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During my first stab at higher education, I was a prop. I wasn’t at Buffalo University (UB) to enrich my own well-being, I was there to enrich the well-being of others—namely, administrators, tenured professors, and coaches.
Sadly, I wasn’t the only prop at UB. Most of my fellow students were props as well. We partied, pursued fluff majors, and graduated without any worthwhile skills, insights, or attitudes. But our tomfoolery was welcomed because we didn’t show up to campus with just an Animal House mindset. We showed up with parental largesse, state subsidies, and federally-backed student loans. And mommy and daddy’s money coupled with subsidies and student loans provided the essential backstop to a lot of phony-baloney jobs and some very generous salaries. Without a lot of props, then, the gravy train UB administrators, tenured professors, and coaches were riding on would have come to an abrupt, soul-crushing halt.
How to Avoid Being a Prop in College
If you want to give a 4-year college a try and go for the vaunted bachelor’s degree, you don’t want to do so as a prop. You want the “college experience” to be as beneficial for you as it will be for your school’s administrators, tenured professors, and coaches. Here’s how to avoid being a prop.
Are You Really College Material?
Can you handle calculus? Can you handle organic chemistry? Can you handle sentences with really big words and lots of twists and turns? If you can’t, you will be a prop at a 4-year college.
Here’s a good rule of thumb. If you weren’t in the 85th percentile or higher on the SAT or ACT, a 4-year college is not for you. Generally speaking, only those with cognitive abilities higher than one standard deviation above the norm can handle true college-level work (i.e., tough majors like engineering, programming, and accounting).
You, of course, will have no problem getting into a 4-year college if your standardized test scores are below the 85th percentile. There are only a hundred or so truly selective 4-year colleges out there. Most 4-year colleges will accept anyone who has an SAT or ACT score within one standard deviation of the norm (i.e., a score between 865 and 1255 on the SAT, and a score between 16 and 26 on the ACT). And that’s part of the scam. Remember, college administrators, tenured professors, and coaches need props to keep the gravy train rolling. So here’s a dirty little secret that few in the college-industrial complex will dare tell you: If you scored below the 85th percentile in either the SAT or ACT, the odds of you earning a tough and financially rewarding STEM degree are low. If you do manage to earn a bachelor’s at all, it will likely be in a fluff major such as communications, sociology, or peace studies. Your four or five years of higher education will thus amount to nothing. You’ll have an economically worthless degree, a crapload of student loan debt, and a rather large opportunity cost from not joining the labor force four or five years sooner.
Quick aside. I recently came across the below YouTube video. The vlogger is a freshman at Princeton and in this video, he examines the downside of an Ivy League education. His views on this matter are certainly interesting enough, but what really caught my attention was the difficulty of his course work. In his computer programming course, a recent homework assignment took him 15 hours to complete. Fifteen hours! And this fellow is surely no dummy. He more than likely had a perfect high school GPA and an SAT score over 1500. Don’t believe the hype. The SAT may be a poor predictor of “college success,” but it’s an excellent predictor of “hard-as-hell course success.” I seriously doubt that anyone who scores less than 1200 on the SAT or 26 on the ACT will be able to handle a STEM major at a decent school, much less an elite school.
Are You Serious?
Based on the 85th percentile rule, I was barely college material when it came to math. I wasn’t college material when it came to English and reading comprehension. But let’s for the moment assume that I was college material on the English and reading comprehension front as well. Should I have gone to UB?
Hell no.
I had no idea why I was going to college. I was just pursuing higher education because that’s what everyone in my social circle did. I wasn’t interested in any particular field, I had no stomach for hard work, and I lacked the discipline necessary to avoid the riotous partying that was ubiquitous on and off campus. In effect, I wasn’t a serious student. And because of this, I readily morphed into a besotted prop. Here are some of the highlights from my freshman year.
