering freshman to qualified job interviewee weren't always well received
I'm in my second year of college. I started writing novels in my free time during high school and everyone said that I had incredible potential as an author. with the day in and day out, the stress, the sleep deprivation, and the mental exhaustion I can no longer find solace in creating a story. the only relief I get now is in video games and pacing. I can't help but feel that college life has been the death of my once peer-admired creativity.
Thomas Covington yes, you're right... it's happening to me too..
I'm so sorry.
Instead of novels, it was writing music for me.
Shoot. I can't let this happen. No way! I'll never stop doing what I love!
You could just drop out of college and starting writing novels, and see if any publisher is interested in publishing your novel.
I have an existential crisis pretty much every day, so no you're not alone.
Same. My first existential crisis was when I was 6. It happened after I did a finger painting, and wondered whether there truly was more to life than that.
+Chris Ramirez
my first was when i was jerking off.
i started crying.
Chris Ramirez Damn, that explains a lot... I'm the youngest person in my department at work and just seeing how excited all the older people get over free food, talking about their kids/grand kids and the new chrysanthemums they just planted in their yard... it just kills me inside to think that's what my life might be reduced to in 10 - 20 years
PayneTheReject I know exactly what you are saying. Everything seems trivial and pointless, and arguably it all is. But, hell. We are already here so we might as well get something out of this coincidental, miserable, and miraculous gift known as life.
try just to relax .. nah that's worse .. what about doing something seriously crazy ?!! like sky diving or traveling to volunteer .. it might open your eyes and see more positives of this life .. as they call it present .. focus on what you have .. not what you're missing.. try it just give it a try ..
I don't have an idea about my future image .. I know no one do but I'd always planned for everything and now in college I feel like .. I can't handle it .. the college live .. the tasks the and the and the and the .. I want to travel and make people happy but without having a college education I can educate myself .. I know I can .. I believe me ..
I know it's sounds creepy to tell everything .. but I felt comfortable.. 😂😁
As a recent graduate, I couldn't have said this any better. Life is about your experiences and what you learn from them, and college exposed me to diverse ideas and people for which I will always be grateful.
I assume you're about 30 years old now I guess?
@@78anurag I am indeed.
@@crashthestash Damn the internet is the closest thing to actual time travel. Time passes fast, doesn't it?
@@78anurag haha too true. how old are you?
@@crashthestash lmao you ain't gonna get my age so smoothly.
let's say my age=x
and x is somewhere between 6 and 18
Find x.
I actually did a paper as a junior in high school on whether college is or isn't worth it. I came to the conclusion that it IS worth it. And I found the best way to go through it is to not go off to university straight out of high school. I stayed home and got a job took a couple classes at the local community college. I was pretty happy. Fast forward 3 years and I'm less than 1 year away from graduating with an associates degree and I'm less than 3 years away from a bachelors degree. College shouldn't be rushed. People tend to forget that college is also a time for kids to grow up.
Starting salary for a Forestry major, $55,000 a year. Doing a career I love for the rest of my life. Priceless. College (mostly) is more about opportunities than it is salary.
"Here, have this gift of life fulfilment." "Wow! Thanks!" "That will be a unicorn and your mother's left lung." "...**Sigh** okay."
College could be worth it if it were actually what it's advertised to be. It's just not, though. College is about working to prove you can work, teaching students to devalue their own work, and getting people to follow instructions mindlessly. That garbage is not useful in the real world. You need to value your work, to be self directed, and most importantly, find ways to accomplish your goals efficiently.
The actual subject matter of college is great, the academics are usually fantastic. But the structure, the atmosphere is so counter productive that college becomes detrimental. You have to unlearn how to write after college, because in college you're taught to be as wordy as possible, but in the real word you want to make your point quickly. You have to learn to charge people what you're worth, after being told your work was worth less than nothing for 4+ years. You have to find your own solutions to problems after spending your entire life knowing there's an answer key already made. It's just... ugh. College doesn't prepare you for life, if anything it does the opposite.
Which is a damn shame because the academic side of college, the part people actually go to college to access, is still vital.
Also, while the pay after college is usually higher than before, it's still not worth it financially. It's in your 20's and 30's that you need money the most. That's the time when you don't know what you're doing. That's the time that you're most likely to make expensive mistakes. So that's the time you can least afford to be in debt. Yes, college will get you more pay in the long run, but college students literally starve in the short run. You can afford to have less pay later in life when you've already figured out how to be frugal and make good financial decisions.
/\ This
But college is different for everyone. Depends how your will to become better is.
I know people who went to college and succeeded. I know people who didnt need college and succeeded. I also know people who went to college and got lazy(after partying and drinking) working at McDonalds. Life is easy in America(still)
I've been in the computer animation career for over 10 years... most people who are in charge... didn't go or didn't finish college.
I didn't go to college and I usually find myself in supervising positions over people who went to college and get paid exactly what I get paid. Heck, I didn't go to college and usually find myself knowing more about things, in my career or otherwise, than my college graduate counterparts.
My brother didn't even finish high school and now runs a regional truck dispatch office...
My sister and brother in law both went to college and still work as servers at restaurants...
College, while an advantage, doesn't mean shit if you don't have it in you. I wager how you were raised at home has more to do with how well you will do in life than anything you can learn in college.
That's not really fair. You're setting it up as only people from stable home environments can become successful, which isn't true, as many people advance through their own strength of will and perseverance.
No, that's not what I said. People with rough childhoods can and rather often DO go to college and finish.
when did your brother become the head of that regionial dispatch office? the world has changed considerably in the past century and i would argue that a degree is the baseline standard for any job that requires any kind of education, my sister graduated from berkeley and interned at goldman sachs and was offered a position to stay
my cousin graduated from a local university (or college which is what you americans call it) and works at morgan stanley as a private banker
I concur. In western Europe, logistics used to be a flagship of sectors where one could start at the bottom rung and rise to management. Nowadays, you'll have a hard time becoming any sort of manager or head of department without a Bachelor's or Master's. Want to become a forwarder/dispatcher/administrative clerk and don't have a degree? You can, but you'll probably have to start as a blue collar worker or low-paid administrative assistent and work for a few years to get more reponsibilities.
Note: I'm loosely translating job titles here.
This is really reassuring. I want to go into animation/ screenwriting/ directing and I kept telling my parents that it's not about what degree I get. It's about the skills I have, you know? It's about the work I put in outside of class too.
what about when college gives you depression and you feel you can't do anything else without first finishing it because you feel guilty??
That's when you take a breath and play the game
Same
@@hanni8659 ayeee nice penguin pfp
Omg I feel the same way. 😪
Hey it's been 7 years since this post. How is your life going now? I hope you're in a better place
THIS HELPED ME WRITE A 5 PARAGRAPH ESSAY FOR MY ENGLISH CLASS
IDK HOW I DID IT BUT I DID IT THANKS JOHN GREEN
And this is exactly why college is useless...kids watching random youtube videos to write their essays on LMAO....
PistolStar21 This was like 2 months ago dude... what
Fannie A oh wow your name is Fannie LMAO....
PistolStar21
Well our teachers don't help for shit, soooo RUclips it is
Fannie A Only 5 paragraphs? Is that high school?
There's obviously a direct correlation with how much you study and how well you do. I was an average student with a 3.6 GPA through high-school. Until I got into Calculus.. That shit is beautiful, by far the best subject, and teacher I've ever taken. I was in AB first semester but I was compelled to challenge myself even more. I moved to BC second semester and lemme tell you.. I would sleep late and wake up early every single day. The AP test came around and I knew I had gotten a 5 as soon as I walked out of the testing center.
