Her.meneutics: When Higher Education Is Neither: Why Should I Earn a Degree?

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« Grieving a Lost Child | Main | Learning from Tim Tebow about Workplace Evangelism »

January 9, 2012

When Higher Education Is Neither: Why Should I Earn a Degree?

Thoughts for adults considering returning to college in 2012.

Michelle Van Loon

I recently found myself at a dining table full of accomplished acquaintances, and the conversation wandered to the subject of alma maters.

“Where did you go to college, Michelle?”

I hesitated before answering: “I didn’t finish college.” Among the highly educated crowd round the table, there were a couple of seconds where I felt like I’d showed up at prom wearing sweats and a bandanna.

The conversation drifted to other topics, but a woman sitting next to me noted my momentary discomfort. “Why don’t you go back to school and finish your degree?”

It is a question to which many adults respond in the affirmative each year. Forty-seven percent of new and returning students are 25 or older, according to The Association for Nontraditional Students in Higher Education. Most adults have packed-full lives, and returning to the classroom means reprioritizing family, work, and church or community commitments. In addition, returning students need to figure out how to pay for school. The cost of higher education has risen in recent years at more than twice the average rate of inflation. Though many are questioning whether the price tag of a college education is worth the economic benefit, according to a recent Pew study 86 percent of college graduates surveyed felt that their education was a good investment.

Many adults head back to school including job training, preparation for a new career, or personal enrichment. I have been dancing with the question of returning to college for most of my adult life.

I left a state university at the end of my sophomore year, unsure how to proceed after I was told there was not a space for me in the major area into which I’d hoped to transfer. I came home in search of Plan B. That plan included an unexpected romance, followed by a wedding at age 20. Shortly after I got married, I landed a staff position at a community college, and then eventually another staff job at a private four-year college.

My husband and many coworkers encouraged me to consider finishing college during those years. I could have attended classes at a discounted cost. Instead, I chose to focus on freelance writing, which led to a lot of freelance (and mostly free) learning from the writing books and magazines on the shelves of my local library. These how-to guides supplemented the protein-rich diet of theology, Christian living, and Bible study materials that filled out my regular reading list.

We chose to homeschool our three children, which gave our household a decidedly academic personality. Classics read aloud formed the backbone of our children’s education and enriched me as well; I’d never read Dickens, Hugo, Defoe, or Shakespeare during my own K-12 years.

The churches we’ve attended are typical of many evangelical congregations when it comes to education: They are far better at encouraging members to love God heart, soul, and strength than they are at encouraging discipleship of the mind. My personal lifelong learning habits of reading broadly and writing reflectively have helped remedy this deficiency.

I found myself back on staff at an evangelical college and seminary when my youngest son finished high school. There it was again, a new variation of the Question, being asked of me by various coworkers and a few students: “Why don’t you finish college, and go on for a divinity degree? You’re certainly bright enough, and you’d be in good company,” they told me. “There are lots of women your age enrolled here.”

I eventually left the job, but there is a part of me that still wonders if I should pursue my college education. Many of the people I respect most in my life possess advanced degrees. There are teaching and leadership doors I would love to enter, but many are closed to me without a degree key to open them. Those lingering regrets, along with a nagging sense that I may have shortcircuited the opportunities presented me by God, are the parts of me that squirm when people ask where I attended college.

The question of vocation is embedded in the college decision process for most adults. A high-school senior trying to decide on a major is a gentler version of a mature adult’s restless query: “How am I to best serve God with the gifts, talents, and experience he has given me?”

Educator Parker Palmer said, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” The classroom lost some of its appeal for me as I sensed God’s pleasure when I mailed my first freelance article attempt to a tiny magazine three decades ago. When I sold the article, I realized that I didn’t need a degree in order to pursue the particular vocation he designed for me. I also quickly discovered that the only way I’d be able to excel in that vocation was to live a learner’s life.

Learning happens in classrooms, labs, or lecture halls, but God never intended these to be the only places where faith-filled intellectual discipleship happens. God calls us to transform knowledge into wisdom throughout our lives. In light of the fact that only half of 2011 college graduates said they needed their degree for their first job, a degree may not be the best use of a learner’s time, talents, and finances.

Still, an education always is.