- On my 18th birthday (the legal drinking age in 1979), I went to the pub located on the first floor of my dormitory in my bathrobe (along with everyone else on my dorm floor). Of course, I neglected to put underwear on. And, of course, I proceeded to flash everyone while I was on the dance floor later that night (that sixth shot of Jack Daniels really hit me hard).Quick aside. This was the first and only time I ever blacked out during my drinking career. I don’t remember going on to the dance floor at all. All I remember was waking up the next day with the most brutal hangover imaginable. For the next four years after this infamous birthday, the mere smell of Jack Daniels made me reflexively wretch.
- I got kicked off the football team (long story).
- In my “Great Mysteries of the Earth” course—a course that dealt with such confounding and pressing matters as Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, and Bigfoot—the syllabus informed me and all my classmates that “any well-manicured ape should get a C in this class.” I ended up getting a D.
- My GPA for my first semester was 1.7.
- I stole an American flag from a business that was located just outside of campus (again, long story, but I did give it back two years later).
- I got expelled for accidentally breaking one of the toilets in our dorm’s bathroom (again, long story). The letter that came from the university president informing me of my expulsion said I was a “clear and present danger to the people of this institution.”
Things got better after my freshman year, of course. I learned how to be a more responsible drunk. And my GPA did rise to 2.7. But my academic “turnaround” only occurred because I chose to major in the fluffiest of all fluff majors at the time, sociology.
Quick aside. I chose to become a sociology major because 1) I desired a major that wouldn’t interfere with my partying, and 2) my girlfriend at the time was a sociology major. Was I pathetic, or what?
I look back at my time at UB with utter disgust. I was the ultimate prop—just a warm body that brought revenue to the institution and didn’t get in the way of the serious people doing serious work.
Don’t do what I did when it comes to higher education. If you don’t know what you want to major in, if you have a penchant for sleeping and procrastinating, and if you’re only jacked up about college because you’re infatuated with the “college experience,” you have no business attending a 4-year college.
Can You Afford It?
Okay, let’s assume that you pass the 85th percentile rule, are determined to become a chemical engineer, and have the necessary discipline to forgo a social life for four years. Is going to a 4-year college for you a no-brainer?
Perhaps. There’s just one more thing I want you to consider: the cost of obtaining your bachelor’s degree.
My biggest gripe with the college-industrial complex is its business model. To get its vaunted bachelor’s degree, you have to waste a lot of time and money on unnecessary crap. And in no particular order, that unnecessary crap is as follows:
- Roughly twenty-five of the forty classes you’ll have to take to obtain a BA will have nothing to do with your major.
- Resort-like dorms and amenities.
- Tenured professors who devote more time to research and grant hunting than to teaching.
- Sports.
- Fraternities and sororities.
- Student government.
- Student fees that support tribalism and Left-wing indoctrination. (If anyone knows of a non-religious 4-year college that uses student fees to support individualism and Right-wing indoctrination, please let me know.)
There’s only one thing worse than paying for all this unnecessary crap. And that’s paying for all this unnecessary crap with debt.
I can’t in good conscience ask anyone to go into debt for a bachelor’s degree. The economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree—even one from a STEM field—are just too tenuous. Consider the following:
- Colleges get all of the benefits of student loans but shoulder none of the risks. What happens if you drop out of college before getting the vaunted bachelor’s degree? What happens if you work your ass off getting a computer science degree but Congress increases the number of H-1B visas and you can’t find a programming gig that can support your monthly student loan nut? What happens if your vaunted bachelor’s degree isn’t as highly prized in the labor market as your alma mater led you to believe and you wind up slinging fraps at Starbucks or driving for Uber? Will your cherished alma mater step in and help you with your student loans payments?
- It’s harder to be true to your values if you’re saddled with debt. What happens if your boss turns out to be a butthead? What happens if a co-worker starts to sexually harass you? What happens if you discover that the company you’re working for is cooking the books, or skirting environmental laws, or taking advantage of poor and unsophisticated people? Will you be able to walk away from that toxic employment if you have student loan debt out the ying-yang?