A 5 in BC Calculus.. yet i was ranked 105 out of 540 in my class. Point being: do what makes you happy. Don't get sucked in to the bullshit routines and change it up every now and then. I partied the hardest my senior year, but ironically got the best grades that year. Oh, and as far as college goes... lol just look at Bill Gates GG mate I'm out
Yeah...he dropped out. You point.
+GamingTec101 you dont need it in order to be successful..
elcompasax exactly.
How were u 105 with a 3.6. GPA, I'm 273 out of 469 with a 3.8 GPA
Yassine Sabri Lol yeah I had 4.2 GPA and I was 107
I was explaining this to my mom just this morning. When you go to college, you're majoring in yourself. So when you're paying for college, you're also paying for your own self-esteem and confidence, understanding of social cues, time-management, skills in things you are passionate about, and general abilities that will help you live your life.
This of course does not make the letters from the bank come any less frequently :-(
I enjoy and respect your opinion.
I believe that most jobs don't require a college degree. We need better secondary/primary education. And we need to have more respect for trade schools/ community college as a nation.
rissa206 Amen!
Hell yeah
Damn! John Green's words sooth me like no other. I have all these worries and then bam! John seems to address them directly. I love this man! haha. Such an inspiration.
In a book I am reading right now named: To investigate, research and report, you can find the quote: "If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance." in the first chapter.
They don't mean expensive as a economic factor alone, but the time and energy you need to put into it are also factors that make it expensive.
On the flip side, there are a lot of ways to enrich one's life without going to college (and they don't necessarily involve vomit).
I've been taking college classes for most of the last 30 years. I was also in the Navy. I've earned most of my money without using my college education, and I've had bad experiences working in office environments. I'm glad I went to school, just because I value knowledge, but I am despondent over my economic misfortune.
I dropped out of community college in my freshman year Nothing interested me , i always wondered why they insisted in giving me a bunch of useless classes that i didnt need why cant they show me the job and period ? I am now looking to a career in truck driving.
kaz9781 i understand exactly what you mean!! i think its those two years that make you want to quit! those two awful years are what made me quit! i hated how it took me two years of useless european history to be able to gain access to my first business education class and when I finally got to it it had nothing to do with how napolean almost conquered europe!
kaz9781 truck driving earn more money than a lawyer
Joseph Cenatus i think they earn as much as 55 cents a mile. Which can be a lot depending on where they go. Some even make as much as 2k in one week!!
kaz9781 same here :/ through the whole semester all we did was basically read four essays..for what ? I could've read them on my own. That class was not even worth half of what I payed (which was 1,200)
Crisley Leon yeah I had a teacher who was only there to tell us that all we had to do every week was submit and essay and we would get point for turning it in On time! He didn't really care how good your essay was, just it had to be turned in on time because he hated grading papers on different times. He said it was easier for him to read them all at the same time and hand us participation grades plus "critique" our writing for future use.
I know this is completely irrelevant to the video, but this is the first I had noticed of it. When you're on stage, you're told to move around to keep the audience's attention. You do this very well with video cuts where you change position in the camera's view.
Just giving a compliment where it's due. You are probably one of the more intelligent minds on youtube(and on publicly accessed internet in general), both in explaining and presenting your information. Great job.
Education has to start actually teaching skills primarily at all levels because information is abundant and root learning is not necessary with the whole internet in your pocket.
I believe this is also dependent on your degree and how well you did and/or your passion. I know a fair bunch of people who forced their way through engineering courses, hating every minute of it, barely graduating and ended up not being an engineer. Because doing what you enjoy certainly shows in performance and employers see that.
Bottom line: College is not for everyone; if you're there to learn and you do it well, you'll be fine. If you don't do college, that's fine too. I know many who're well off without college.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to make a middle class salary, YOU NEED TO KNOW PEOPLE. Getting into debt all for a stamped piece of paper is not worth it in todays' economy. It's all about who you surround yourself with and your attitude and ambitions toward something you want.
Jas Dilo nothing can be said better
I tried to reblog this. I spend too much time on Tumblr.
Damn. I guess I gotta start working on my social skills.
@@MyNontraditionalLife And this is what people don’t mention about “networking”.
College is hilarious, let me tell you why:
College is what gives you the ways and knowledge to fight life and earn good money. It's also really fucking expensive. And complicated. So to attend college you need to fight life and have good money. Well, shit, if you're already fighting life and have enough money to afford college, what the fuck do you need college for?!
--A college student who's been having trouble with his registration this semester (seriously, classes start next week and I'm still struggling to get everything cleared and ready for me to start, then come the overly expensive books).
How's life?
I just want John to know that I've been watching this weekly for about 6 weeks, since the beginning of the semester. I know the reason I'm in college is so I can be a teacher, which is a job that can't (I think) be attained without a college degree. So I have a purpose. Once I accomplish the degree, the purpose will change slightly to "getting a job real fast so this interest doesn't rack up."
Kendra Brecka jobs such as teachers and nurses and doctors I agree should require a college degree because teachers are litteraly in charge of molding the future generation, but they obtain horrible salary for working with sometimes horrible children.
Thank you for pointing out that the worth of something does not always depend on economic value... I chose a small, private university with a pretty high tuition rate, and am probably going to be paying those loans off for a really long time, but the experience and knowledge gained was priceless. Horizons expanded, friends gained and lost, and a fulfilling (if somewhat low wage) job working with adults with developmental disabilities. Worth it, definitely.
I saw how successful all my family and friends who didn't attend college, compared to those who did. That was enough for me to go to college.
I'm helping my daughter with research for college scholarship essays and I enjoyed the comic relief your video provided while also presenting some valuable subject matter! Great job!
If you are studying poetry in college, it isn't worth it.
or psychology.
LakeBodomsReaper or philosophy
or anything ending in "studies"
You do realize John was an english and religious studies major...
2 useless degrees.
OH MY GOD THAT NINJA TURTLE VERSION OF THE VITRUVIAN MAN IS FABULOUS.
Oh my god I'm so stressed out now
Me too, now I don't know what to do, it's never easy to be pull apart by two fronts. I can't decide if I should stay in college or take off.
+bad Karma curse you still in college? well if you are, continue with your studies, unless you find them useless to your future, then leave, none is forcing you to study a useless course, not that im saying its useless.
PuppyStomp no clue what you just said
Thomas Headley love this comment
thanks for the advice, today I was really wondering, if materialism will help me go further in life and if my goals towards an intrinsic fulfilled life is idealistic, but your comment reminded me of what is most important.
I find what makes the difference between a good job and a bad job are the people you work with. I had a great time making $5 an hour cleaning up dog poop at the vet in my 20's. My first decade of making much more than that totally sucked, but, now, same job but some people have moved on, pretty nice.
On topic: Only $10k left of my student loans left. Graduated in 1996.
Just ask yourself "Do I need to go to college to do what I really want to do it in life?" If the answer is anything but a resounding "yes", just don't go.
For what degree I chose, I comprimised. I knew that pure math wasn't likely to pay the bills, and I also knew that electrical engineering had a lot of math.
Now I am studying electrical controls in the first year of my masters. And thankfully, it has a lot of interesting math, and still leaves me employable.
It also helps that I am Canadian, so with just 3 years of saving up, some scholarships, and some RESPs, I have been largely debt-free.
ALWAYS GO TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE. At least at first. Community colleges are less expensive, take less time, the course load IS easier, and most state universities will accept transfer credit from a Community College. In almost all cases, it is possible to get the same degree in the same amount of time for way less money if the first two years are done at a community college.
A federal Pell grant might be a drop in the bucket for a university student, but it has outright PAID FOR my tuition, books and fees, with some left over. If I were to go on to a university, I would have a loan on two years of school, not four. Less capital that I could pay off faster, less interest.
