Fade to Gray: The college question
Some years ago I moved into a new house that needed a little fixing up.
My first order of business was changing out the kitchen faucet with something that was built in this century. I purchased the new faucet to drop in and starting removing the old one when I immediately ran into a problem. The old pipes that connected to the old sink were crumbling under the sink so suddenly my one hour project was looking like a weekend’s worth of work.
I went back to the hardware store and a wise older gentleman told me to be certain I made all my connections and seals correctly because I didn’t want a leak under a sink that I couldn’t see until it was too late. Not wanting to reenact the “wet bandits” scene from the Home Alone movie I decided I should hire a plumber to handle this one.
Now, shortly after moving into this house I had noticed there was a plumbing truck often parked outside a house two blocks away. The man who drove the truck lived there. Figuring it was smart to offer one of my neighbors some easy business I knocked on the door and introduced myself. He was a nice enough guy but he politely told me he was backlogged with plumbing jobs and even if he wasn’t he usually didn’t take jobs as small as mine, no matter what I offered to pay.
Now, I thought he was shortsighted for two reasons. First, I was his neighbor and you should be nice to your neighbors. Second, even though this job was a small project, someday I might need a whole new kitchen installed and who would be my first call? Him, of course.
Instead of helping a neighbor out he said, “No thanks” and closed the door. Three years later I did spend a small fortune on an entire new kitchen and you can guess who I didn’t call.
I’m not sharing this story to bash the guy who turned down the work but to point out a truth every homeowner knows. It is very hard to find people to fix walls, paint ceilings, lay tile, install outlets or fix leaky sinks. The reason is as simple as supply and demand. I wonder then why we as a society seem to tell every high school senior they need to go to college and get a four year degree. The truth is they don’t.
I wonder sometimes why we don’t push more students to go to trade schools and pick up a skill in a field that’s desperately scant of talent.
All of this stirred up in my mind with the recent college admissions scandal and these rich parents paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kid into an Ivy League school. Knowing admission is for sale to the highest bidder it makes you wonder, once you get passed the prestige of saying you went to the fancy school, is that degree really of value?
We are churning out a generation of twenty somethings who are a hundred -grand in debt with degrees that are often worthless. If you think I’m being unfair, ask the next thirty-yearold you meet if they are working in the field they studied in college?
Don’t misunderstand, I’m all for learning but I wonder more and more if the young people I’m meeting really majored in “socializing 101” at their respective schools. Then there’s the value that employers place on those degrees. Every day I see jobs posted that require a bachelor’s or master’s degree for anyone to apply, no exceptions.
This means someone with an associates degree and fifteen years’ experience in that specific field can’t even get in the door to be considered. Does that make sense?
People have told me I would make a good teacher in writing and journalism yet most colleges require a master’s to teach and I have a bachelor’s. So a child is taught journalism by someone who has never been a broadcaster or published a single news story (they’ve only studied theory) and the guy or gal with 35 years’ experience can’t get in the door.
This isn’t my way of angling for a teaching job; my plate is too full as it is, but you see my point.
Again I’m not knocking college or saying all degrees are bad. My time in college helped set the stage for everything that came after in my professional life. Just consider this though. I got my B.A. in 1985 so if someone posts a computer job tomorrow and a bachelor’s degree is required I could get an interview even though I know nothing about computers and the kid who could build one in his garage but never finished college could not. You have to admit that’s a bit wacky.
If you want to go to college I think you should go. I’d just carefully weigh out the cost for that degree and consider a state school and community college before taking out the equivalent of a mortgage to attend a school with a fancier name. As we’ve seen in this recent scandal, the piece of paper might not be worth it. Its funny isn’t it; when the pipes are leaking nobody asks if you went to Yale or Georgetown. John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABC’S WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Wednesday. Email him at johngray@fox23news.com.