Comments

I love the article. As someone that has lived a "learner's life" in one of the most education-driven professions (Structural Engineering) out there, it's been rough. I'm still toying with the idea of returning to college, having worked full-time for 11 years at my career. It would open a number of doors to me; not many people in my profession are willing to take a chance on a person that doesn't have a degree, even though I'm better on paper (I have a Civil P.E.) and work-wise than recent college graduates.

However, there's a riding tide of buried talents: People like my brother, who has a college degree (actually a degree and a certificate in an unrelated field) and does nothing with it. That's becoming more and more common, and (in my opinion) needs to be addressed.

Most of what I know that is worth knowing I learned out of college. College is effectively a Ponzi scheme. People go to college because they are told they need to be recorded as having gone to college to get a job. The only reason that is true is because everyone else is told the same thing. That is all very well for mathematicians and doctors. When it is needed for jobs that do not require such intensive skills it becomes ridiculous. You don't really need college to be an office gopher.

@jason taylor
"You don't really need college to be an office gopher."

Unfortunately, with the current state of education - you kinda do. Most students in HS (that I know) wouldn't have been able to have done half the useful jobs (well, maybe gophering) that an office needs, without a college degree. Even a large percentage of the college graduates I've dealt with are frightfully ignorant.

Personally, I think they need to step up the K-12 education - there's no reason we can't have a system that prepares us for basic jobs (like phone desk/CSR work) without going to college, except that the system is (well, was when I was there) effectively failing the kids.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience with us, Michelle. I can identify - although I come from a more specifically academic background, with Masters degrees in Christian Studies (Christianity and the Arts) and Divinity. The former was for my own Christian formation and pleasure; the latter for occupational reasons, to become an Anglican priest.

Since I have always been both an avid learner and high achiever, I have flirted with pursuing a PhD for most of my adult life (I'm now in my late 30s). However, the timing has never been right, and I've often felt disappointed and even somewhat guilty about that, feeling I have somehow not lived up to my potential - while also recognising that a PhD was really not a good plan for me at the times in question. It's left me often feeling conflicted and unhappy.

Thus, your addition of "experience" to the list of what we have at our disposal for serving God is both wise and appreciated. Most of the time, we consider readily our gifts and talents, yet we neglect thinking about our experience - the very specific ways God has worked in our everyday lives over the years, the work and personal situations we've been involved in,
the places he's led us and the people we've met. Thanks for the reminder
that all of this is as important as our gifts and talents to the forms eventually taken for our service to God. My hope is that my life - and not
just my ideas - will be transformed more and more by this realization.

As college costs rise and rise, my guess is that there'll be fewer college graduates in the future, and that could be a good thing. Many young adults go to college completely unprepared for the responsibilities of adult life, and would have done better holding down a job and living at home for a couple of years first.

And I agree that for many jobs, college just isn't necessary. In the UK it's perfectly acceptable not to have a degree, and you can get a good starter job with just your high school qualifications. Institutions like the excellent Open University make study easier for adults who decide to pursue a passion or get a degree they need to further their careers.

And it sounds to me like you've given yourself an excellent education. As for those "teaching and leadership doors," do you really want to enter them and embark on a new career which could take 10+ years to see any real fruit? I suspect that those glittering paths could turn out to be far less attractive if you had access to them.

Voices like yours are rare! Keep up the good work and speak louder !

Love this conclusion, Michelle: "... a degree may not be the best use of a learner’s time, talents, and finances. Still, an education always is."

I've got degrees, but the last one was 25 years ago. I'd say I've pursued an education, though, in every year since. There sure is a lot to learn about God and this world he has created.

Cheers,
Tim

Michelle,

Thank you for this article! I am 28-year old degree-lacking woman who has recently started taking one or two college classes a semester at a wonderful little college nearby. I am paying full-price for the classes (not inexpensive at a private college) and am not interested in earning a degree. I am there to learn from some wonderful professors, and I am absolutely loving every second of it!

I've always wanted to learn New Testament Greek, and I just finished my third semester well. Could I, in my circumstances, learn Greek well while taking four other classes? Nope. So I took just that class because I want to be able to read my Greek NT for the rest of my life. I want to be a better communicator, so I'm taking a Logic and Critical thinking class. I'm very health-conscious, so at some point I'll probably take a nutrition class. Hopefully I'll have time to also learn Hebrew; that's been on my list for a while.

