ST PAUL, Minn. — At the end of each school year at Central High School, seniors pick up paint pens and write their post-graduation plans on the glass wall outside the counseling office.
For many, that means announcing which college they’ve been accepted to. But the goal is to celebrate whatever path students choose to take, whether they go to college or not.
“We have a few who are going to trade school, a few who are going into the military, and a few who wrote, ‘I haven’t decided yet,'” counseling center staff member Lisa Beckham said as she helped hand out the markers in May as the school year drew to a close. Some, she said, will get jobs right away.
Speaking to the students signing the petition, it became clear that the high cost of college played a major role in their choice.
“I’m thinking about going to college in California, and all my grandparents went on $100 a semester and got pretty low-paying jobs, but they had the ease of going to college so they didn’t go into debt for years,” said junior Maya Shapiro, who was watching the seniors create their plans. “So now I think it’s only worth going to college if I end up getting a job that can pay for college, so if I get a job in English or history, I might not be able to find a job that can pay for my tuition.”
When I told her I was an English major in college, she immediately said, “Sorry.”
Even students attending the most prestigious universities are concerned about costs.
Harlow Tong, who was scouted by Harvard University as a track and field athlete, had planned to attend the University of Minnesota but said she is still weighing her decision to attend the Ivy League school.
“After making this decision, it hit home that this really is an investment, and every year it feels like it’s less and less worth the cost,” he said.
A new book reveals the changing forces influencing students’ choices after high school and argues for a shift in prevailing views of higher education.
The title of the book is “Rethinking universityKarin Klein, a longtime journalist and Los Angeles Times editorial writer, has called for an end to “degree inflation,” the requirement for a college degree when people can do the same job without one. She also advocates for more high school graduates to take a gap year to figure out what they want to do before enrolling in college, or to seek out apprenticeships in fields where college may not be necessary.
But she acknowledges that the issue is complicated. She herself says that one of her daughters, now 26, would have benefited from taking a gap year. “The problem was that cost was a big factor,” Klein told me. “She had received a large scholarship offer from a good school, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to take a gap year, if that offer will even be considered. If I don’t get that offer, I can’t afford to go to this school.'”
Tune in to this week’s EdSurge podcast to hear more from Klein, the program she sees as a model for new graduate school options, and Central High School students. Spotify, Apple Podcastsor watch in the player below: This is the latest episode of the Doubting College podcast series.
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