Should We Send Kids To College?

Is It Time to Stop Sending Our Kids to College?

A lot of people these days are questioning the value of college and for good reason. I have spent my entire adult life in education. I have two education degrees and have taught middle school, high school, and spent forty years as a college professor. I am also a Christian parent with nine grown children. So let me lend my perspective to the question.

The first question we need to consider is why do people want to go to college in the first place? A hundred years ago you went to college to become a deeper, broader, more complete person. To become more civilized as it were. And it was strictly an upper-class venue. In the 1890s only 3% of America’s youth were college bound after high school.

Later on more and more adolescents went to college because it was a ticket to a better-paying career. In many cases it was absolutely necessary to pursue certain careers. Like medicine or college teaching. And it ceased being an upper-class phenomenon. Today, around 60% of America’s youth will eventually enroll in college.

Another reason parents wanted their kids to go to college was to transition fairly painlessly into adulthood. Rather than being thrown into the jungle of real-life work experience, a kid could take four years to move slowly into the real world, while having a really good time and, possibly, learning a few things along the way.

But the biggest reason people went to college was a college degree confers status. Parents want to be able to tell their friends that their children are college educated. For many, the more prestigious the university the more pleasure they get in telling people about their children.

But today a lot has changed. More and more parents are hesitant to see their kids off to college and a lot of kids feel the same way. A recent Gallup poll showed that slightly more than half of parents want their kids to go to college. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article entitled, “Why Parents Have Lost Faith in the Value of College.”

Why is this? All too often college makes your life worse in every way. Let’s start with the most obvious. College makes you worse off financially.  I have read all the statistics that say a college graduate makes more money over a lifetime than people who don’t go to college. But is going to college the reason? A lot of those kids who went to college are the kind of kids who would have made a lot more money anyway. Businesses see it this way. Many require a college degree even if it has absolutely nothing to do with the product they produce. They figure if a kid can work his way through the tedium of higher education he probably knows how to work and how to endure. According to the Wall Street Journal the average public university costs $36,000 a year. A degree at a private or elite university costs $300,000 to complete. In my home state of Colorado the average college loan debt is $36,000 which is pretty typical. It doesn’t take a student very long to figure out he can do a lot with $36,000.

Colleges make you worse off morally. When teaching at CU I remember students saying, “We’re the #1 party school in America!” I’ll bet I have heard kids from a hundred colleges say that. They brag at how debauched they are. I was chatting with a prof from Villanova, an ostensibly Catholic school. He said, “Our dorms are nothing more than brothels.” But I already knew that. When I taught at CU my office was in a dorm. I cannot begin to tell you the depths of depravity it had sunk to; the drunkenness, drug use, immorality. Hell has more moral restraint.

College makes you worse off religiously. For Christian parents this one is the most obvious. In most cases having a college degree means you have spent four years being indoctrinated by the enemies of Christ. If you attend a public university you have zero chance of taking a class from a Christian professor. And it isn’t as though they are neutral. Some are. But many devote themselves to the destruction of any kind of Christian faith. I was talking with a colleague who taught English. He said, and I quote: “My job is to destroy the religious values these kids got from their parents.” I asked, what do you plan to replace it with? He had a one-word answer: “Marxism.” And don’t think he’s an outlier. Thousands of American professors are just like him. Which is why I have a video on why the academic community is the greatest enemy of Western Civilization.

College makes you worse off politically. The biggest indicator of Left-wing voting tendencies is college attendance. If you went to college you are far more likely to vote for left-wing candidates. Millions of American adolescents sit for four or more years at the feet of people who hate God, hate the people of God, hate America, and hate Western Civilization. Does it surprise you that tens of thousands of these students have taken to the streets to express hatred for Israel? Or that they vote by the millions for left-wing politicians? The Left is the chief enemy of the world we live in and they are a wholly owned subsidiary of America’s colleges.

And last, college makes you worse off intellectually. Study after study has shown that college graduates have less ability to think clearly and logically than those who don’t go to college. The academic community does not want clear thinking citizens. It wants people to mindlessly follow the policies of the secular Progressive elite.

Having said all this I realize that some of you will still feel led by the Lord to go to college and I won’t argue that it isn’t His will. I have a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from secular universities and I believe the Lord led me in both cases. You might feel called to a specific vocation, like medicine, or education, and a college degree is a necessity. 

But if you are a parent or high school student you need to feel free to seriously consider alternatives to college.  What are they? If you search online for “alternatives to college” you will find very long lists. I have linked below one of those articles: “Twenty-two Alternatives to College.” Let me give you three of my favorites.

First, if you really feel you need that college credential get one online. There are hundreds of choices including some very fine Christian colleges. The cost will be a fraction of attending a residential college and you will be able to continue to live at home or in your home area, attend your same church, fellowship with the same group of people who know and love you. I see no real overall advantage to uprooting your life and heading off to state U or any other U. Community college fits in here as well. I taught at one for many years and I thought, these students are getting just as good an education as they would at the large state university I taught at. And they are doing it for about one tenth the cost.

Second, enter the job market as an apprentice or just as an employee. Start gaining work experience. Develop skills people need. They will pay for them. A number of years ago the Wall Street Journal did a comparison of a person who became a plumber and a person who became a medical doctor. The doctor ended up making more—but not a lot more. And he didn’t have a higher annual salary until he was much older. If you feel God calling you to be a doctor, by all means go to college and med school. But finances are not the best guide for making that kind of decision.

Third, become an entrepreneur. Or start working at some sort of business which will give you the skills to someday start your own business. Many entrepreneurs make serious money. And college is almost always irrelevant to this career choice. Interestingly, way less than half of college graduates work in the area of their college major. So why go in the first place?

I hope this helps. May the Lord bless your richly.

More: The Moral Bankruptcy of Higher Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KhDndjDUac

What’s Behind the Disaster at Harvard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Y3pyhTcTk

The Academic Community is the Greatest Enemy of Western Civilization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79zJJDe6LeM

The fight for civilization in higher education: https://thespectator.com/topic/fight-western-civilization-higher-education-utah/?utm_source=Spectator%20World%20Signup&utm_campaign=825f078585-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_02_14_05_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-825f078585-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Why Americans Have Lost Faith in College:  https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/why-americans-have-lost-faith-in-the-value-of-college-b6b635f2?mod=djemLifeStyle_h

Colleges Have Made Themselves Useless: https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/how-colleges-have-made-themselves-useless?utm_source=Crisis+Magazine&utm_campaign=a135059b0e-Crisis_DAILYRSS_EMAIL&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a5a13625fd-a135059b0e-28475396&mc_cid=a135059b0e&mc_eid=a40cb5b88c

It was like a flock of demons had been released upon the world: https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2023/12/07/like_a_flock_of_demons_released_upon_the_world_997485.html

Americans have lost faith in the value of college: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/why-americans-have-lost-faith-in-the-value-of-college-b6b635f2?mod=djemLifeStyle_h

Universities are not on the level: https://www.joshbarro.com/p/universities-are-not-on-the-level?triedSigningIn=true

https://hechingerreport.org/poll-nearly-half-of-parents-dont-want-their-kids-to-go-to-a-four-year-college/

Higher Ed has become a threat to America: https://www.wsj.com/articles/higher-ed-has-become-a-threat-to-america-antisemitism-dei-college-f52bb0b5?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

22 Alternatives to College: https://www.globalcitizenyear.org/content/alternatives-to-college/