Getting a college degree has little appeal to me. What I really want is to learn well. However, as you said so clearly it is often an uncomfortable moment when someone asks, "And where did you go to school?" My husband has degrees from Notre Dame, Harvard and spent a year studying at Oxford. He has a lot of (wonderful) degree-carrying friends, and I am learning to be comfortable with my education path.

Thanks for sharing your insights!

Good article Michelle. I totally agree. In my family my husband didn't finish his degree. I did. And he is now one of the primary teaching instructors for the South Dakota law enforcement academy. And he is brilliant at teaching -- a God given gift. BUT the entire time we've been married (almost 18 years) he has felt a bit inferior because he doesn't have that piece of paper. I am glad I went to college and got a degree but I know it doesn't make me anymore learned than my husband (I only have a B.A. by the way). And I also know that many can get loads of degrees and they didn't enrich them. A person must have a learner's life even if she gets degrees for them to enrich her life.

Michelle, point well made! For many navigating life without a college degree has been more of an aggrevation than an actual threat to their career. As the director of an undergraduate, adult completion program, I hear three main reasons for returning: 1) my kids are grown and now its time to do something just for me; 2) there is a stigma to not having the degree and I want to remove that obstacle from my career success; and 3) my company or the job I want to transition into now requires a college degree. For those legitimate reasons a degree is a very good idea; college graduates are often able to leverage their combined knowledge, skills, attitudes and education into a broader career path with a better chance for a fair wage. Ah, just my bias! Noelle

Learning, in the many forms in which we experience it, is a marvelous gift from God. As an avid reader of books, periodical materials, and online resources, I'm a big fan of the t-shirt that proclaims, "So many books, so little time." And I love to be in lively conversation with friends, in both Christian and secular settings. But I wouldn't trade for my college degrees, and were I suddenly to become independently wealthy, I'd go back for another as quickly as I could get signed up for it. Led by a committed teacher, a classroom of companion-learners is a beautiful setting in which to learn. I would love for every person to experience at least one invigorating, thought-provoking college semester. And now many excellent resources, such as MIT's OpenCourseWare, are available online. One can get a group of friends together, view the course material, and then dive in to energetic debate and discussion. The diplomas have opened many doors for me, but even had they not, it's the lively conversation with companion-learners that makes the time and tuition worthwhile for me.

This article comes at just the right time for me. I was going to return to higher education next Fall, since all four of my children will be out of high school, but my funding "fell through". I have re-evaluated my whole plan, & decided to re-learn some favorite subjects I studied for my Bachelors Degree years back, but have forgotten (namely, Greek & Hebrew). I have desired for years to read the Scriptures in their original languages, but didn't have the time to devote myself to this goal before -- soon I will and I am very pleased. I am also looking into MIT's free online classes, & other alternative ways of "education". Sign me "a life-long learner".

I have a Master Degree in Theology and a minor in counselling. Schools have asked me to enroll in a Doctoral program, but I am discused at many with their degrees only too find that they are educated over their intelligence.
(i.e. Hank H., he is high on knowledge but a very, low 'O' in wisdom from God, specially in spiritual matters). I have preached in Pentecostal, Evangelical, United, etc. churchs,
and have driven 'eighteen-wheelers' through mountians in 30 below-O, I can repin 'dead-bolts' and master key etc.

Unfortunately (in my opinion) college is no longer seen as a way to broaden you horizons, learn to think, learn to learn, and gain some critical understanding of how the world works. Now, it is increasingly seen as vocational training. When I got out of college in the early 80's (old, I know) a college degree proved you had motivation, critical thinking skills, and a good work ethic; employers would then train you for the job they had. No more. They now expect you to know how to do the job when you walk in the door. Talk to any medical coder, pharmacy technician, medical office worker, or administrative assistant over the age of 40 and they will most likely tell you that they were trained on the job. These jobs almost universally now require at least a diploma and several require at least an associates degree. I've seen receptionist jobs that prefer a degree of some sort.

What is the answer? I don't know, but at some point, the economy won't support all these people going into debt, to get vocational training for a job that may or may not be there by the time they finish. But they really have no choice.