- And, finally, student loan debt turns you into a prop regardless of how bright and earnest you are. There’s no escaping this sad, regrettable truth. You borrow money to pay for unnecessary crap and you tacitly support a system that makes the financially weak (i.e., young people) purchase unnecessary crap. Why? Why would you go into debt for an institution that has utter contempt for you?
Avoid student loans like the plague. If that means living at home, working part-time, and commuting to a nearby state college or—gasp!—community college, so be it.
Final Thoughts
I recently came across an article in the Chicago Sun-Times that dramatically shows the dangers of becoming a prop for the college-industrial complex. Here are the financial situations of the eight students profiled in this article.
| Name | Age | Degree | College | Student Loan Debt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Judith Ruiz | 30 | BA in Broadcast Journalism (2010) | Columbia College Chicago | $80,000 |
| Brian Idziak | 25 | BS in Marketing (2016) | Elmhurst College | $60,000 |
| Rick Ceniceros | 27 | BFA in Television (2013) | Columbia College Chicago | $47,900 |
| Deshoun White | 26 | BS in Marketing (2015) | Southern Illinois University Edwardsville | $34,500 |
| Tiela Halpin | 32 | BA in Photography (2012) | Columbia College Chicago | $80,000 |
| Amanda Spizzirri | 23 | BA in Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies (2017) | DePaul University | $90,000 |
| Jessica Barazowski | 29 | BS in Biology (2015) | Loyola University | $100,000 |
| Katelyn Harper | 26 | BFA in Advertising Art Direction (2013) | Columbia College Chicago | $140,000 |
If each of these students had been aware of my how-not-to-become-a-prop-in-college checklist and used that checklist to guide his or her consumption of higher education, each would be in a much better place today financially. But, no, they all had to follow their dreams and passions. And because they were never taught that college administrators, tenured professors, and coaches can be just as slimy as used-car salespeople, they were totally ripped off and abused by the college-industrial complex.
Remember my how-not-to-become-a-prop-in-college checklist well.
- If you scored below the 85th percentile on the SAT or ACT—that is, if you have average or below average cognitive abilities—the 4-year college isn’t for you.
- If you’re not a serious student—that is, if you have no burning desire to study anything in particular and have no stomach for hard work—the 4-year college isn’t for you.
- And, finally, if you can’t afford all the costs associated with the 4-year college of your choice, and you have to borrow money to attend that 4-year college, that 4-year college isn’t for you. You’ll either have to forgo a private 4-year college in favor of a public 4-year college, forgo a residential 4-year college in favor of a commuting 4-year college, or forgo the notion of a 4-year college altogether and go to a community college.
Now, my how-not-to-become-a-prop-in-college checklist might strike you as overly cruel. But answer me this. What is crueler? Telling people who really aren’t cut out for higher education that they should forget about the vaunted bachelor’s degree and focus instead on learning a trade or getting a worthwhile associate’s degree or certification? Or telling marginal students to pursue their dreams in a 4-year college and watch them hit their prime marriage and house-buying years with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and economically worthless degrees? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
Your post is a thought-provoking article that sheds light on the growing issue of student debt and the higher education system in the US. I like the way you poignantly argues how society places too much emphasis on college degrees, leading many young people to be burdened with student loans. This article encourages us to rethink the value of a college degree and to explore alternative paths to success – a compelling read for anyone interested in the topic.
Hi MrGroovy, I know my reply is a bit dated but I’m working my way backwards after recently finding your blog. I love your perspective on things! I was bottom 3/4 in my high school way back in the early 80’s, but managed to get into a decent state college based on my Dad’s encouragement as I had no direction in life. In my late junior/early senior year of high school, I had decided to put the laziness and partying aside to buckle down on education and make something of myself. When I hit college I was hell bent on focused studying and discipline while so many around me were just beginning to start their party phase (I had a lot of pressure to not study for sure). I stumbled across mechanical engr based on some other college upper classmen I admired, and worked my ass off to overcome my poor high school years (my bad mistake). I lived in the cheapest dorm I could (which was a real dump) and with my parents help left college debt free, with a co-op experience in engineering of 3 semesters and easily got a.job with my co-op employer. I totally agree that the most important thing going in to college is having your head screwed on straight, not get sucked into the “college experience” crap, and working hard. I almost wonder if the only way to turn around the many unneeded hours of college classes to get a degree is for big business human resources to actually work on finding qualified people rather than their easy way out mentality of requiring a B.S. degree (i.e. Show me you took z, y, and z classes and I don’t care if you got a piece of parchment). BTW, you should check out Hillsdale college – my daughter is entering her senior year there, and sure, it’s still expensive and they have all their core requirements, but at least they seem to do.a good job of countering the progressive brainwashing which is occurring at most colleges (and high schools) and turning her into a very good critical thinker.
