In a world where a college education is as valued as a warm meal, people, namely high school seniors, are pressured into choosing college as a plan for after graduation. However, college is not always the best route.

A college education may be overvalued in this world. Trade schools and working straight out of high school in a career may be a more successful route for some. 

Learning a trade, like drywall, plumbing or electrical may be beneficial in the long run because the knowledge you have learned in any one of these professions can lead to creating your own company or fixing things around the house.

Training as a mechanic can help in even more ways. Nearly any business that uses vehicles may need someone to repair and maintain the fleet.

A career in the military can translate to success in civilian life. The G.I. bills can help a veteran go to college if they are accepted. 

Even on a job application, having a military background helps. Knowing a person served in the armed forces shows that the person has some training and may be keen and organized.

Numerous figures have been huge successes without a piece of paper. John D. Rockefeller, possibly the richest American ever to live, had only a high school diploma. Despite this, Rockefeller’s net worth at death totaled nearly $340 billion.

In 2003 college prices went up nearly 14% for one year. College is being far too overvalued and too many people are choosing to go for a degree in a field that they may never pursue.

The world will always need people to pick up garbage and people to repair their houses. Everyone should wait a bit to figure out what they truly enjoy. 

Some people will truly love helping people and work to become a nurse or doctor. Some people will find they enjoy seeing something they built, like a completed house they constructed themselves. Everyone has a true gift for something, but college is forcing many to aspire to a career that they may not have any real passion for.

Student debt is rising, and with more and more people going to college, there is more pressure to attend. This can lead to them being financially unable to pay back the ensuing loans, resulting in future financial problems when they can’t find a job because they have a degree that may be useless.

College isn’t for everyone. 54% of Americans who enroll in college drop out. 45% of those in a 4 year college will graduate. 

With an oversaturated job market flooded with far too many degrees, freshly graduated students will come to find sooner or later that the degree they have earned will not amount to a success. 

A degree may put someone above another who has not earned one yet, but it may be that the person without the degree performs the job considerably better. 

Numerous politicians have mentioned the terms “free college.” I am sorry, but that cannot work because if it is offered for free, numerous people will be equipped with a more useless degree, less people will go into trades, and the people with degrees already will find that people with little experience are more valuable than them.