I think our society currently over-values degrees, to the extent of finding them more worthwhile than actual abilities or experience, and I think that’s awful.
I think that a person considering paying for school should look at what sort of job they want, and whether a pretty piece of paper will actually do them any good – and what the paper has to say.
But to completely call them worthless is to dream.

This holds true for stock, bonds, gold, real estate, and college degrees. Horse manure at the right price can be a better investment than gold at the wrong price.

College is not a good investment *at current prices* for many people. For some people, it still is a good investment.

The key is to look at prices, and not just blindly say “real estate is always a good investment”, or “college is always a good investment”.

I’ve got 20 plus years in the software development industry and make anywhere from $0.00 to $100.00 dollars an hour, but I don’t have a 4 year degree.

The only way that I can make that kind of money is to come in the back door as a consultant with a couple of specialty certifications.

I have a lot of experience not getting hired. I am the proud owner of a AA degree (12 years in the making.) That piece of paper opened up doors I hadn’t know were closed, but it’s impossible for me to get past a fortune 500 HR department without that 4 year degree.

The last time I was a full blown employee of a fortune 500 company, the company where I was working, got bought. However, a year and a half later, when they cut my department in half, I could not get an interview in any other part of the company because of that missing piece of paper.

The secret to high “wages” while having no degree is owning your own company. If a large company hires your company (which consists solely of you), it is because they need your skills and they know you can provide it. You bypass the HR department that way.

On the other side of the coin, if I’m in HR and I put out a job listing, I’m going to get anywhere from 100 to 1000 resumes. I can cut out 90 of them by throwing out those without 4 year degrees.

Am I throwing out great candidates?
Am I keeping some horrible candidates?
Yes to both questions, but by and large, I’m improving my odds. Also, the HR person, as an employee themselves, if they hire a bad employee, it had better have been someone with a 4 year degree.

Kinda like in 80′s when the watch-phrase was, “no one ever got fired for specifying IBM” People in HR will rarely take the risk of hiring a person with a 4 year degree.

Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

In government – and I suspect Fortune 100 – qualification standards are often inflexible.

I work for the feds and have a good relationship with my superiors. One of them, four levels above me, invited me to a meeting and said (I quote) “the problem with government is credentialism. There are jobs I’d like you in but they require a degree. That degree won’t make you any better at doing the job than I think you could do now but it’s mandatory.”

Unfortunately, I don’t have that degree so it’s probably going to be the next step for me.

However I know this degree doesn’t guarantee me a job. I often wonder if I applied for my old job what response I would receive. But I beleive in moving forward, wouldn’t trade my years of experience with that company but am very glad I did return to school & received that degree.

Two things I would stress for today’s undergrad students:

1) Learn a foreign language. No, your degree might not require it and yes, it might be hard. So what. It’s incredibly useful to have and has the potential to set you apart as someone who goes beyond the bare minimum.

2) Learn to write. Being able to effectively communicate in writing, whether it be in emails, memos, or what have yous, is a critical skill that many of you will lack unless you go out of your way to develop it. Multiple choice tests and classes that do not require term papers sound easy now, but the deny you opportunities to develop meaningful writing skills.

well to put it SIMPLY that piece of paper said i obtained a BSN–can’t be a nurse without one of those! later on another piece of paper said i had a Master’s Degree in Nursing–and that little doodad quadrupled my salary in the past 2 decades. it SIMPLY boggles my mind that one can make such a sweeping statement with effusive confidence.

Sure, if you compare somebody with a degree and no skills, etc. vs somebody with no degree with a ton of skills and initiative, you might be right, but that is comparing apples and oranges.

Also, I worked in an Accounting firm for a while when I was taking a year off, and I was doing THE EXACT SAME WORK than some new graduates and everything was the same, except that they got paid way more than me. So I think you are wrong.

There are other generalizations being made here, too. The primary one seems to be that the ONLY job worth having is a white color corporate job. That’s probably true among a high percentage of the people who read this blog, but it’s not true in the wider world. Three is no shame in being a blue collar worker.

I have one of those pieces of paper. It has never been used for its intended purpose. I didn’t need it to get a job with a high tech company where I made a ridiculous amount of money to do a job that was meaningless. I didn’t need it to get a far more interesting and satisfying blue collar job making just as much money — which I bring up not because it’s important to me, but it seems to be the sole criteria of “worthiness” here. Come to think of it, I really didn’t need it for the managerial jobs I held prior to the tech job.

On the other hand, I’ve used everything about college EXCEPT the piece of paper in every job I’ve ever had. Time-management, people skills, resource management, how to research, how to set priorities, etc. – all worth every penny of tuition.

The education is not the piece of paper; it’s everything learned while earning the piece of paper.

On the other hand I do agree that a degree won’t guarantee you a job. They don’t hand out high paying jobs with the diplomas. You have to go get a job. Any old degrees also won’t guarantee you a fat paycheck. Trents advice for making yourself a more attracitve job candidate is pretty good. I would especially recommend having job experience related to the career like with an internship or similar.

On the other hand I would question the value of a study abroad program or other ‘well rounded’ stuff. To me those seem like little more than an excuse to take an extended vacation or indulgence that the employers may not see any value in.

Agreed…but you know Trent did it just to be contrarian and to stir up the pot (generate comments). And it worked.

100% agree. I am a computer programmer. I know that I could get *a* job without a degree and the level of skill I have, but without a degree, most places I was interested in working had no interest in people without a degree at all or required something like 8+ years of experience.