Yeah.
It’s not quite as exxy here in Australia, but I have one son finishing off a Bachelors in Music that effectively provides zero qualifications in any job, and another son pursuing a degree in Acting.
It’s ALL MY FAULT!! I teach Theatre Studies.
The apples haven’t fallen far from the tree… (except I got a Bachelors in Education.Saved our bacon when I needed to suport my family on my wage.)
You’re brave to tackle the college industrial complex as it’s a tangled web. i was just at UB this past week but as a parent of a college-goer. (She’s not opting for UB but a much smaller school.) I agree that 4-year college isn’t for everyone, college debt isn’t for everyone, and the crazy cost of college makes the ROI calculation so much more important now. That said, while the sky-high cost of college makes it hard for me to think of anything but the financial aspect, there is so much more to college than earning potential, cost/ benefit analysis, and other quantitative issues. It’s hard for me to write that, as I recently did a blog on how insane college is going to cost us as parents, and how private college for two kids (which is what we have) could fund a basic retirement! Still, we are choosing one of the more expensive options b/c it is a better emotional fit. It’s hard to compare numbers to feelings, and I hate that we have to do it, but we did it in this case, and we’ll find out in the decades to come how this works out!
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No doubt about it, something has to change. It’s hard to fathom a generation of 20-somethings entering the workforce ~$50k+ in the hole. I love what Mike Rowe is doing with MikeRoweWorks, he’s trying to encourage people to seriously consider entering the Trades. It’s a great choice for so many people, but too many folks get hungup on the “value” of a college education. Do some cost/benefit analysis, folks. And…compare yourself to Mr. G’s criteria! Think before you Act, and consider a career in the Trades!
Just say no to debt. #walkawayfromhighereducation. The trades are just as honorable as cubicle jobs. And until higher education changes its business model, I can’t in good conscience advocate a bachelor’s degree to the typical young person. Love the cut of your jib, my friend.
Wow. That is some tough love Mr. Groovy. But it is hard to ignore the issues that you brought up.
With tuition stratospherically rising, there are not many jobs out there that graduates can get that will allow them to make a dent in the student debt they incurred.
Would you rather have a $100k/yr job with $300k of debt, or a $50k/yr job with no debt? That’s a tough one and depends on how long you can work.
Medical students/docs have it even worse. Sure the annual salary is great but you have a delayed start in earning, more debt, etc.
xrayvsn recently posted…I Lied About Being Debt Free And Why I Am Happy About It
Hey, Xrayvsn. Glad you joined the discussion. I have a question for you. I’m very ignorant of doctor training. It looks like it takes ten years of schooling to produce a doctor. Is that amount of schooling really necessary? Can we reduce the education burden on prospective doctors and still maintain quality?
So technically to obtain an M.D. you have to go to college for 4 years and then medical school for 4 years (8 yrs total). However even though you have an MD you really can’t practice medicine unless you go through a residency and pass the USMLE steps 1-3.
Residencies range from 3 yrs (internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics) to 5 years (radiology, surgery, etc). You can also add 1-2 years of fellowship if you want to train even further.
There are some programs that combine college and med school that can shave 1 year off (combined 7 year program). These programs are a bit brutal and I believe go right through summers so no break.
Some countries (like India) go from the high school equivalent right to medical school so you save 4 years (no college).