There is also a non-tangible benefit of attending two schools rather than one: culture. I've attended three schools, and the lessons I've learned outside the classroom are at least as valuable as those inside, and they've been different at each school.
+rlrsk8r1 I'd suggest only going to a community college if there's a plan involved. Many students at community colleges don't have a plan and then fall behind their peers.
@@datawizard130 Id suggest to always have a plan,period. People expect degrees to magic them inti a job, the real world doesnt work that way
I'm sitting in front of my computer watching this on the first week of my second semester of college and questioning the truth of everything this man is saying.
I'm not convinced I'm gonna make it that far.... I think you might understand how scared I am right now.
Thanks.
***** I dont know HOW you did pass so many semesters with that spelling. But bravo.
I wouldn't worry about it too much, I went to a rather expensive state school here in Illinois. Left me with about 80k in loans, I have no issues paying my monthly loans and still having more cash left over than I would have had if I didn't go to school. Even though our tuition is rather expensive at over 15,000 a year it was worth it.
The thing that really pisses me off though is that if I would have lived a mile north (in Wisconsin) I could have almost cut my tuition bill in half due to their lower cost of education.
So how did it go?
So... does college lead to more existential fulfillment? What if you go to school too become an MD, and so you do, but you hate it. You'd be happier as a plumber. Then the $$$ might pay-off, but it wasn't "worth it." I think it comes down to "what do you want to do" and does college significantly aid in that task. I think too many people who aren't ready, or who just aren't really wired for "study," go to college. IMHO.
I find university that my first year there (which was about a year ago now since i'm out of money) ended up leaving me with a lot of cynicism. I found that most of the professors had such a different standards of essays/homework/exam that it was hard to tell what a class is really going to expect out of you. I found one english class tried to get to become more active in trying to change our political system, but seeing just how far down the corruption hole goes just left me feeling empty.
It was so damn hard to do the essays. For some reason, I couldn't figure out what were good books to do essays on, I could only write for an hour or two before my writing became a bunch of garbage that I later deleted. I couldn't believe what my classmates were willing and able to do what I had so much difficulty with.
I grew up very poor, so seeing the huge dents the university took out of my government assistance always left me feeling stressed and upset, during university I became a recluse. I just became a very unhappy person and I didn't even know if what I wanted to study since the subjects I enjoyed (english, literature, and history) weren't jobs I'd want to do. Really, I find now that there's three jobs I'd like to be. A veterinarian/assistant vet who writes and draws in his free time
blasterjosh Funny, as that is the exact same thing I want to do. A vet who writes and draws in her freetime.
This is how I feel. Maybe I can't say much because I only went to community college for a year (part-time school and work), but the prospect of gaining a degree and maybe shaving off costs for art school seemed folly.
The amount of time I would spend in school trying to bring up grades in subjects I've always had a stressful time trying to simply keep at a C average would all be cutting out time I could be using to improvement my art.
I would not turn down the opportunity to go to art school if given the chance, but the idea of spending the tens of thousands required for what amounts to putting yourself into a classroom setting in order to bolster motivation to practice seems, well, not worth it if you already practice and study everyday. Especially when having a nicely done portfolio can land you scholarships, internships, or actual jobs. The degree might show employers you have been able to work with people in a similar job setting (which these schools (hopefully) place you in). You then take priority over those with a nice portfolio but no degree. Is that money really worth a bump up in a que which you may not even have to enter? Especially since the good schools I've heard of seem to be close to $40,000.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that it feels like college encumbers me both mentally and physically. I enjoyed a few of the classes I took, but trying to deal with both work and school, while also trying to improve my art outside of the couple art classes I had really breaks my fortitude and will to give a shit about any of it. The reason I continue is because I'm passionate about it and losing that seems like far more detrimental than getting a piece of paper that confirms I am capable of something that employers can see regardless by looking at my portfolio.
There's always that part of me that feels as if I'm being short-sighted though. :/
That was me. I should have waited a few more years and given myself more time to really figure out what I wanted to do. But while my family never really said anything one it, some how I still felt like I was pressured to go to college as soon as possible, like the school system made it clear that if you don't go to college right out the door of high school, you are some how a failure. I study more on my own then I ever did independently in college, and I've learned more on my own. College just left me with constant financial battles (which eat up my creativity with worry instead), and crippled my views of my own work. It's really hard for me to see anything I do as being good, even though I know technically on par with people who's work I admire. But I just....can't see that in my own work anymore and that problem didn't appear until I went through college. And I've learned more about being an artist on my own then anything I learned in college. About the one thing I do miss is having project direction. I don't always know what kinds of projects I should do to work on a particular skill.
Zachary Heiner Let's not forget to mention the shitty elitist culture in universities. I was frowned on from day one because I was a college kid as well and transferred over for 2 years. Yeah, students I talked to had this attitude that I cheated the system and did not have the stuff to make it in first year, which is rubbish. my teachers even had this attitude, they would ask why I did not get in my first year, which i did not even apply to do. Weird that all these people act like they are so ahead of the curve in comparison to me, yet I keep to myself and little do they know that I am a Deans List student with a 3.8 GPA in my 4th year ready to graduate. Yup, I like school, but the environment could do better with more passion and idea innovation than all this social status seeking i see. Quite a bit of ignorance, but never feel lesser because of not going to university.
Two words: Community college. Places like Trident Technical College are much more reasonably priced than a four year college.
This
Couldn't agree with this video more. I watched this back when I was still deciding whether or not to go to school, and after graduating with my bachelor's degree (and then another round in a one year course for event management, which hasn't panned out yet due to a certain global pandemic), I couldn't have previously imagined the context and critical thinking skills post-secondary education has granted me.
Go to college, by all means. Just remember, once you graduate the banks are going in dry, and you won't be able to afford lube
Very funny comment!
Yeah, because your ass is gonna be butthurt.
No vaseline
+Dean M ya, I had to fucking run away after one semester because it piled FAST! over 25,000 (books, tools, classes being 3000+ each QUARTER!)
MetalHead1652 You think that's bad a buddy of mine graduated last year $98k in the hole, and he's only going to be pulling in about $40k a year.
I think the problem with U.S. university is not so much the cost, but that most of them are in the middle of nowhere. This forces students who are spending 10-15k a year on tuition while studying 40+ hrs a week to somehow move out of their parents homes and support themselves at the same time.
My education would have been close to 60k, but due to having to take out loans to pay for rent I'm closer to 100k.
Most of the US is a middle of nowhere, so someone will have to pay rent for wherever the university is
"Everyone needs to go to college" is the biggest hoax of all time. Kids are going to college to get a 100k degree to get out and make 40-50K a year as opposed to a guy who goes to a 2-year trade school, a degree that costs 15K, gets out and makes the SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY being an electrician or a plumber.
the difference is in the color of collar
loool fr, people are so brainwashed
john alvares are you supporting the idea of drop out or supporting college?
I went to trade school in Canada for plumbing and heating. It cost me 400$.
why dont just go to conferences/talks of successful people and learn from them?
You're the one of the most gifted and brilliant persons I know. I became interested with you when I have seen the trailer of Fault in our Stars.I found out that you're the author. Now I found myself watching all your life-changing videos and I can't wait to read all your books. Thank you so much. Thank you so much
"becoming a better and more informed observer of the universe" very well said
On the loneliness at parties I can relate to an extent John 💀
LOL If you get your degree and you are only getting $13 an hour, trust me, it wasn't worth it.
I started making around 21 just getting out of two years of training for my trade job. Free training. Soon to be making around 40 in a 3-4 years.
GoldenTV3 What trade do you do?
