Americans today tend to believe that you are supposed to go to college. Common sense seems to dictate that you are supposed to have a career and that having a bachelor’s degree will help you do this.

My whole life I have heard it said that you are supposed to be successful and this success starts with post-secondary education. Society assumes that every person is capable of attaining these three goals and when they are not, they are considered less intelligent or less worthy. Those who do not ever attend college are thought less of because of that fact alone, even if they are just as qualified as someone who did. In addition to this, those that go to community college, rather than a four-year university, are considered capable, but not the best.

Society has created a stereotype that those working blue-collar jobs have ceased to learn, and therefore, should be treated worse than the rest of us. This is not the case. For example, we treat our waitresses as women who take our orders and deliver our food, instead of women who consider how we are feeling that day and remember who had which order to make our dining experience the best it could be. In this essay, I will use information from several different sources to demonstrate how an education from a four-year university is not a necessary path for every person. I will also evaluate how the value of education lays within the person, not the institution.

Blue-collar workers are believed to be completely uneducated, but this is not the case. In “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” Mike Rose argues that blue-collar workers are as intelligent as pink and white-collar workers. He begins by telling the stories of his mother and his uncle, both blue-collar workers. His mother was a waitress and his uncle worked for the railroad. He observed both of them in their workplaces and discovered just how much knowledge was associated with their work. His uncle, for example, worked his way up to a supervisor by working closely with the equipment and the people and understanding how everything operated. He reminds us that every job requires basic mathematical and reading skills. In the lives of blue-collar workers, these skills are present in blueprints, measurements, directions, labels, lists, and so on. In “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” Rose states, “He [Rose’s uncle] lacked formal knowledge of how the machines under his supervision worked, but he had direct experience with them, hands-on knowledge, and was savvy about their quirks and operational capabilities” (Rose 277). In other words, Rose suggests that intelligence is present in every workspace. This intelligence does not have to mean knowing exactly how something functions, but the experience that comes along with many years of working with these things. People like Mike Rose’s uncle spent years, working hands-on with equipment, each day learning more and more about how it really worked.

Many people assume that blue-collar workers do not acquire knowledge on a day-to-day basis, when in fact they do. To move higher in a career, as Rose’s uncle did, you must acquire knowledge or you would remain at the same level forever. As a society, we must acknowledge that people like Mike Rose’s mother and uncle are large contributors, and they have unique ways of thinking and doing things that should be respected. It has become common today to dismiss intellectual acts by lower class individuals. However, all people, no matter their financial ranking in society, are capable of thought, and it is important to recognize that. All individuals should be recognized as thoughtful and intelligent, and should be treated as such. Rose himself benefitted from his family’s hard work. He has a Ph.D and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. In fact, I would imagine taking a class from Rose may be beneficial to students who are unsure if they are in the right place. Rose preaches the value of hard work and education within a person, rather than an institution. He knows not all of his students will graduate and get degrees, but I am confident that he believes all of his students have an equal chance of staying educated, whether this means they finish at UCLA, at a community college, or go straight to work.

You would think that community colleges are looked at just the same as universities, but this is not the case. In “Two Years Are Better Than Four,” Liz Addison argues that community colleges offer just as suitable educations as four-year universities. She believes these institutions offer a better start to students who may not be able to attend the university he or she wants to. She argues that people often overlook this as an option to further their education after high school, because community colleges do not seem to be as credible as universities. This may be due to the fact that community colleges are open to everyone and the cost is not as expensive as universities. Students, she suggests, are not encouraged to consider community colleges, except as a last resort. Addison states, “Just recently, I read an article in the New York Times describing a ‘college application essay’ workshop for low-income students. I was strangely disturbed that those interviewed made no mention of community college” (Addison 257). Just as society looks down upon blue-collar workers, we look down upon those attending community colleges and with associate’s degrees. Therefore, we push high school students in a direction other than community college even though it is a very reasonable option for many.

In Addison’s view, “They [community colleges] offer a network of affordable future, of accessible hope, and an option to dream” (Addison 258). Addison celebrates the fact that these institutions give students who may never have dreamed of going to college a chance to further their education for a reasonable cost. A negative stereotype has been created on community colleges because they are open to everyone. However, they are providing more people with higher education, creating a more educated society. In society today, it is obvious that the more education you have, the better off you will be. While many will not admit such, Addison reminds us that community college is a great path for higher education.