If anything needs to be cut in the training of becoming a doctor, it would have to be the college years, don’t think there is much you can trim off of medical school education because of the amount of information needed to impart to the students in a relatively short time.
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We need more guidance counselor and parents with your mindset. What 17-18 year old is really concerned about debt, and ROI on their degree, not many.
If college is for you there are many ways to keep the cost down, Take free AP classes in HS, attend a community college, graduate in only four years or less.
I agree the system is broken, but if you want to take it on you need to be smart about your choices.
Brian recently posted…How to Instill Work Ethic Into Your Kids
Amen, brother. Twelve to fifteen courses is all most people need for most entry-level jobs. What this country needs is a tier of community colleges with the rigor and selectiveness of the Ivy League. If we had that, the outdated and inefficient bachelor degree would come to a quick and well-deserved death.
School teachers certainly need more than 15 courses ( even if not education courses… I want my children’s teachers to be well rounded in other subjects just as I will want my children to try out many subjects in college).
We need social workers, psychologists, civil and mechanical engineers. College provides the knowledge needed for these professions. How many kids know what they want to major in until being exposed to a variety of subjects?
I don’t advocate debt… community college or a state school ( especially with a scholarship and a smart student should work at getting those) is a good start.
But kids who are not serious should not be going to college. Why did your parents allow you to continue college if you were doing so poorly? Even though it was cheap by today’s standards, it seems like you should have waited until you were going to take it seriously.
Excellent points, BWB. Here is my reply.
“I want my children’s teachers to be well rounded in other subjects just as I will want my children to try out many subjects in college.”
Well-rounded teachers are a good thing and young people exploring a wide variety of subjects is also a good thing. But why do you believe that well-roundedness and exploration can only be provided by college? It seems to me that well-roundedness and exploration can be done a lot more effectively and cheaply outside of college (i.e., traveling abroad, reading books, watching YouTube videos, blogging, starting a business, etc.).
“We need social workers, psychologists, civil and mechanical engineers. College provides the knowledge needed for these professions.”
Agreed. But every bachelor’s degree program I’ve seen requires roughly 40 courses. And of those 40 courses, only 12 to 15 pertain to the actual major. Why not let prospective social workers, psychologists, and civil engineers just take the 12 to 15 courses that pertain to their respective majors and call it a day? Why do we want young people to pay for 25 courses they don’t really need? And here’s another question for you. Who is in a better position to take 25 frivolous courses without incurring debt? Children of wealthy parents or children of middle-class and poor parents?
“Why did your parents allow you to continue college if you were doing so poorly?”
They didn’t know better. But more importantly, I didn’t know better.
“Even though it was cheap by today’s standards, it seems like you should have waited until you were going to take it seriously.”
Nailed it! I was a much better student when I went back to college in my 30s.
Thanks for stopping by, BWB. I really appreciate you challenging my ideas. Cheers.
I guess my answer to this is, at 18, you don’t know what you don’t know. Not too many 18-year-olds will listen to their parents about reading books on subjects. I certainly wouldn’t trust YouTube over a professor. Not sure how running a business or blogging at 18 teaches you about a variety of subjects.
I was forced to take subjects in a wide range of disciplines and at the time I felt as you still do that it was a waste….art history, music theory, social science, and history (I was a sciences major). But now I appreciate that I did. And I have a BS and MS and am very proud of both. Well worth the money. But then I was an A student.
As I stated, middle and lower class students should try for scholarships if they are smart. If they can’t get them, I agree, they shouldn’t go to college and incur debt. But that still doesn’t mean just take 15 courses…again, how do you know what you want to do in life at 18? And do you want to hire a teacher or a social worker or engineer at the age of 20?
Travel abroad is great for life skills…..and I guess you do get a broad range of knowledge in culture and the arts if you go looking for it. But it’s not necessarily cheap, though I suppose cheaper than a fancy college. You just have to be the kind of kid who will take advantage of what travel offers, same as taking advantage of what college offers.