HVAC, with some training in Plumbing, Some in Sheet Metal working and Carpentry (Only enough needed for job; attic work etc...).
GoldenTV3 - That sounds depressing... good luck lol
Gonzales98 2018, the year when getting a career and making money is depressing. Your right let me just beg for the government to give me some gibs.
Hank,
I'm currently a mechanical engineering student, and i've been very ill most of spring semester, I've had 2 surgical operations and four courses of very strong medications that have been making me feel even worse. Today, I thought to myself: I can't do this anymore. I've lost all drive for engineering, but this video reassured me: everything is going to be ok. And, you're right, life isn't solely about economic fulfillment, its about enjoying what you do as well.
Why the hell would you spend 30k a year on a state university?
I understand why government funded universities are often seen as bad for government budgets, but I think the UK has a happy medium.
The cap in the UK is 9k a year, no matter how good the uni or expensive the course is to run. Oxford, a law degree, doesn't matter. Medical school, however, is the one outlier: it can cost up to 100k a YEAR per student (it works out about 250k total), but this is a) subsidised by the NHS who then get to choose what they pay the doctors and thus make up for it with lower doctors wages and b) this is pretty much the only course in which this happens. Med students still only pay 9k/year.
Also, you don't have to worry about the risk of choosing a non-STEM degree (much) because you don't have to start paying it back until you earn £21k/year, and even then the instalments start off tiny. It's only those who earn decent amounts who actually have to pay back their student loans.
+Zoe Adams As a college student from the USA, we spend 30k a year on college because that is our choice. Many of the colleges have different courses that they specialize in and if you want something you actually enjoy, you go to the college that does it well and suck it up. Many people agree with you that college in the US is bonkers and should totally be reevaluated, hence the reason that Bernie Sanders is so popular among college students.
If you are going to college, just be smart about your major. Spending 150k+ on an Art History degree from a private institution maybe isn't the best idea.
"College is not about maximizing income, it's about becoming a better and more informed observer of the universe"
:)
Hey, John, great video. I find myself contemplating this question all the time. I will be a long time paying off my loans. I ended up getting a job that has nothing to do with my degree but I have a passion for it and cannot imagine doing anything else at this stage in my life. I spent a lot of money, and am still paying back a lot of money for school. But what I learned about society, people, and life is where I noticed the true wealth of university. That being said, I believe post-secondary education is becoming a lot less about education and more about schools making money while just putting people through.
Highschool > Military > College > Debt Free. Booyah!
I suppose you can supplement military with scholarships. But seriously, even if you get a free ride through school by becoming a football player it still doesn't compare to gaining work experience which can be equally as valuable to a degree for higher level positions(you often times need both) but you get paid through the GI bill as you go to school and can take advantage of the basic grants offered by the fed and your state. Of course military isn't for everyone and can be rather difficult for many especially the physically unfit or undisciplined.
Aside from the debate about the actual monetary cost of a college education, I know that I have come through my college years learning more about the world and the different subjects and being a more educated and informed citizen, which I think is also very valuable. We don't have enough educated and (i want to say scientifically because I'm in the science field) literate people, and college really opens the doors to having a good general understanding of how things work, and I think leads to generally more well informed and rational people.
But going back to the money. Yeah, it's brutal!
Ryan Hunt i agree!!
I'm honestly considering about dropping out of college; so far, it's nothing but bullshit:
"Okay class, make a 800-1000 word paper about a time you failed. Alright class, respond to two peoples' discussion post(s). Make sure to have 250 words. Be thoughtful. Don't say I agree or I disagree, explain yourself. Alright class, read this case study. Support your thesis and give your reasoning(s). Cite your sources. Use APA format."
I could go on, but I think you get my point; who the actual fuck would use this as a life skill? When will I ever need to use APA format? What valuable information do I gain when writing a 800-1000 word essay?
I can answer my own question: No one; never; nothing.
Throughout high school I've always gotten good grades; "A"s and "B"s all the way. I ended up with a 3.5 GPA. I felt Highschool, for me personally, is something everyone should do, as it is still part of the K-12 schooling (Kindergarten to 12th Grade). After that, my parents (just like many others) pushed college.
I absolutely hate that society has developed this notion of thinking. It's 2016 for god's sake. People make a living off RUclips. People own their own business(es) without a college degree. People can make computer programs without going to college. You get the point.
My grandpa only had up to a 10th grade education; that's it. He was working for my state's police department and fixed cars on the side. He never had any debt. I absolutely love that about him; he was self motivated and independent.
Overall, I feel college is a waste of time and money. If you want to be a doctor/scientist, then yes, you will need college. Other than that, college is practically pointless for any other degree; graphic design, programming, business, animation, video production, you name it. You rack up debt for a few years or more, then hope you get a good high paying job to pay for all the money you owe to the government.
*Side Story*
This one kid in high school always bothered the shit out of me; he always thought he was better than everyone else. Always got an "A" in every class, college driven, and always ate my fucking food at the lunch table. Well, let me tell you what man: While you're drowning in debt, once you get out of college, I will have paid off a $250,000 house as well own a $100,000 Tesla. Oh, and I won't owe the government a penny for any of it.
If you guys want to be successful, get a job as soon as you get out of High School or are in High School. In the mean time, think about you. Think about your passions, motives, and values in life. Get a side business going. Teach yourself programming, graphic design, whatever it may be, online! There are a LOT of great resources online nowadays. The most I've paid is $25 and that's for Lynda.com. To be honest, I've learned more on Lynda than I have in college, and I'm in my second semester of my freshman year.
TL;DR : Success does not mean taking the "college" route.
+Landon Hughes i regretted high school a lot because of that, im not saying i was one of the smartest students in school, but i focused everything in order to gain entrance to university. i ignored everyone around me, including my friends, i only ask them about school work or/and exams. which probably why i feel lonely, few wanted me to get a girls number but thats irrelevant to this subject. once i gained that entrance, i didnt know what to study, i was in a buisness course around that time. up until the census date, i dropped out, (before gov paid the semester), and decided to take a break for awhile.
i had a lot of thought about it, and i found buisness wasnt ready for me and i wasnt ready for it. i wanted to study accounting in the buisness school and from the way i was headed, it wasnt the right direction.
getting B's, C's and D's was terrible, but thanks for your story, i found it interesting and it reflected a bit on my life :)
I am going to check Lynda. Thanks for sharing your story and giving valuable advice.
Internet my friend. Ive learnt a hell of a lot.
Landon Hughes Thanks I really want to work for myself. Thanks for the inspiration.
I am in high school and I was really stressing college expenses and I saw this and this has soothed me more than any teacher or parent ever has about expenses. Thank you so much, John.
Well John, perhaps in the US there is (or was) a salary difference between ordinary and qualified jobs, but in many countries there isn't much difference. For instance, in my country, a graduate will earn around 1000 euros in a qualified job, pretty much the same salary he/she'd get in a regular job. Yep, sure, he/she can always get promoted or work somewhere else with a better pay, but the point is that college education in itself doesn't mean much. What's important is what you do with that education afterwards.
For instance, I used to work with young engineers a few years ago, this was the most usual conversation topic during lunchtime. They were always complaining about how unfair it was to end up earning just 1000 euros after having finished an engineering degree (which is very hard). Their idea was to graduate and then "live the easy life", to extend their hands and get loads of cash or something like that. They didn't seem to realize that for that to happen, they would have to be smart and create that value somehow. You are a clear example of what must be done, John. Most history graduates in my country get stuck with 1000 euro jobs, why? Because most of them don't try to do stuff on their own, it seems like they always expect for the money to come from their boss, instead of looking for ways to earn it themselves.
You graduated, but unlike them, you became a writer, you started CrashCourse, you did stuff on your own, most importantly, it was good stuff, and you knew it.
