Apparently! Here is a funny article about the ignorance of people and the absurd ways the news tries to convey their point.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/05/college-debt-so-crushing-grad-says-i-wish-id-gone-to-prison-instead.html#posts

Well, this person, if he or she was not such an ass could always joint the service, do 4 years as a commisioned officer, get out as an O3 and a good majority of their loans should be knocked out. The military even offers programs that tailor to that sort of thing. It also looks good on a resume. If people would rather be in prison than have a degree, than perhaps the military might not be for them as our servicemembers need compitent junior officers and not twits so this guy is out of luck.

Also, just because you have a degree in X field means you are going to work in X field. Many X degree earners end up working in field Y, Z or A. College does alot to prove you can be taught and know how to go about working the process to aquire knowledge. The rest is OJT and most any firm is also going to rely to a degree on employees being capable of the universal skills of salesmanship and management. Experience counts for alot as well to, and you can gain it in other fields besides the one you got a degree in.

I feel sorry for new grads that just expect those dream jobs to land into their lap. A degree is not in itself an entitlement or anything that grants entitlement. Its a tool that can be used creatively. I have not even finished my degree, but I still think my college experience has helped me vastly in the core principles of how to look up information and apply it to problems to yield good solutions.

College is just a peice of paper that proves you put in the extra time when you actually had a choice in the matter. A staggering amount of people do not have jobs related to their degree.

In my small circle of friends there is a Comp Sci, Photography, Graphic Arts, Accounting, and a HIstory degree holder. In that same order they work at AT&T, Geico doing claims, owns a cleaning service, professional poker player, and an advertising exec.

Its hardly just a piece of paper. Even a Bachelors of Science, which is the more "degree focused" of the two only requires 54 of the 180 units in the major. That means there's two thirds of the degree which is spent learning about other things: politics, math, science, history, reading, writing, arts, etc. Someone working outside of their degree is commonplace, someone working outside of their level of education isn't. You'll rarely see a CEO of a company who didn't graduate high school or college.

For example, look at this chart:
http://www.payscale.com/rccustomchart.aspx?pid=bcb92b5a-dfc0-4fc6-9f0b-09f9e0023898

A Doctorate or Professional level degree would be closer to $80k-$100k. For a mere 4 years at $20,000 a year you could make a million dollars more over the course of your life (though probably a lot more).

There are anomalies like everything of course. Bill Gates did amazing things without a formal degree, though I'm sure he'll vouch for the importance of education being that he taught himself far more than the average college curriculum.

though I'm sure he'll vouch for the importance of education being that he taught himself far more than the average college curriculum.

That's where it's at.

The institution is overrated in a lot of fields. For most, college isn't about higher education, but about getting that white-collar work permit.

You get out of it what you put into it. College offers a lot of unique opportunities for _motivated_ students. If you're just coasting in college, it is indeed a waste of money.

Palarran makes a good point, though I wouldn't even have referred to myself as "motivated". Fact of the matter is, no amount of learning on my own would have made my business as successful as it is today without my attendance at AU...

The School of Communications had a get together my first day of orientation where I met a guy named Josh Kraushaar. We became close friends and eventually started a radio show together on our student radio station. Some of you may have even listened in to it, I advertised it here if I remember correctly. One thing my radio cohost used to do was blog, something we all made fun of him incessantly about - because frankly, no one cared what he had to say. Little would we know 4 years later that when Josh blogged about how great it would be to get a DC Baseball team, and that you could go to a National's Game in the afternoon and a Baltimore Orioles Game in the evening (a "Marc Train Series" as he called it) that an ESPN producer would read his blog, have a few minutes to fill in Sportscenter due to the NHL strike, and choose to shoot a piece about Josh and his friends going to both games. So when my friends told the videographer for ESPN about their friend who hated his job (that'd be me) ... well you all know the rest of the story. The rest of Josh's story would turn his WVAU experience into creating The Politico's XM Satellite Radio program on national politics which Josh starred in, and his college blog is now (under the same name) The Scorecard (http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/).

My work study program (basically a financial aid program where you get tuition money in exchange for work for the university) was where I learned the tricks and tools of video editing, which led to my first job outside of school. My volunteering with ATV (student run television) had me doing sound on a show for Chris Wylde, who would later turn that very show into "The Chris Wylde Show" which I believe aired on MTV.

And of course there is the connections and people I met through school which have helped me far more than the books I've read. Baney Productions (http://www.baneymedia.com/) is almost entirely staffed by AU Alum and hire me often for a variety of shoots. The School of Communications paired me up with alumni Darryl Frank at the end of my junior year so he could help me find a job - and if I was willing to move away from the east coast I probably would have ended up working on Las Vegas for him. I know people working in all facets of the industry from my 4 years of attending parties and roaming around the dorms of AU, never mind what and who I met in the actual classrooms.

While my experiences may be unique, the experience isn't. A student (and while I'm not in the military, I imagine it would be the same for a cadet) has thousands of opportunities presented to them outside of the classrooms on a college campus, which is the greater part of the University education system that can't really be mimicked by teaching yourself.