College is a waste of money

Bruh you just gotta let people think what they think. Can't change everyones mind. 

College is what you make it. It's an experience in which one can meet people from around the world and engage critically with new perspectives--perspectives that will help them in all walks of life. College is also about challenging oneself--intellectually, socially, and personally, through tough coursework, poring over new material, developing problem-solving skills and, more importantly, resilience in solving problems, overcoming obstacles and extending one's limits.

Anyone who paid 200k for college only to end up at McDonald's just didn't try at all--in their academics, or extracurriculars or preprofessional pursuits--and thus would have ended up just as useless had they not gone to college. Even by majoring in history and giving 20% of your effort, you should be able to take something valuable away; and even if not, attending a (prestigious) college gives you at least a name, which itself can get you something better than McDonald's. So you have to be a special breed of useless to not benefit at all from attending college. Thus, I would say that they deserve to be disrespected.

You have to come to terms with the fact that you’ve entered a different world than most of these people.

When I talk to people from back home I usually just nod my head and agree. No point in trying to explain to people who don’t want to get it

Best to not even engage these discussions. And if you do, agree and amplify / go along with it. Small town mentality is what it is

It is a waste of time for 50% of Americans -- i.e. those who go to colleges in the bottom 50% / study liberal arts degrees 

For other 50% it is very worth it

WalnutBrain

My question is how do you guys personally handle when ignorant people say that college is a waste of time and money? Without being a dick and flexing on them but genuinely curious on how you guys respond to people in these situations

The premise of your question is flawed. College is a waste of time and money for a large portion of the population.

- About 1/3 of the college-bound population never graduates.

- Many people aren't academically inclined and are better served economically not going to college in the first place.

- From what I've read, a large minority of college graduates don't achieve net positive return. 

So you are both wrong. People making a blanket statement about the worthiness of a college degree either for or against are wrong. 

You just gotta stop caring about what idiots say/think about your choices. You think you made the right choice. The proof that it was worth it will be 10-15 years down the line when you are driving a nicer car and live in a bigger house than them. 

I know people who did attend college and ended up unemployed or underemployed. Also know folks who left school after 10th grade and created their own (successful) business and own their own properties and lots of money.

Neither choice warrants a certain outcome. It is about attitude, work ethic, a little bit of luck and business.

But there are certain jobs that require a certain education (i.e. medicine)

Honestly, they’re not wrong. $200k is an absurd price for most degrees and the objective proof of this is the student loan crisis and the general discussion on the cost of education. I am a firm believer that people who took out loans should pay them back but the reason there is difficulty in doing so is because the ROI on a standard degree isn’t that good. Before anyone cites income studies, none of those studies takes into account COL. You can work a blue collar job in Wichita and pay $500 for a decent 1BR or be in a white collar job in a major city and end up paying $2k+ for a 1BR of similar quality. So while there are nominal gains of getting a standard degree, those gains often get wiped out by the COL differential. Now of course, there are exceptions to this. I’m sure if you told your relatives that you’re studying STEM or finance/accounting (where applicable) at a target they know you will fare well.

College isn't a waste of money. What is a waste of money is someone taking out 100k in loans to major in something that is unemployable, like gender studies. The government and private banks should be lending based on what major someone is. In no other facet of life will a bank just give you money with no considerations. The problem with college is too many people are getting worthless degrees and going into crushing debt. They could have, like your hometown folks, made 200k in four years with zero debt. my 2 cents

How can someone even take out $100k in loans for undergrad?

Been discussed above, but college can very much be a waste of time and money. Most jobs, finance included, could be learned through the apprenticeship model as long as there was a filtering mechanism to find kids who are both smart and motivated (IQ tests, SATs, etc.). The biggest use these days is it being a filtering mechanism for employers to say “hey, we hired this kid from [insert top 25 school], so they must be smart and motivated”. 

Just flex your salary on them

Well, the way the system is set up now does make it a waste. Back when a part time job could pay for college while you studied, not so much. Thanks bankers, I guess y'all needed some student loan backed securities that people aren't allowed to default on. You're leveraging the present at the expense of the future and the bill is coming due.

For the record, education and the ability to critically think is priceless, but when gaining that skill puts people in debt for half their life, how do you expect them to see the value in it?

Honestly, just tell them that's their opinion and you respectfully disagree.

From a quantitative standpoint, it's possible that college is a waste of money, in that what you spend doesn't translate into higher earning potential.  Of course, not everyone need to take out 200k of debt to get a degree - in state tuition at University of Michigan is 16,000/yr; that's a good deal!  or you can get a full/partial ride.  But you don't know that that will be you in particular going in.

From a qualitative standpoint, a college education will probably make you a more thoughtful, interesting, and well read person... but not if you skip every class and drink yourself silly for four years.

In other words, it depends what you make of it.  Anyone making the blanket statement that a college education isn't worth it is a fool; that is just objectively wrong.  It might be a waste of time and money, depending on your objectives and motivation, but that is true of any endeavor.  Drinking is a waste of money, insofar as it damages your body, your mind, costs money, and gives you no monetary return... and yet your rural blue collar hometown people will likely spend many thousands of dollars in their lives actively harming themselves for no reason.  My guess is that if you told them that, they wouldn't stop drinking because of what a good point that is.

College is a waste of money in the sense school is a waste of time. The example I always use is "school is about how fast you can run, but the world is more about running in the right direction regardless of speed." Meaning, its great you can memorize words or facts, but most of that stuff can be looked up anyway; the world is about figuring stuff stuff, doesn't have to be at the fastest pace, but school doesn't prepare you for that. 