That's my point, an education doesn't mean much by itself, it's what you do with it that really matters.
Tell that to my friends that graduated and can't find a job and are now in debt and working at a coffee shop. And yes they graduated from an accredited college (Kansas State University)
College is absolutely worth it. Doesn't matter if you major in a STEM major or a liberal arts major. You know why? Because there's a lingering student loan bubble. And it's HUGE. It's approaching a size that's larger than the mortgage bubble in '08.. There's no way that all of these kids who are getting degrees with huge amount of debt over their heads will realistically be able to pay off these loans (similar to how a bunch of home owners were not able to pay the mortgages they contractually agreed to prior to the mortgage crisis). The debt may be forgiven, especially considering that a majority of student loans are made by government agencies or private companies that are closely tied to the federal government. Get your education while you can. If worst comes to worst, you simply pay off your student loan for the rest of your life in minimum payments until the loan is called off (I think 25 years or so)? Not a big deal.
The price of debt lurking in the back of your mind is immense.
So... basically you're saying you should definitely go into debt, even for a COMPLETELY WORTHLESS DEGREE LIKE LIBERAL ARTS, off of nothing but the assumption that the US government will forgive you for voluntarily giving away tens of thousands of dollars that never belonged to you in the first place? And of course, if that never happens, the worst case scenario is nothing more than paying off your student loans for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? Is this some sort of joke? Not a big deal? Umm... I don't know what planet you come from, but being in debt for your entire life is kind of a big deal.
***** TLDR: Nope. Still useless.
At the end of the day, college is an investment. The fact that they're still selling people an "education" in shit like African American History, art history, philosophy, music therapy, dance, English Literature (in a fucking English speaking country, like, what the fuck?), and even religion and women's studies is fucking absurd.
You wanna learn that shit? Go to the library and read a book. The reason why it's useless is because it's something that you shouldn't need to waste 4 years of your life on. Here's the way I see it: if you're only going to college to get a degree, not learn anything, party your way through, and get some sort of credential at the end, don't even go. College is for an education. If you want to learn something that you can learn on your own, on your own time, for free or relatively cheap, going to college is a WASTE OF TIME. Things like entrepreneurship (which we need a lot more of), programming, consulting, investing, and tons of other things people go to college for really aren't necessary.
And any of the "jobs" (that probably don't even exist out there) for the people that majored in that BS are probably given to the following people:
A) People with connections.
B) Hot women (let's be honest).
Face it. The real world values doctors, engineers, scientists, programmers, technicians, and people with real skills like plumbing or electrician or something, because those are things in society that we NEED to function, and things that people value and are willing to pay top dollar for (of course that's not all but you get the picture). You know why teachers get paid so little? Because they have an easy as fuck job with 4 months a year of vacation time off.
The reason is simply that the highest paying REAL jobs are the ones that A: nobody REALLY wants to do, and B: actually require a SKILL.
If you go into college to study "dance" or "music therapy" or "art history" you're a moron and you wasted your money. Not even saying this to offend, but it's the truth. Now, if you're rich or something, and you already have a job lined up for you, or mommy and daddy are paying for your schooling, and you genuinely just want to take a class in those things, I have no problem with that (even though college is basically just highschool 2.0, I don't know why anybody would want to have to sit through a class and take tests when you can go out and learn something yourself). But if you're expecting a job at the end of that you're insane, unless you make one for yourself.
Crumbusto I just wanna get this straight ... you do realize that every single day, adult human beings receive money to dance, to help hurting people using music therapy, to enrich our culture by curating museums and writing books and preserving historical sites, and indeed to use every one of those "shit" degrees you mentioned? Like. I have a BS in engineering here, okay, and I will never look down on someone who doesn't get a "hard" degree, because the number of jobs (without which our civilization would become a dull gray dytopian monotony) in the "soft" areas of study you mentioned is significantly larger than you seem to believe. In fact, my chances of getting a job after I finish a master's in archaeological conservation are way higher than my current options with my BS.
Also, kindly revise your opinion of teaching, because as a substitute teacher, I'd like to see you live my life for one WEEK and then tell me it's "easy as fuck." SUBSTITUTE TEACHING is a hell job, and it's so much less involved than being a full-time teacher. Teachers are underpaid because jackasses like you interpret a profession that's dominated by women as "easy."
Mari Hagemeyer Oh god. I thought this thread was done. I'm not gonna bother going into detail. I'll just spit some blurbs.
I mistakenly wrote music therapy, I meant something else.
You don't need a degree to be a dancer, musician, artist, writer, or any of those types of professions. You also give no examples of what you're even talking about other than the museum thing which is one exception (and a very small one at that).
I HIGHLY doubt that (unless you went into a stupid field of engineering or you're just dumb), plus you're comparing a masters to a bachelor's which doesn't even make any sense.
Also I find nothing hard about going into a classroom, sitting down, checking an email, handing out assignments and explaining what to do with them, answering questions about something that is easily remembered that anyone can learn, and grading papers, all coupled with 2 to 3 months of vacation time a year plus the fact that you basically don't really even have to think very hard. Don't even try to play the "women" card here. I could go into that into an entirely different discussion, but I'm not going to.
Please, try to explain to me the hell that is... SUBSTITUTE TEACHING
Whenever I find myself amid an existential crisis, I watch vlogbrothers videos to remind myself that what I am doing is worthwhile.
lol at everyone saying the only way to make money out of college is by ONLY majoring in STEM but the harsh reality is that companies will start giving those jobs to people outside the US because they want cheap labor. who's to say they aren't doing it now? Most of the people that i know who are successful are either one of the 3 or all of these 3 things: lucky, hardworking, or really cheap. so just save up dudes!
+Uran Jakupi That's a really negative attitude the best jobs go to the best of the best and that's it.
+Ayejax that i actually agree with
Depends on which industry. Also, if you're better than everyone else, then none of that matters
+No Role Modelz right on!
STEM ain't a free ride to success and yes the big companies do want the cheapest labor not necessarily the best when it works out for them.. only watch this is if you want to be mad.. ruclips.net/video/TCbFEgFajGU/видео.html
If you are wealthy, have money, go to the best college that you can and pursue a career with livable wages.. If you do not have money and want to go to college. Do not take student loans if you can avoid it, or you will like be a prisoner of the loans while working at Taco Bell. Once you graduate, you will find out that your hard work and investment allowed for excellent personal development. Or, the chances are that you will find out that having a college degree barely, if any, gives you an edge on the specific job market than having a high school diploma without the 50 k in student loans, at a 8% interest.
You may be confronted with a situation where a part-time worker with less experience and training and less education than you gets 40 k bump in pay, while she worked not as long or hard than you, just because she has long hair and a nice rear view.
College is not what it used to stand for.
on the last day of high school, my math teacher had us all watch a couple videos he liked. two were about how student loan debits can take over ones life, and another was ripping on current day college kids and how we were not prepared for the "real world" and we had time left and the teacher asked if we had any college videos we wanted to watch. so i had the class watch this video and 3 separate people came up to me and thanked me for showing this video saying that it made then feel much better about life in general.
Sure, you aren't related to me through a bloodline Mr. John Green but you have shared enough wisdom/advice in under 7 minutes than I have received from genetic family in the past 16 years, 5 months, and 28 days that I have lived. Thank you and Insta-sub.