President Barack Obama also believes in the benefits of community college. In fact, he proposed a plan that would help many students go to community college for free right out of high school. In the article, “Obama Plan Would Help Many Go to Community College Free,” Julie Hirschfeld Davis explains the benefits of Obama’s plan to cover tuition cost up-front for students who wish to go to, but cannot always afford, college. Hirschfeld Davis states, “White House officials acknowledge in a conference call with reporters that the program was unlikely to win quick approval in Congress.” Basically, Hirschfeld Davis, along with the White House, is conceding that the proposed program will most likely not be put into place. She was not saying that this program will never be active, but if it is, it will not be for quite some time. However, there was another motive behind proposing the program in the first place. Hirschfeld Davis agrees when she writes, “Still, they said, in proposing it, Mr. Obama was seeking to press states and community colleges to beef up their investments in high-quality education in ways that would have a lasting effect even before federal legislation was enacted.” In other words, she believes that president Obama is pushing smaller colleges to expand their ways of teaching to create a better education for students. This may include hiring better professors, improving facilities, and expanding the curriculum. President Obama is suggesting that more people invest in these institutions to make an already well-developed system even better. This will help to eliminate the stereotype that students who go to these schools are “stupid” or “not good enough” for a university.

Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill pose a different question: should everyone go to college? You would think that going to college and getting a degree is a smart choice for everyone. However, Owen and Sawhill argue that, “For certain schools, majors, occupations, and individuals, college may not be a smart investment” (Owen, Sawhill 209). Students who attend a college for four years in hopes of making more than they once invested, may never get what they paid for out of their career. Owen and Sawhill also report that students who are already in a financially difficult situation may not graduate college based on the financial strain it puts on themselves and their families. It is common sense that higher education is positively correlated with a greater salary. However, the government has made higher education much too difficult a task to obtain and complete with rising tuition prices.

In Owen and Sawhill’s views, “By telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice” (Owen, Sawhill 209). Competitive, less competitive, and non-competitive private and public schools offer less than a 10% return on investment of a bachelor’s degree. Conventional wisdom has it that a bachelor’s degree is always a smart idea because it correlates with a higher salary. However, data suggests otherwise. Psychology, arts, and education majors earn less than two million dollars over their lifetime. Owen and Sawhill state, “According to Census’s calculations, the lifetime earnings of an education or arts major working in the service sector are actually lower than the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate” (216). In other words, they are saying that a high school diploma is just as valuable as an education or arts bachelor’s degree in this situation. The reason is that education, arts, and psychology need advanced, terminal degrees to be practical and profitable. Therefore, without intentions of obtaining these advanced degrees, some may be better off with simply a high school diploma.

Michael Price also supports the equal value of a high school diploma in his article “7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Go To College and 4 Things To Do Instead.” According to Price, college does not prepare you for the real world, or give you the skills you need to obtain a job. Price also acknowledges that college puts students in extreme amounts of debt. He obtained all the knowledge he has today by paying little and learning online, and he is a successful writer for the Huffington Post. This being said, Price also argues that in today’s society of rapidly changing technology, a degree will be obsolete before graduation. In other words, information becomes outdated so quickly that by the time a student gets their degree, the information could be incorrect.

Price insists that the proper way to go about life after high school is by educating yourself, building a business, building a brand, or going to a vocational or trade school. He worked his way up by learning online and building an impressive portfolio. He argues that diverse skills triumph over higher education every time. He also suggests that anyone who has an interest in building a business should take the risk. Price states, “Nowadays, thanks to the Internet, building a business is easier and cheaper than ever before” (Price). Another way to promote yourself is to build a brand, whether this be on social media or YouTube. Many people make a living blogging without any college degree. One final option that Price discusses is vocational or trade school. Price says, “there are an estimated 3 million labor jobs available; 90% of them don’t require a college degree and most of them pay more than white collar jobs.” In other words, these jobs require skills obtained from trade schools, which are a much cheaper alternative to a bachelor’s degree and can have a greater job outlook and salary.

There is no right or wrong path to take when deciding what to do after high school. It is often said that college is right for everyone. However, data suggests that community college, trade school, the workforce, or no college at all may be a better option for some students. Americans today tend to believe there is something wrong with these options, when in fact, there is not anything wrong with these at all. These are all viable options to students who can not afford to go to college or do not want to attend a four-year university. Society needs to take it upon itself to reshape its ideals of education and what it means to be successful in your career today. The value of an education lays within the person themselves and what they make out of it, not where they get their knowledge from.