Dropping Out ... Who Should Attend College? ... It's as Simple as Bacon and Eggs

Should everybody attend college? No. Only people who have every intention of graduating from college should attend college.

Thus, it's important to make an effort to differentiate between those who are seriously committed to graduate and those just intent on attending college. Making such a 'serious commitment,' of course, in the end is a question only answerable by the individual deciding whether or not to enroll.

Which brings us to the story of a breakfast consisting of bacon and eggs and the fundamental difference between commitment and involvement. The pig was committed but the chicken was only involved. In other words, how big a deal is it to our future, and how seriously are we taking the opportunity to make a huge difference in our adult lives?

If we go and graduate, it will likely make a big positive difference in our lives. On the other hand, if we attend and don't graduate, it may make a big negative difference in our lives.

In either case, we may take on considerable debt. But in the happy outcome scenario, we go on to earn a degree which will help ease our financial burdens in life. On the other hand, in the dropout case we assume a great deal of problematical debt and don't materially enhance our lifetime earnings capability. One's a good investment of our time and money. The other's largely a waste of both.

Thus, we need to take a "pig like" approach if we're going to take the time and invest the money to go to college. And we need that time and money to represent an investment well made as compared to a largely wasted expenditure.

And that's especially the case if we're going to borrow money to pay for our college investment.

The Cost of Dropping Out is subtitled 'Millions Struggle With High College Debt and No Degree:'

"The rising cost of a college education is hitting one group especially hard: the millions of students who drop out without earning a degree.

A bachelor's degree remains by far the clearest path to the American middle class. Even today, amid mounting concerns about the rising cost of higher education and questions about the relevance of many college degrees, recent graduates have lower rates of unemployment, higher earnings and better career prospects than their less educated peers.

But as more Americans than ever before attend college, more too are dropping out before they ever don a cap and gown. That means millions of Americans are taking on the debt of college without getting the earnings boost that comes from a degree. Dropouts are more than four times as likely as graduates to default on their student loans.

"Graduating with a lot of debt can be daunting," says Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success, an advocacy organization promoting access to higher education. "Having a lot of debt and not graduating is even more daunting." . . .

 

"Students who don't graduate with some sort of credential or degree, they are the ones who are having the most problems repaying," said Alisa Cunningham, one of the study's authors. "It doesn't even have to be a really high amount of loans. It's just that they get in trouble because they have their daily lives they have to pay for."

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 34 million Americans over 25 years old have some college credits but haven't received a diploma, a rate that grew by roughly 700,000 people over the past three years.

Meanwhile, the rising cost of college is forcing many students to work long hours, which has been shown to reduce the odds of completing a degree, and is leading others to quit school outright. Ever-higher debt burdens heighten the consequences for those who drop out, making it harder for them to borrow money to buy a house or a car or to go back to school later on.

The problem has long-term economic implications. Economists say the U.S. needs more college graduates in order to remain competitive. But expanding the pool of graduates means reaching out to low-income families, immigrants, minorities and children whose parents didn't earn degrees. Efforts to help such students attend college have often outpaced efforts to make sure they graduate.

Even successfully completing a college degree is no guarantee of a successful career, especially in today's still-shaky economy. There were 1.9 million unemployed college graduates in October, according to the Labor Department, a third of them younger than 35. By one estimate, about half of young graduates are either unemployed or are working in jobs that don't require a college degree.

Still, those who don't graduate face even bleaker prospects. Among Americans aged 25 to 34—the youngest group that would have completed college under a traditional schedule—the unemployment rate for bachelor's degree holders was 4.1%, versus 11% for those with only a high-school diploma and 9.8% for those who began college but didn't finish. Employed college graduates earned 37% more than dropouts in 2010, according to an Education Department analysis of Commerce Department data.

"In the American system access to postsecondary education is really about access to the middle class," says Anthony Carnevale, an economist at Georgetown University and the director of the school's Center on Education and the Workforce. There are still pathways to success without a degree, Mr. Carnevale says, but they are narrowing. . . .

One recent study found that just a quarter of undergraduates are "traditional" students, defined as full-time students on a four-year residential campus. Increasingly, the students who fill American campuses attend school part-time, work long hours and commute to school. Many of them are older and have families of their own.

The U.S. higher education system has adapted only slowly to this changing population. At many schools, class schedules change semester to semester, making it hard to work full-time. Professors are often available during limited hours. The result has been low graduation rates among nontraditional students. According to a 2011 study by Complete College America, an Indiana-based nonprofit, the six-year graduation rate for full-time students is just 45.2% for low-income students, 39.9% for African Americans and 27% for students 25 or older when they enroll. Across all categories, graduation rates are far lower for part-time students. "I think we had this mistaken belief that if we'd send students off to college then they'd graduate," says Stan Jones, the group's president.

(As a nation we must begin to) focus on getting students who have started college to get through to graduation day. A fifth of the American workforce has some college but no degree."

Summing Up

Getting a college degree is a worthwhile endeavor and a wonderful way to enhance a person's employability, lifetime earnings and quality of life. It's a big deal and pursuing it should be treated as such. 

Getting as much education as possible and investing in ourselves is the best investment we'll ever make.

That said, borrowing to invest is a serious obligation to assume and student loans should only be undertaken by 'pigs' and not 'chickens.' Otherwise it's likely to prove to be a good idea gone bad.

Society needs to focus on helping young people be able to get through college instead of merely getting to college.

Because the difference between getting through and getting to college is like the difference between the pig who becomes bacon and the chicken who lays eggs.

So let's not encourage our youth to waste either time or money. Instead let's do what we can to make sure that both are sound investments, and that the decision to borrow isn't taken lightly.

And finally, let's not make enrolling in college as simple as signing one's name to a government backed student loan application, regardless of what the interest rate may be.

Once we sign on the dotted line, we're on the hook to pay off the student loan, and there's no getting off that hook without paying the principal sum and subsequent interest charges in full.

Thanks. Bob.