Yeah. College is "worth it" all right.It's totally worth being labeled as OVER-QUALIFIED in every single job out there. It's totally worth getting evicted because you can't get a job at Target because a degree implies that you won't stay FOREVER. It's totally worth never knowing when your next meal will be. Totally worth not able to get a job scrubbing toilets just so you can at least put a cheap burger in your stomach. So worth knowing that jobs are in fact plentiful, but nobody hires qualified people anymore. So worth it knowing now that in America of all places, "bettering" yourself is a gigantic taboo. If you really think college is "worth it", you have never, ever struggled. Period. And don't even get me started on the student loans that many colleges FORCE their students into signing for. Don't get me started on the fact that most students DO NOT WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE BUT ARE FORCED TO BECAUSE OF ABUSIVE DRACONIAN PARENTS.
Oh wait. This guy looks like he's in his 30s, meaning he likely attended college in the 90s/early 2000s, back when college was still RELEVANT. So ... he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about ... Generation X-er's have not struggled with the current anti-collegiate business world.
I'm sorry for my lack of understanding, but why would someone who graduated college by applying to Target? I do not believe college is to blame in such an example.
Also, there's nothing saying you can't leave the states. Though I only have anecdotal evidence, I hear that US-educated people are in high demand elsewhere in the world.
Jon K
If someone professes college to be worth it, they have never struggled. If it was worth it for them, then they were able to work an illegally unpaid internship, the only way in which to achieve an actual career today.
Bryan Berry
You have to start somewhere man. If you go to college today, you need a job that pays you at the bare minimum $12.50 an hour. So at roughly $2,000 a month, you can pay your rent, pay your bills, buy food, spend money on recreation, AND still put some money away.
Today though, "college-related' companies do not hire entry level; they hire program directors, want 7 years+ of "work experience", and absolutely DO NOT want you to be college educated UNLESS you can afford an unpaid internship within that company; otherwise you are labeled as OVER-QUALIFIED.
So, your only option is to work SEVERAL low-paying jobs at 80-100+ hours a week to try to save to afford to work an unpaid internship at a company. Such as Target. BUT these smaller jobs, especially the small businesses every politician cries about, will not hire you out of fear of losing you to something better "soon". They expect that a graduate will find a "real" job and leave. Thus you're a great "risk". A degree makes you LESS hirable today than ever.
***** Ok smart mouth. For one, I used Target as an example. But I have been rejected time and time again BECAUSE of my "education" that I was forced into. Wells Fargo literally said I was "too smart" to work there. My Wal-mart interview consisted of a 45 minute diatribe trying to convince them I will never find anything better. I've been rejected from video stores, from movie theatres, from gas stations - ALL because I have two degrees. I'm not even going to address your ignorant question about what my majors were. It's an irrelevant red herring and you know it when you consider that 80-85% of graduates NEVER enter their field of study. It makes absolutely no difference what you studied. Period. The so-called "college-related jobs" I cannot afford, because each one exclusively hires within their internship pools, at a rate of about 90%. Congratulations if you're rich enough to work for at least 3 months or so full time for free! If you're not, the only way to get ahead is to apply for SEVERAL low-tier jobs, such as Target, so that you can save up a bit of a cushion so that you then can illegally work for a period of time without pay. This is all common knowledge, and you're a moron if you disagree.
But then there's your fantastic solution! My, my.Why didn't I think of that? Just leave college off my applications? Hmmm ... THEY DO BACKGROUND CHECKS FOOL!!! IT SHOWS UP ANYWAY!!! I did exactly what you pompously suggested for my current job at a gas station, and was grilled about it. The only reason I got the job was because my sister was a respected employee there back-in-the-day.
But whatever. You're going to keep on pretending that you know things. But you don't.
***** Ummm, yeah forced. It's this crazy little phenomenon when your baby boomer of a parent threatens to kick you out and throw you out on the street, as a minor, if you do not cater to their every wish. Like go to college. Most students do not go to school of their own volition, but are forced to follow the wishes of their parents. You're the one that's full of it.
One thing he forgets to talk about are AP classes and scholarships which drastically reduce your College debt.
SWhat are ap classes
Vaibhav Gupta College classes taught in High School. At the end of the year you take an AP exam and if you past you get college credit, for free.
darkheart1721 It's not completely free ($98 per test), but yes, much cheaper than normal college classes. You also don't normally "drastically reduce" your debt, since you'll probably get out of one year at most of college. AP tests are a great thing but they're not some sort of magical solution to all your debt.
panynja At most schools they are free. The district or the state pay the fees unless you're absent the day of the AP exam. I know that every AP class I took was beyond worth it because I'm entering college this fall with almost 50 hours in credit. I'll go in as a freshman but by my second semester I'll have junior standing. That's a year of college I don't have to pay for. :)
Jade Carpenter Great job man!
In Finland, every school is free. Every school.
Really wishing I was born in Finland right about now.
I am so glad you made a video about this! I am fortunate and my parents instilled this idea in me since I was a kid. People make fun of my dad because he got his masters degree in Philosophy and instead of going on teaching became a stay at home dad while my mother was the bread winner (side note only reason I am around is cause my mom and dad met in a graduate level logic class!). Anyway, I think this is a really important issue to cover that many people don't so it's great that an influential blog like yours does!
Where in this world does steak and shake pay 14 an hour?
seriously, I've never seen any job offerings paying more than $8/hr (in florida)
I think he said he worked an overnight shift, maybe time and a half?
In Sweden a teacher with a Gymnasium-level of education earns about 5-15% more than a person working in a store with no education what so ever.
So we have a different dilemma here because while College/University education is free in Sweden, some professions that require 3-6 years of education earns minimal increases had they taken a job as a cleaner.
As it should be friend. :) The decision of what to do with the rest of your life shouldn't come down to "what will make me the most money?" it should be "what will bring myself and others the most happiness?"
or am I just a deluded, foolish young girl with whimsical, unrealistic dreams for humanity as a whole? well w/e idc im still holding hope for something better...it can't stay like this forever right? ....Right?? D:
Toni A I'm more of a "How will I be able to change as much as possible for humanity?
Bloodstainer But STX/Gymnasium is just a "ungdomsuddannelse". Its not higher education. I don't think you earn more or less with that if you dont continue education since it doesn't qualify you for anything except further education.
It seems obviously worth it to me because you don't seem to have thought about job security. Less people can go into teaching than can clean.
Harry McCusker Yes but you can start cleaning when you're 15 basically, you need 5 years of education to start teaching no matter what level of education.
That's 5 years of education extra for about 30 000 sek per month when cleaning will give you about 19000-26000 per month
University costs £9,000 ($16,000) everywhere in the UK. It's only £3,000 in Northern Ireland, and you get it for free if your parents are below the poverty line.
Actually universities charge £1820 for EU citizens in Scotland, which the government will pay anyway. On top of this, you get up to £750/month through a bursary and a loan with negligible interest.
I'm effectively paid to go to university, which is good because my family couldn't afford it otherwise.
Cal Dempsey It makes sense to fund people from low income backgrounds like you and I. Northern Ireland and Scotland seem to be on the right path.
Yeah, exactly, free education is seen as a long-term investment. Educating the population means that they can get better jobs ad pay more taxes, funding the state and providing a new generation with free education, health, social security, etcetera.
Makes me want to go back to Ireland, but no idea how much education costs there (Republic, not Northern). Won't happen in America since people hate the 'evil' socialism, but get a raging boner for the war machine, where lots of the US budget goes to. I wish America would just slice the War Department (Yeah, war department, since America hasn't fought a defensive war since before they changed the name to department of 'defence').
Oh well, I digressed into a mini rant, I just feel strongly about it, that's all.
Cal Dempsey Yup, my parents pay about €1800-€1900 a year to let me get my civil engineering degree. Scholarship (which is just a gift to every student who gets a degree within 15 years, otherwise it's a loan) is determined by you living at home or in dorms and by your parent's income. I got the minimum because I live at home and my parents make enough. But it's still €100,- a month. I'm happy with it and won't have any debts when I get my degree.