It’s all gonna crumble at some point. The free proliferation of knowledge and more importantly classes and online teaching will drastically change colleges. Some are embracing it a bit by putting free material online, including some ivy league colleges, while still charging 50k a year. But when the Federal government backs unlimited loans for everyone why not milk it and charge 50K a year? That’s what these colleges have been running with. The clock is ticking. If the financial house of cards doesn’t get them then their increasingly disturbing trend of censoring speech will get them, or both.
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It can’t crumble fast enough. Higher education has been a dismal steward of our history, our culture, and our freedom. And to add insult to injury, we pay hundreds of billions of dollars a year in taxes, tuition, and fees for this negligence. #walkawayfromhighereducation
Most people aren’t very mature at 18. A bunch of people didn’t make it through the first year of my engineering program. There were too many distractions and the course work was too difficult for them.
Actually, I think the real problem was the change in expectation. In high school, you can get good grades with minimal study. It doesn’t work like that in college. From what I heard, people who go back to college later are much more successful. They are more determined to complete the course work.
Anyway, I’m still determined to push my son through college. He’ll need any advantage he can get. Of course, if he has a good alternative, I’d be willing to listen. We’ll see…
Excellent point, Joe. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I have long believed that high school students should have the ability to defer some education money allocated on their behalf. This way, some money will be available when they’re more serious about education and willing to apply themselves. But what do I know? I’m just some schmuck blogger.
The problem is decades in the making and won’t be an overnight fix.
My two biggest gripes are:
1) A bachelor’s degree is the 1950s/1960s version of having a “high school diploma” because the bachelor’s degree is so common
2) Graduate school is a natural next step for many who actually want to pursue a career in their field of study.
I’m only went to college because I wanted to take the lazy way of getting a management position by getting a degree and jumping straight into management. The alternative was putting in at least a few years on the blue-collar side and climbing the ranks. Although I skipped the “sweat equity” the cost for me was $50k in student loans.
I wisened up and still haven’t attempted to enter grad school. Mostly because I don’t have a desire to read a college textbook again, but also because I’ve pursued opportunities that don’t require an advanced degree.
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Hey, wouldn’t it be great if a high school diploma actually meant something in the labor market again. After all, a kid starting first grade today will likely cost the taxpayers $200K once he or she completes lower education. Wouldn’t it be great if he or she left high school with a concrete skill that could command twice the minimum wage in the labor market?
That’s a novel thought!
More is less. We ask too much of lower education. How about this? An 8th grade math ability, an 8th grade reading ability, a basic understanding of and appreciation for our constitutional republic, and one concrete skill. And I don’t care what that one concrete skill might be. Cut hair, plumb a bathroom, code in Python—anything that will allow an 18-year-old kid to start a business or get a job paying twice the minimum wage. If 50 percent of our kids left lower education with the above skill set, it would be the greatest revolution in education the world has ever seen.
Amen, my friend. If only I read this 15 years earlier. I cannot even say that been there done that. I have been there and done almost that (or even worse, simply drifting over and even skip the party part). I know that it is hard for me to think out of my bubble but I don’t think any programmer who doesn’t want to be a scientist/mathematician should attend college. At least I should have not. If you have the cognitive abilities and the discipline to learn what you need then learn it online on your own or spend your precious money on specific courses which give you value and enrich your practical skill set. I think that the days of jobs where a degree will be the entry point are numbered. Bachelor degrees are shortened as BS… Coincidence? I don’t think so 😉
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Haha! It always amused me that a bachelor’s of science had the letters BS for its abbreviation.
Whether to go to college or not isn’t quite the “obvious” answer that many people assume it is. There are a lot of great paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. It definitely isn’t for everyone and prospective students need to really consider whether a degree is needed for the field they want to enter, and whether the cost of that degree with be offset with additional earnings in the future.
Brad, Fee-Only Financial Planning recently posted…Many Big Companies No Longer Require a College Degree
Very well said. The pursuit of higher must be very mindful. The ROI isn’t a slam dunk anymore.