Define your concept of a college education, and what a college education means to you - Essay Example

College Education College education is becoming one of the scarce resources in the world owing its decreasing availability to several factors including the increase in poverty, class differences, and the popularity of the notion of easy money. Many people, these days, do not want to spend much on further education since they perceive it to be one of the means to financial mobility and there are many alternatives which makes it easier and quicker to obtain wealth. However, personally, college education is not a way to a financial mobility; its purpose and function are much deeper than that.

This paper will attempt to explore the importance of college education in an individual’s life and why is it worth the amount of time, hard work and money that students invests on their college education.Tamara Draut in her article ‘Whats a Diploma Worth, Anyway?’ quotes, “Getting a bachelors degree is the required ticket for entry into the middle class today, but the security once implied in that status is gone. In addition to the exigencies now felt by middle-class Americans of all ages -- rising health care costs, soaring home prices and flat or falling incomes -- todays new generation of college grads bear an added vulnerability of massive debt” (Draut, 203).

Personally speaking, nothing is further from truth. College education serves a more profound purpose than providing a promising for a prosperous life. Several evidences points to this very fact. First, not all people, who graduate from elite branded colleges, end up successful and neither all the graduates of mediocre schools stay unsuccessful all their lives. On the contrary, everyone hear rags-to-riches stories about people who attended mediocre colleges or did not go to one at all and did great.

Examples include Bill Gates, the founder of Windows and Steve Jobs, the creator and owner of Apple. In addition, there are evidences of graduates of Harvard, Stanford, and Cambridge working at mediocre companies and living an average life. Thus, there is no black and white rule that promises successful prospects after college education.The question now arises, why go to college if a dropout can achieve so much more without a degree? How is it prudent to invest so much money and time in a venture, which is not even remotely reassuring of a good future?

The answer lies in under the covers of salary, degree, and fame. The college education serves the purpose of character building. It deepens the attitude and dampens the soul of those who take it seriously. When one studies the origin of college education, it becomes clear that it was never meant to enable individuals to earn more; its essential purpose was to nourish the intellectuals and provide a platform where one can discover their true potential and hone their skills (Khalfani, 305). Above all, college education supplies an opportunity for a student to come to terms with one’s own self and decide where is it that he/she really wants to be.

For example, Steve Jobs, the Former CEO of Apple left dropped out of Stanford when he realized that the degree would not help him achieve his goals in life. Some critics view this as an evidence to be used against college education; however, what should be noted here is that Steve Jobs would never have realized his goal had he not attended the few months at Stanford.Thus, college education should not be measured on the scaled of its efficiency in helping its students to get good jobs and earn money but its efficiency in helping them to figure out themselves and their lives.

Works CitedDraut, T. Strapped: why Americas 20- and 30-somethings cant get ahead. Doubleday, 2006.Khalfani, L. Zero Debt for College Grads: From Student Loans to Financial Freedom. Kaplan Publishing, 2007.