Unfortunately, people who's parents can't afford to pay the €1800 a year for their kids will have to borrow the money. But it's got a very low interrest rate so it's not too bad.
I was supposed to graduate this year but it's not gone too smoothly. Have to spend another half year (for which we'll indeed pay half the usual amount of money).
Oh and every student gets free public transportation during either the week or on the weekends.
Feels good not having a debt at the end.
As someone who graduated high school last summer and has just passed the midpoint in what I've been calling a gap year, I have recently decided that for me, at this point in my life and taking into consideration the things I want to do and be, college is not and would not be worth it. If, at some point in my life, I change my mind, I can go back and get a formal education but the things I want to do do not require a degree (I'm considering myself a seamstress at the moment). There are experiences I want to get and things I want to do with my life NOW that I would not be able to do while attending college. Next February, I'm going on a 12-day trip to Japan with a group of amazing people and will get to see and do things I could only dream of if I went to college and then spent the next 10-20 years paying off my student loans. Either this fall/winter (September-December 2015) or next winter (2016), I plan to spend as much time as possible working abroad in New Zealand. At this point, college would only be in the way of my dreams, both short-term and long-term.
Primary School (Grade School) = Worth It.
Secondary School (High School) = Depends on Ambition
Uni (College) = Expensive...
High school is literally compulsory over here, good grief
There are people who graduate from university studying something that is promised to have a high chance to get hired but never get a job. With the way our economy is these days, I really don't know if it's worth it cause there are tons of college graduates who weren't able to get a job after graduating no matter how high their grades were. I think the only reason I'm in college is because I'm in a program that is paying that $10,000 a year in tuition for me. (one of the benefits of having a disability.....). Who knows? I might be one of the lucky ones to get a job, don't know though.
It's now 2019. I researched the eduction bubble for 4 years and this college thing is not working out for 90%.
One thing I will never regret about going to college, despite my lack of use of my degree in my current job, is the opportunities to learn, and grow. I learned things from amazing professors, and more about myself. And a lot of that caused me to grow as a person, and help myself come out of my shell from who I was in high school. I wasn't at all the person I am now.
I ended up droping out of university (which I enrolled in to learn to program) because it was costing me a lot and in the end I learned more from getting actually experience. I found it poorly paced, instructors very hit or miss and generally didn't learn very much so yeah I'd say it's not worth it.
You just went ti a shit university
Be who you want to be. Don't give a damn about what others think. Just move forward. Yes, go to college if it gets you to destination dream job. Even if you think you are not competent for a certain degree then give it a go and see what you can accomplish...despite the student loan people chasing you. lol
Holy fuck those costs are high. Its like 10-15 Thousand euro debt after a 4 year bachelor here.
Where you going? That's cheap.
Netherlands whoo!
yeah, that's like a year at a community college.
I'm only months away from ending junior year of high school and I'm honestly considering not attending college. My family doesn't have the income to support me even though my grades are pretty good. I also have no idea what I want to do. I'm afraid of being shamed because I'm in a co-ed advisory where college is a huge focus and I don't want to disappoint my advisors: 2 amazing people who have supported me. My family also pushes to go but it still makes no sense why a guy like me should go when he doesn't know what he wants to do. We get spoonfed telling us we have to go to college to succeed but I feel like the drawbacks cant be handled by me or my family. I'm afraid to tell them how I feel. My family has a bad history with college so they are rooting for me to attend 4 years. I'm not sure how they'll react.
you're not accounting for the money you could have made if you didn't go to collage which, completely through off your calculations.
+Hermes Styx collage is different from college....
+Hermes Styx threw*
I'd appreciate it if John recorded an update on his college perspective now, eight years later. I think we need to provide other opportunities for our young people. Too many college graduates can't find employment, and they are saddled with unbelievable student loan debt.
John, sometimes I wish you were my father.
Nice pictures , college took what happiness I had left
Im in the second semester of my first year at uni and still wondering if i should have taken history over geology despite job opportunities in history are narrow (except for the fact I can pretend to be John Green from crash course world History :)
They're not THAT narrow? :) You can go into the Museum sector, education or further study and ph.d. I'm an Archaeology student - Now THATS narrow :p
Gufberg Are you in the UK? If so, how different is history at uni different from A-level in terms of enjoyment, relevant information, work load and overall experience of everything. Also is university of Kent any good?? Thanks! :)
***** Since i'm an Archaeology student (a very related field) i cant give you info from personal experience. I do, however, talk with a lot of the History students at my university. (I'm danish, not from the UK)
In Denmark a lot of ambitious History students go to the University of York, Durham or Cambridge due to the excellent Medieval and Ancient History programmes in the UK.
A few Archaeology students also do an MA or PH.D at York due to the excellent Ph.d opportunities there.
How is History different from A-level? I'm not entirely certain unfortunately. I mean, i think i have a pretty good idea but since i'm not a History student i don't want to give you the wrong impression. I really advice to write a Professor at a university you're interested in or the resident student councillor. They're perfect for questions like that and Professors are very enthusiastic about helping up and coming students.
I suspect the work load is pretty sizeable though. My field of study is basically a 37h a week job and we're told how UK universities have a more disciplined work ethic than ours, so ... yeah.
Thumbs up for free university education in the US!
no free lunch
I fully support public university,
Mr. Weaver, that do you mean by "no free lunch?" :p
Thumbs ups don't change laws, my friend.
Huh?
The problem is that not every person can work a job where they can "maximize fulfillment". That's what we all aspire towards, but at the end of the day someone is still needed to clean the vomit out of that urinal. Education is ultimately for people to obtain skills in order to perform tasks that benefit society. If you're skilled or smart enough to obtain fulfillment at the same time, kudos to you. But it's not going to be obtainable for everybody.
You over look one important factor in the value of a college education. You learn the skills to retrain yourself over over again. The skill set that is useful when you graduate has a half life of about 5 years. So life is a constant experience of reinventing yourself. Add to that the things in life we want to learn for the simply joy of it and college is a bargin.
john gets it
I wishe I chose something I like instead of something that earns well... I hate what i learn a lot...
You will need what you learn in the future.
Luan Cardoso The future, when you grow up, later on you'll understand. Why are we always healed to a standard of not fulfilled until we fulfill our future? Lets live in the now, if you aren't happy, change your life. There is no point in waiting for tomorrow to be a better day when you have all of today to live.
Pele warnock
Except when working hard now and being unhappy temporarily will lead to a substantially more fulfilling future than there would otherwise have been.
The future is one of the most important things to think about because if you ignore it you might end up making yourself absolutely and totally miserable.
You're right, very right. Most of people that don't think about their future won't have a good work.
If you get a liberal arts degree, you'll end up making sammiches for a living...probably.
This is a really common myth. You can get jobs in all kinds of sectors with degrees from the Humanities. I'm studying archaeology. Thats a one-way ticket into field archaeology/the museum sector.
Most people today only ever consider computer science, physics or engineering as career opportunities. They're just being too narrow minded.
Sammich makers, MOST of them end up making sammiches. Making sammiches and not paying back their student loans. Making sammiches while blaming everyone else for having to make sammiches for a living. It's a noble profession--to make sammiches. They shouldn't be ashamed.
Gufberg Your field of study is literally the worst to go into. They have the highest unemployment rate out of any college grad.
Shoey Not in Denmark which is where i'm from. The nordic countries still bothers to fund their cultural sector + we are significantly better paid than our american equivalents.
Yes. European archologists have an easier time finding employment because, well, Europe actually has a rich history. There's a lot more interesting artefacts to be found digging in Denmark than in say, Oklahoma.
At this poing, you just made me glad to have been born in Greece.