However, its a filtering process, if you go to a good college and know how to conduct yourself in a business setting, you probably had a good upbringing or at least have some good sense, therefore you'd make a good employee. That doesn't mean that every investment banking employee comes from an Ivy league just as every NFL player doesn't come from a Power 5 school. 

College is worth the price if you pick the right major, which means a major that will help you get a job that can afford a good lifestyle. Problem is, a lot of parents who don't understand that force their kids to go to college for a "better life", they study something that is more a hobby than an actual way to make a business/job, and then you're ~$200k in debt with a musical theory degree. 

I know from experience that there were kids who paid ~$200k to go to my college who knew what they were going to be senior year of high school, but their parents wanted them to get the degree, so they basically paid $200k, when they probably could have saved that and started making money right away. 

I’m assuming everyone harping on major went to a non target 

I don’t think your “friends” want to have an honest discussion about whether college is worth it, they just have a chip on their shoulder and want to feel better about their choices.  I have friends who didn’t go to college and they aren’t telling me I’ll work at a McDonalds.  

However, you can see a very in depth analysis of whether college is worth it depending on major, school, scholarship amount, risk of dropping out, etc. from the link below.

https://freopp.org/is-college-worth-it-a-comprehensive-return-on-invest…

It's not that ignorant because I would say that applies to the average person. If you're the average student at an average high school, it's probably not the best financial decision to go to state college -> 80k in debt for a 50k starting salary and non-clear progression. That 50k figure is even generous as the average college student will be better academically than the average high school student.

In my opinion, the only four-year degrees that are realistically worth it are STEM (high starting salary for anyone who graduates) or business (a clear path of progression). Even then, I think the average business student is wasting their time.

Meanwhile, if you did the average major like HR you'll realistically only make 70k salary midcareer, which you could have achieved without the 80k debt by staying in the labor workforce for 4 more years, enlisting in the military, or investing in cash-generating assets. Unless you're willing to do a master's for the average major, which just creates an even lower margin of safety.

Tell them that you're going to be a businessperson and don't use jargon.

I just wipe my tears with money and drive away in my Bugatti.

Too many people focused on the near-term investment and not enough on the long-term benefits, both tangible and intangible. 
 

College grads, on average across all schools and majors, earn roughly $1M more than non-college grads. Increase this by an order of magnitude (or more) for those going into high earning fields like finance, law, medicine, software engineering, etc. Even if you think college shouldn’t be as expensive as it is, there’s a clear argument for playing by the rules of the game as they stand today. 
 

Beyond that, I grew significantly as a person while in college, and many friends echo that sentiment. Some of this is just getting older, but I knew more than a handful from my local public high school who didn’t go to school, started making money (kind of), but were still basically the same person 5+ years later. 
 

On top of personal growth, my professional career benefited massively from being around other driven, ambitious individuals - especially when they were a year or two older than me and I could learn from their experiences. I also now have a social / professional network of other successful people my age in cities across the country. 
 

It’d be nice to have paid less for school as I do think there’s bloat in the budgets, but I would absolutely do it again in a heartbeat. 

Unless you want to go into one of a handful of professions, it is a waste of money.  I went JUCO-->Non-target-->MM, but I nearly decided to go JUCO-->Trade school-->Welding.  The fact that my college education paid off doesn't change the fact that higher education is, by and large, a racket.  I doubt very seriously there's one person on here who landed in IB who could say they took more than 5-6 courses during their college career that were in any way useful in their career.  I guarantee that no one can honestly say that the majority of courses they took were in any way useful in their career. 

Law, medicine, finance, STEM.  That's about the total list of useful majors.  Making college a requirement to get most jobs has been a detriment to society and has in no way benefitted the kids who go.  Seriously - take a look at lists of majors offered at liberal arts schools and try to tell yourself that 95% of them are a good investment.  Where's the payoff for a degree in Art History, Latin American Studies, Communication, Literature, Poetry, et. al?  Does someone really need a 4-year education to be a school teacher, or could they save a lot of time and money learning what was actually necessary to do the job if employers didn't require a college education.

Young people should give a lot more consideration to learning a trade.  If you're not going into one of the 4 fields I listed above, your ROI going into a trade is almost certainly going to be better than going to college.  I have buddies who are welders, truck drivers, and plumbers that make 6 figures.  Hell, if I'm close to my retirement number (which isn't extremely high), I will probably get my CDL and drive a truck for a few years before retiring if I reach another point of extreme burnout and depression.  Still make enough to save/invest, no longer on call 24/7, more or less set your own hours, low-stress, not likely to get back to a spot where I'm worrying about having a stroke while I'm driving a truck.

No its not. That title is the thing that is worth it. And friends, experiences, and exchange programs

College is a waste of money for most people. Many people aren't even prepared for college courses when they graduate high school. Unless you want to do something extremely specific that will pay you well enough to make it worth it or stay in academia and publish your research then college isn't really worth it. You're from a rural town with a lot of blue-collar workers, and they aren't wrong because college isn't worth it for them. However, for someone like you, that knows what he wants to do and wants to get into a high-paying industry then it's worth it for you. You'll never convince those people of anything different so I just try not to associate with them. They'll never respect your goals, and they'll never be mature enough to understand that what's good for them isn't necessarily good for you. I don't have much in common with people like that if all they're going to talk about is how my life and plans are a waste. At the end of the day, you're the only one that's going to live your life. You just have to get out of your hometown and spend as little time as possible there. Only go back for the holidays.