Why is a college education so important?

Because without it, you'll be working minimum wage jobs your whole life. The most you'll ever make without a college degree maybe around $15/hr. It is possible to become very successful without a college degree, but it is very rare.

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What's with all the thumbs down? Studies have shown that those who are college educated normally make more than those with just a high school diploma.

Figure out how you would spend your time if you did not need to work for a living, then see if you need a degree in order to get paid to do it! It is important to get an education, but the form of education that is best for you depends on what you want to do with your life. If you want to be a carpenter, a college degree is not needed, but might be useful if you go into business for yourself. If you want to be a school teacher, you need a degree. If you don't know yet what you want to do, then I suggest going to a two year college and take some courses that appeal to you. Or, get a job in an area that you think you might like and see what it is like.

There is no right course and there is no wrong course, there is only the course you choose.

Well the reason for most people is that on the average people with a college degree make more money than their non-college educated counterparts. Don't put that in a college admission essay though. They're looking for you to lay it on thick. Personally I would say something about personal development and bettering myself. In our information based society, knowledge is power: the power to change the world. Say you want to improve your mind so you can use it to improve society. Ignorance has been the cause of countless evils in the past. Only through unfettered learning can we prevent the problems of the past from recurring and solve the problems of the future. Etc., etc., etc. All that stuff is true to an extent, but I doubt it's on the mind of many college freshmen. All their essays will have that kind of stuff though. Just let them know that money isn't your only goal (you can say financial security is a goal, just don't place too much emphasis on it). Colleges today have largely turned into white collar trade schools. They'll give you a token philosophy and psych class to make you a "well-rounded person" and then tell you to go study something useful like accounting or engineering. Out of a certain subconscious guilt, admissions boards like to hear people sing songs of their noble past as if it were still around today. Go get 'em tiger!

Well we live in a day and age where you can buy your way to the top and degrees are no exception.

However without an *education* you may become an ignorant hate filled, closed minded, gas bag bitter of the people who do have a college education.. and if you run across the right people you can land your own radio 'talk' show.

Having an college education (unless you are completely brain-dead and/or a spoiled douche) Shifts your view of the world around you, and if you are more involved with diverse settings in your community than your own rather than submitting yourself to prejudice, you can gain different perspectives and apply them to your life and can be talked to even if you might not agree with others being calm and rational as opposed to somebody who's not as cerebral and cant be talked to without it becoming a screaming match.

Thats mostly why I went. Any other reason in this job market is practically seems just to get over educated to climb over other people in a capitalistic and greedy society like crabs in a barrel.

It isn't always ! My son went to a tech school and makes a very good living ! He does heating and air , loves it . Pay is great and not much affected by recession.

I had only a few college classes and have not worked for minimum wage in years. Depends on what you do with your self . Some of the educated liberals I see on here are people I would have never hired as an HR person !

Christopher you need to get out in the world all three of my sons did not go to college and everyone of them is making considerbly more than 15 an hour , and have excellant benefits !

It is not important.

It is simply a way for Universities and colleges to make huge profits.

There are many many, billionaires who never graduated from college and went on to earn billions. They may have gone back to college after becoming wealthy. But they did not need the degree to become wealthy.

Here is a link to the college dropout alumini association:

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/7734/cdoaa.ht...

Some of the dropouts include, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Woody Allen, David Geffen. Michael Dell, F.Scot fitzgerald, William Hanna.

Based on this list it appears that it is true that college actually

"dumbs down" people because so many people with above average intelligence dropped out.

It is not necessarily important. Many college graduates are struggling to find a good job, and many are unhappy with their job. A lot of business owners never went to college, or they might have gone to college, but are now making a living doing something totally different than they studied in school. A lot of people who go to a technical or trade school are doing just as well or better than people who went to college, and they aren't left paying off a huge debt for years to come.

To some extent a college education is over-rated. One can make a good living without it. However, our society is increasingly becoming one of white-collar rather than blue-collar work. This usually demands collegiate training to get one's foot in the door. College opens doors and gives one an entry into fields that are higher paying and more in demand. But back to my first sentence, people under-estimate just how much one can make in plumbing or HVAC work and so forth. It has become popular to view college as what one is expected to do, and a whole lot of folks end up with degrees and large debts without getting high paying jobs related to their degrees when they graduate. They become over-educated for the career paths they end up in.

Well, for me, it meant putting off having to go to work for 4 more years. Actually 3 1/2 years. I messed up and graduated a semester early. It was, the best time of my life. I learned to think for myself, I learned independence, tolerance and responsibility before I had to go out on my own in the cold cruel world.

Seriously, a college degree will mean different things for different people.

Without an education you'll always be living a very poor existence in fact it won't even feel like living instead you'll feel as if your barely existing and life will take on a hellish aspect.

If you marry and have children they will grow up poor and will attend Schools with high drop out rate and will have to battle with gangs and drugs and violence will abound everywhere you go and there won't be anyway out.

Take my advice and get an education while you can and avoid the misery of being poor.

Remember knowledge is power but without it your rendered powerless to control your life and how you want to live it.