I can't even concieve having to deal with paying for Univercity, or for textbooks, or pretty much anything when it comes to Education, apart from tutoring, since Univercities have a competition each year to get the best student from all of Greece, Cyprus, and soon some other EU states, and since it's a test, people pay some-times up to 20€ per hour to tutors for preparation, anyway, nothing is perfect. On the other hand it's funny how this is considered a major injustice in Greece's education system, while in the US the Univercities just slam the dor at your face if you don't have money, or can't get a loan... Democracy at work, anyway, my point being; What if we were like the US? What if when my mother lost her job because of the crisis, my family would still have to pay for univercity and I couldn't have acess to universal health care? I would probably abandon my studies in computer science, find a random job, and be unproductive and sad for the rest of my life!
And to avoid all this you get chained by a loan for the rest of your life? What if you loose your job then, what happens? Is this how America treats its citizens?
Oh and also;
Socialism != Communism
Capitalism != Democracy
In today's world a college degree is worthless. The only thing kids get from college is a drug habit. It's basically parent's paying a shit load of money so their kid can get laid, do lot's of drug's and party hard for a few year's. I'm not saying that's a bad thing just don't think it makes any difference in anything. In the real world a college degree is meaningless. It might of meant something 20 years ago but today it's pointless. I know many people that make over 150,000 a year and they never finished high school. College is a scam but if you have rich parents and time to waste by all means party on.
I doubt you're an expert on the subject of what college really is because you obviously either didn't go (or more likely, have not yet gone) to college. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself that it was (or will be) worth it not going? Or your parents who are trying to make you go (because there is a good chance you're actually only 14)? Did you even watch the video?
As a counter point: I went to college, I didn't pick up a drug habit, I didn't get laid (though I did meet my future wife), and the classes I took not only helped me figure out what I wanted to do as a career, it made that career possible. And that is not even to mention the lifelong friendships I developed, the personal and intellectual growth I went through, and the invaluable experiences I had during those years.
Are there people who never got a degree who are successful? Definitely. Are there people who did get a degree that they never used? Of course. That doesn't mean that on average a college degree is meaningless.
Fuck that! As long as their is money then that's all I need. Just enough to pay for comic books and video games, nothing else matters.
same
and pets. don't forget the pets.
You can probably do that with $20,000 (after taxes) but you have to be frugal.
i am able to live in stl, mo, usa on about $650 a month, or about $150 a week. That includes rent, utilities, car insurance, two student loan payments, healthcare, gas. my car is paid off. if you are single, just squat somewhere, be alive. resist wage slavery
Aw man, best video for me on youtube in a while! Thanks for encouraging us John!
If you're getting a degree in ANYTHING that doesn't involve math.... then you're wasting your $$$ and time in college. PERIOD.
College is way overrated, overpriced and often not worth it. Consider the absurd cost of attending, the lost opportunity cost of investing in IRAs, 401ks, much delay in marriage, buying houses and cars, not even having children and 4 years of lost wages. College also delays young people from maturing, wasting away in the college life of drinking, sex and drugs. Colleges need to simply charge less for their educations, stop ripping off students for many courses in liberal arts that lead to nothing more than wasted time and money. Why not have high schoolers go to college for only two years and just get the skills they need for work and do it online from home.
How did you miss the most important issue?
The real issue you failed to address here is how you'll be paying for it.
After you graduate and your grace period ends, if you raked up as much debt as he's talking about, you might end up paying a monthly bill of anywhere from 1500-4K.
And chances are you won't be making a lot of money when you get out, so you might end up living with your parents for a couple of years and you might be saving very, very little money. This can make life suck hard.
Today, there are a lot of millennial bachelor grads who won't be able to have a decent bank account or a place of their own until they're 30. These were things their parents had pretty much right after they graduated. And by 30 they were getting married and buying homes. Since then, college tution has increased by at least 400%. This would be ok, if the dollar went up tremendously also, but it didn't. The state of things has ended up putting independence and maturity for an entire generation on hiatus.
So is college still worth it now?
I agree that you should go to become a better and more informed observer of the universe..............but...
Can't you become that without going to college? You have the internet and pretty much every book on the planet available to you. You can attend free lectures and even seek out mentors if you try. Think of how much knowledge you have access to. Do you think that if you applied yourself you could use it to become the informed observer of the universe you aspire to be? Don't you think you could learn the things you want to learn for next to nothing if you just tried? I think if you tried really hard and put your all into self-disciplining yourself and made the most out of every advantage around you; you would be a far more informed, incisive and worldly individual then 99% of college grads.
Or do you think you'd need college to spoon feed you into a better human being?
The sad thing is, is that usually when you rely on college to spoon feed you, they're usually pretty bad at holding the spoon.
Almost every college course spends roughly 4-6 months teaching you something that you could've mastered by yourself in 1 month.
Now doctors, lawyers and other "serious" professions, definitely need certain professors to train them hands on and they need long 4-6 month courses because they have a lot to cover and need every bit of the time.
But besides those few, 90% of college degrees are unnecessary programs that waste time and usually still don't end up covering everything you need to know.
For most of the things they offer to teach, college does a terrible job at doing so.
But colleges don't care that they're bad at educating because they know that knowledge is really not why most people go to college anyway.
They go for two reasons.
1. To get a degree that will allow you into a profession in which you absolutely, positively need a degree to get in. These are the 10% of people who actually need to go to college.
2. To fit into society and not feel like a loser.
90% of people go to college to fit in. You go so society can look at you and not write you off as an uneducated idiot or a failure. Even if you've educated yourself on so many things and you have a good job as a manager of wherever, as long as you're not in college, to most of society it won't matter what you've accomplished or what you've learned. You'd still be lower in their eyes than a fresh faced freshman majoring in communications.
You also go to college to make smarter friends, to get laid and to enjoy your youth. I.e. not feeling like a loser. Fomo. You want smarter friends, which you'll need college to get access to. You want to fuck people your age, and the most attractive ones are in college(and they really only want to fuck other college kids too). And you want to enjoy your youth, which college gives you a plethora of ways to do with other college kids. Yolo.
Most girls don't want to be known as some dumb chick who didn't go to school. And most guys don't want to miss out on potential college ass. And not alot of kids want to dissapoint their parents, who are also trying to keep up with the Jones by having a kid in a nice university. So they'll get the loans, they won't care about the education or the major they pick and they'll jump right in.
All they want is that name school, with the D-1 team, the good rank on the national list, the big endowment, the famous alumni and a pamphlet with the supple, attractive students on it.
But no one wants to think of the real reason of why they're going and the insecurities that are driving them. No one wants to think about life after college and what daily life will be like as a financial slave.
Today, no one really thinks about anything unless pertains to the present. The future is always so far away.
So is college worth it?
It is if you want to have some fun for 4 years, make some friends and then struggle for about 10 years in paying it back.
It isn't worth it if want to choose other ways to educate yourself and get what you want and you're ok with most of society looking down on you and judging you as an uneducated individual.
Like most things in life, if there's a good amount of hot sex involved then go for it. But if it looks dry, then why bother getting up.......
I'm 25 I make 55k a year + a quarterly bonus. High school is the last time I went to any type of school. Hard work is hard work. It can't be replaced by any type of degree
what do you do for a living?
People on here that complain about college either... didn't go to college or are jealous of the MAJORITY of those that did and put in the hard work to have a better life.
No.
+Alex Solano Go to class.
Fun fact. 90% of all millionaires didn't go to college. Are you saying they are dumb and lazy? You people are the reason colleges still exist to rob money from you. Open your eyes dipshit.
+mynameischefTV College is worth it if you don't choose worthless majors.
+mynameischefTV Citation.