The Kardashians. If ever there’s been a reason not to stay in school, or an entity to prove that all the don’t or elses your Mom told you were complete horse shit, it’s the almost non-nonsensical, catapulted monetary success of the Kardashian clan. That is not to discount the legitimately good business strategies employed by the mega successful Kardashians but it sure discounts the value of a good education.
The lady in the grocery line who pulled her EBT card out of her Louis Vuitton, then asked for help to unload them into her 2015 Lexus jeep. We’ve all heard the stories about the persons on welfare who are living the dream off “our” tax dollars. As with any government offering, there will always be persons who take advantage of the system. That doesn’t mean it is fundamentally flawed. It’s easy to say I should have just had a bunch of kids and stayed home, but believe it out not, on your worst day you wouldn’t want to find yourself in those louis vuitton shoes. 
The dime a dozen One-Hit-Wonder rapper. You can’t understand a word they’re saying and you’re annoyed with yourself for sifting through radio stations hoping to get a repeat of the track…..Deflatedly turns down the radio. Meanwhile you could easily reminisce on the grammar workshop you had to attend as part of your curriculum. We’ve all thought of what we could do with a million dollars. We so wouldn’t blow it. We’d invest, share with family, closeout credit card debts, and of course pay off our student loans. Well folks all it takes is one song. One song can get you paid (maybe not generously in the long run) for life.
The “With just $2000 and a dream, I started my business, and now look at me” entrepreneur. Well if I could have started a business with just 2 gran, why did I borrow 60 grand for this MBA?
The Honorary doctorate. There was a time when it seemed that those who orchestrated vast advances in science and technology were seated at the podium. Now more celebrities are achieving the same degree for which you stayed up endless hours, called in to work, asked your mom to watch your kids for the bizzilionth night and of course, are still paying off your student loans circa 6 years later. Now that is not to say that these accolades aren’t deserving in many, if not all cases but it’s hard to not day-dream about all you could have done with all the time and/or money you spent on the degree you hardly find yourself using.
The consistently not so smart and always delusional, “I’m gonna marry rich” girl who soon after college….married rich. Period.
Buying a House. There’s nothing that enlightens you as to how much of a life sentence student loan debt is until you get ready to buy a home. You get pre approved, you’re house shopping, and then you find the one. Then comes weeks to months of back and forth of trying to decipher how much you will be paying in student loans 6 years from now and if this will still make your mortgage affordable.
The Formula
They say a good education is priceless. This is especially true for the middle class worker. It provides a cushion on which to fall if and when things go professionally array. A Bachelors degree is priceless. However, obtaining tertiary education beyond that could very much be a waste of time and money. Those who dare to dream understand that hard work and consistent study are necessary to both achieve and maintain success. It is truly the continuous acquisition of knowledge that is not only priceless but in many ways lucrative. However, the acquisition of institutionalized knowledge at the Masters and/or Doctoral level is in question.
If you’re not looking to gain an MBA (by all means the new minimum in business administration) or climbing the ladder within the field of education, then you stand to waste 3-5 years and approximately $60-150,000. If you’re like most middle class persons seeking this level of self actualization then you are most likely taking out loans to secure your place among the 7%. In addition, the popularity of online education has introduced far more labor intensive curricula. In an attempt to diminish academic dishonesty, students are now expected to spend far more hours writing discussions, attending webinars, and researching then penning papers in order to achieve passing grades. This self-directed approach to learning can often feel like you are paying to teach yourself. Instructors are now facilitators who’ve become pedal pushers of a 5-year-old syllabus written by someone else and infrequently reviewed in detail by the actual instructor. The whole institution can often feel like one big ponsey scheme.
It seems the promises of advanced education are becoming obsolete. The promise of a good education is simply to say you are well-educated, and we all know how much that counts? There are more educated fools than there are informally educated geniuses. So what’s the point? It stands to say we’d be better off investing that 60-150k in our dreams and informally educating ourselves than laboring in school just to HOPEFULLY get a job to pay for school.