That said, I disagree with the following: “The reason why $50,000 a year tuition exists is because enough people believe it’s worth it.”

The main reason tuition is so high at both private and public universities in the US is because of government intervention. A college education in the 1950s, adjusted for inflation, was affordable to almost everyone without having to get into debt. Obviously, there was and still is a demand for a college education, but when the government was not making financial aid and other grants available to students, tuition was a hell of a lot lower. It makes sense given that colleges and other graduate schools have continually raised their tuition even as the number of colleges and universities has increased in number, and the resulting competition should have kept tuition down. While I am always wary that “correlation does not equal causation,” when you give a large number of people, high school graduates, access to what amounts to a free loan, you increase the number of people who can afford college, and you drive up demand. Rising demand drives higher prices, in this case, tuition. We have too many people who are college-educated, too few working in the skilled trades, and I believe (someone plz correct me if I’m wrong here) the most indebted college graduates on the planet.

Given this scenario, the gut reaction of most people is to clamor for more government funding, when this is exactly what caused the problem in the first place. Most people look at our system and conclude that private education does not work, is inefficient, and much too costly. Actually, private education works just fine. Nobody was complaining 50-60 years ago when it was affordable. It is a disgrace that Allison is forced to wait tables while being buried under 100k in debt. She deserves better. At the same time, I admire her work ethic and commitment, but she will unfortunately be forced to search for a job that pays better than waiting tables if she doesn’t want to spend the next decade or more paying off her debt.

Expensive private schools are necessary if you want to make it to the top of a big company. The titans of industry and other big wigs out there just don’t waste their time with average folks, even average folks with a string of honors and awards. Got a 4.0 from State U, no one cares. Got Harvard or Yale on your resume, then you a chance at being taken seriously.

On the other hand, if you just want to be a nurse at Local Hospital then where you go doesn’t matter very much, so long as the program doesn’t have a reputation for producing crap.

No matter what degree you get or where you get it from, you might emerge at the other side of your education realizing that you made a giant mistake and hate the whole field. And given the incredible disconnect between didactic learning and actual doing, this isn’t a rare occurrence. In this case, you’ve just wasted a ton of time and money. Even with a full ride, you’ll never get your time back.

If you graduate during the great recession, then life pretty much just hates you. Getting that degree from Columbia should have been a great plan. And it would have been if the economy hadn’t tanked, millions of people weren’t laid off, and every company spazzed out and went on a hiring freeze.

And finally there is the burden of wading through all the conflicting advice on education and careers. Do what you love? What if you don’t know what you love? What if what you love isn’t really marketable? Do what makes money? What the thought of doing a given high paying job makes you want to slit your writs? Do what your parents want? Go into a field that is really popular right now?

Is there really any way to know if your decision was right outside of hindsight?

Do I think it was a waste then. No. There’s something more to an education than the bottom line. My personal world was opened up in ways it would never have been at some community college near home. Perhaps the skill set would have been identical, but if you pour yourself into something for those years, I think you should get something for your soul out of it. Not just some paycheck.

BTW I worked my way through, received scholarships, and got no help from my folks. Maybe that’s partially why the experience was so sweet. If you don’t feel the cost of it (whether your folks pay or not), that’s what it’s worth. For me it was like being submerged in everything I loved.