Why college is not for everybody

It is what is expected after high school.  It doesn't matter what your skill set is, what your calling may be, or what you actually WANT to do with your life.  There is this unreasonable expectation that you must attend college or you will not amount to anything worthy.

I call it being a lemming, named after an animal and also an old, old DOS computer game about creatures that follow along with the crowd blindly without thinking for themselves.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I am ANTI-follow-everybody-blindly to the max.  If everyone is buying it, doing it, watching it, or going there, odds are great that I will probably think long and hard about it, and most of the time I won't be following along.  I like being different, and I like knowing that I am my own person not easily influenced by popular culture.

I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that college is for everyone, or even that college benefits everyone.  Some people don't benefit by it at all, and some even come away having lost their faith, their virginity, or their health from drinking/drugging/sexing too much.

I attended college on a full leadership scholarship.  All throughout high school, I never considered any other options, and no other options were presented to me by anyone else.  Within a semester and a half of graduating with an education degree, God called me to homeschool my daughter, who was then in public school in first grade.

The rest is history.  I won't say that my education up to that point was wasted, because God can use anything, but I could have homeschooled them just as adequately with my high school education. 

The point of all of that was to say that I am NOT completely anti-college.  I just don't think it an option for every single high school graduate.  I don't even know that it is a good choice for most high school graduates.  A good number of high school graduates are not even mature enough to attend college with purpose and not waste a lot of time and money partying and floundering around, not even knowing what they want to major in.

I think waiting at least a couple of years for some maturity to set in would help some who need to attend to work in their field of choice.  That time can be used to work, save money for attending, and planning and making goals about what they actually want to do in life.  Maturity levels have definitely decreased in our nation, and most 18-19 year olds are NOT ready to do college correctly.

Correctly as in actually attending classes with purpose, with goals in mind and partying not in mind.  Correctly as in not skipping as many classes as can be gotten away with, and in actually putting effort into research papers and projects.

For those of us who are trying to raise our children in our faith, it can be daunting to send young, immature adults into the anti-religious atmosphere of a lot of universities.  Unless one's faith is super-strong, it can be a dangerous time of testing.

I wouldn't encourage my children to go unless they actually felt God calling them to a specific vocation that required a degree.  Amber, my fifteen year old, feels called to be a doctor, but has decided that attending college in Kenya where she wants to minister is where she would benefit the most.

I am glad, because people actually take their educations seriously in Africa.  I am very much in favor of learning as much as we can about the world around us all throughout our lives.  I am just not in favor of the mockery a lot of universities are becoming in attaining that knowledge, nor do I think that we all need or desire the same knowledge.  I am definitely not in favor of the Socialist, anti-gun, anti-religious liberty cesspools they are becoming.

When you take it apart logically, it really doesn't make sense that one path in life for high school graduates could all be the same.  We are all made individually, with different futures doing completely different things.  A few of those possible choices can be attained with a college degree, but there is no way that all of them require a degree.   And there is no point wasting time and money on something you aren't going to need, all at the jeopardy of being sucked into the anti-religious atmospheres and complete debauchery that is rampant on most campuses.

Some of the persistent propaganda that you will hear on economic reports and the news is that everyone needs a degree to even make enough to life a basic lifestyle.  I have heard and read this repeatedly, and it is simply untrue and incorrect.  A person can have a basic non-degreed job, work hard, live frugally, and stay out of debt, and be able to pay all of their bills and feed themselves and their families just fine.

They may not be dining on much steak and lobster, but there is nothing wrong or joy-robbing about living a basic, simple and peaceful lifestyle free of a lot of the materialistic trappings.  I can say this with authority, because we do it and we know numerous families that do it as well. 

I have heard people scorn those with basic blue-collar jobs, like the only people worthy of consideration and respect are those with white-collar degreed positions.  Personally, I have found that there is more contentment, peace and family togetherness in families whose main bread-winner has a blue-collared job.  When he or she clocks out, he is done and can leave the job behind and focus on more important things. Stress levels are also usually considerably less at these positions, which makes for better health.

Not that it is wrong to find fulfillment in your job, but it is definitely not the source of lasting fulfillment and contentment.  That comes from within, and can be carried with us wherever we go, whether we are working at home, working at being the local trash collector, or working defending clients in court.

You can tell when someone has fallen for this propaganda that high school graduates should attend college when they ask the graduate either what their plans are or where they are going to college.  This is followed by a scornful remark or silence if the graduate doesn't answer the question with "college".  I have experienced it when I was younger, and my older children have both experienced these pointed questions as well.

These are the times when I just wish people would learn to think for themselves and understand that everyone's life walk is not going to look the same, and that is perfectly acceptable and even wonderful. 

Truly understanding that success is not measured in the size of your annual salary, the abundance of your possessions or the initials after your name, is a definite step towards wisdom.  Success is knowing what God has called you to do and doing that thing with all of your heart.  Jesus was a very humble man who wasn't impressed with riches or haughiness, and he definitely wouldn't be looking down and thinking less of those with more humble positions in life.

And we shouldn't either.

Not only should we not look down on them as less successful, we should rejoice that they are individuals who have made their own choices, which are different than other people's choices.  Anyone who works hard deserves respect;  it doesn't matter what work they are doing.

If I could help one young person actually evaluate their lives, think about what their natural giftings and interests are, see where God might be leading them, and make an informed, wise choice based on those things, I would be blessed.  I truly hope this post helps correct some incorrect thinking about these things.

Here are some books on the subject you can click on to add to your library:

College is not for everyone
Success Without College
Is College Worth It?         (By a former United States Secretary of Education)

Blessings,
Debbie,  Home at Serenity Springs