Opinion: If you’re rethinking going to college, think again

Social critics, editorial writers and authors are pleading these days for an end to America’s long emphasis on completing four years of college. They have a point. My father had nothing more than a two-year junior college degree when he turned writing skills learned in the Army into a middle-class life that included bachelor’s degrees for both of his sons.
Yet I see a weakness in this new trend. Not everyone needs to go to college, but turning away from traditional learning, especially in high school, poses a threat to the intellectual depth necessary for whatever paths we choose in life.
I have been watching and talking to ninth-to-12th-grade students and teachers all over the country for 40 years. Not everyone achieves college-level skills, but as a nation we have come closer than ever to that goal, with great benefits for our country. The World Bank summarizes all the ways higher rates and levels of education make a difference — innovation and growth, productivity and wages, civic engagement and even health. (The U.S. is well educated, but it’s only 13th in the world.)
The “college alternatives” trend encompasses a lot of different pathways. Trade school or community college counts as significant post-secondary learning, but succeeding in some of those programs may require nearly the same academic skills as college. What concerns me is that in cheerleading for noncollege routes to jobs and careers, we may push high school too far in a new direction — awarding diplomas for off-campus apprenticeships, for spending too little time on homework and too much on gaining work and resume experience, or for minimal vocational ed — risking students’ foundation in literature, history, writing, math and languages.
That said, there are indeed good jobs available that don’t require four years of college. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, three of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing job categories, including sustainable energy technicians, call for a high school diploma only. And here are some median salaries for trades that don’t require a bachelor’s degree: construction manager, $104,900; elevator technician, $102,420; and power plant operator, $100,890.
Nonetheless, the massive wage gap — a 60% difference by age 55 — between those who complete at least four years of college and those who don’t is real. And many of the occupations on the government’s list of fastest-growing jobs require not just a bachelor’s but a master’s degree. I also find it ironic that the push to deemphasize college comes as we better understand how to make more students and K-12 schools into “high performers” academically.
The high-performing label used to mean just schools full of rich kids, but many American ninth to 12th grades have recently undergone a remarkable (and little noticed) transformation. Several urban schools full of low-income students, including charter networks such as IDEA, KIPP and Uncommon schools, require at least two hours of homework a night. They have embraced demanding Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge International courses and exams. Will those rigorous programs, which can help many students compete academically with well-to-do peers, survive in systems not pushing kids to go to college?
And there are things we sometimes forget in our search for careers detached from college. For instance, a still-strong preference for college as the best option after high school is about more than just getting a job or establishing a career path.
Going to college or university can widen horizons. College is an escape from the familiar, an introduction to different habits, interests, points of view and especially new friends. Even young people who end up in careers that do not require an academic degree may still find that direction only once they get to college and gain some distance (figuratively if not literally) from the routines and expectations they grew up with.
Free time, and ways to occupy it, is built into college in a way that’s hard to replicate if you’re in the working world. And free time in college can have magical effects. I learned a lot in undergraduate and graduate school, but it was working on the college newspaper that got me started on my career and not incidentally introduced me to the young woman who would become my wife, the center of my life ever since.
Young people should by all means embrace a no-four-year-college future if that’s what they want. (The best manual for making this decision, in my view, is by a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Karin Klein, “Rethinking College: A Guide to Thriving Without a Degree.”)
But I hope the new movement does not deter high schoolers from the challenge of college prep classes or hasten the trend toward devaluing of college altogether (Gallup found that adults ages 18-29 who think college education is “very important” dropped from 74% in 2013 to 41% in 2019).
College offers a place and time set aside for intellectual growth and new experiences that can be essential to the way we adjust to life as adults. Young people’s trajectories are enhanced if they can absorb the deepest parts of human culture and thought before they pursue full-time jobs and careers.
I realize that getting into college and graduating isn’t easy, and neither is paying for the privilege. Where K-12 education is lacking, it can and must be improved. Student loans and financial aid must be accessible and generous. And colleges and universities themselves are far from perfect at their job — one sign: more students than not require more than four years to earn a four-year degree.
But these challenges shouldn’t persuade us to ignore or downplay the advantages of going to college. Alternatives have a place, but the emphasis on getting a four-year degree, and extending that possibility to as many students as possible, should remain.
Jay Mathews, the author of many books about schooling, has been writing about education for the Washington Post since 1997. He lives in Pasadena.