This article highlights some of the issues: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576596630897409182.html?mod=wsj_share_in_bot

Michelle--

Thanks for a very thoughtful article. College is indeed only one way of getting an education. Despite current $ issues, attending college is an efficient way of gaining edcuation but not the only efective one. I went back to school as an adult (and as a tenured college professor), not for the degree, but for the educationl experience found in a formal classroom. I simply wanted to study the application of my faith to a secular setting. That required dialogue with others and was not something easily reduced to rules and formulas or encapuslated in a book.

College ought to be a pathway to learning how to think and how to apply thought but it is often erroneously pursued as vocational training, blurring the line between colleges and trade schools. What I have found is that the classroom is only a higher education if that is what the student chooses to make of it. If a student decides that a topic is "unimportant" and goes through the motions of just doing assignments, then the course is indeed meaningless data. If a humble student enters a classroom with the assumption that there is always something to learn for the sake of learning, they find the passion to make that happen (even in spite of my bad days...)

Of what use is calculus to an artist? It causes you to think differently. That ability is a meaningful vocational skill. I learned that from my father who never graduated high school ... but remains the smartest man I've ever known.

As a college professor, I can tell you that much time, money and resources are being wasted by many in pursuit of a college degree. (The belief that a college degree is the ticket to a good job was fairly true for a short while, but only when those with college degrees were in short supply. This is no longer the case!) On the other hand, there are probably many whose vocations might be better fulfilled through academic learning (which is only one, somewhat narrow kind of learning).

You hone in on the real issue: vocation. The first question is "What is God calling me to do?" and the second one is "How best do I fulfill that calling?"

Excellent post! Thank you.

I really want to read all the responses but it's late. I sorelate to this article. I left college with less than a semester left thinking I would finish by correspondence. I never did. People around me could never understand why I hadn't gone back. I had many reasons. I started back to school though in October and it is ONLY because God made it abundantly clear that it was what I was meant to do. It also meant a change in major but because so much of my previous work carried over it also means I will graduate in August. For those of us who are Christians our formal education truly belongs to Him as well as everything else.

A few years ago I served with a ministry the offers graduate level theological training for those ministering in eastern Europe and central Asia. A number of the students were in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Even at that "late" of age they showed me that God will use any education we pursue for his glory. So at age 48 I began work on the prerequisites to complete an MA in New Testament studies. With all my other commitments I don't plan on graduating before 2016. There have been many times, as I struggle to complete a writing assignment on time, where I have questioned the purpose and value of this education. Each time I do I consider those students I met and what God may be wanting to do with me through and after this process. So I am eating this elephant in hopes that I may glorify God.

How about some good colleges to refer people to? College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri is a good college. Grove City College in Pennsylvania is also very good. Hillsdale College in Michigan is excellent. In case you are wondering, no I do not work for the admissions office at any of these colleges, I just want to encourage people to get better educated.

@William Reed

I have a friend that attends Lancaster Theological Seminary in PA. I live near the University of Oregon and Northwest Christian University (brother's a NCC grad, before it became NCU). And I have a few coworkers that attended Oregon State University and loved their Engineering school.

I had to chuckle at the second photograph. Are there Freudian slips when it comes to photos? Good article.

How easily we Christians succumb to the happily-ever-after myth. If we just catch God’s exact will, everything will turn out all right and we’ll find ourselves drenched in blessings. Conversely, if we are not drenched in blessings, we must have done something to miss God's perfect will along the way. Go back and correct the wrong turn, and God will renew our blessings.

Your essay has shown the more significant truth that our personal histories are destined to be filled with both gains and losses, sometimes profound. For example, I chose to marry my first wife instead of pursuing a graduate degree in biblical studies, and I never regretted the decision. Still I never was able to free myself from the desire for more serious education. Now, eight years after her death, the Lord has allowed me to pursue the studies that I have craved since my college days. The wonder of what might have been has become a reality, but it became so only through the loss of what once was. For me the gains and losses are inseparable from each other.

Thank you, Michelle, for a most insightful essay.

thanks for the article!

but not sure if the picture was the right choice...

May want to find something else... If you just were glancing you may think it said a bad word that is not intended.

just trying to help!

Well, you are a phenomenal communicator that is for sure. And anyone who home-schools is "educated" -- I cannot believe what is required there. It totally intimidates me.

I am grateful for my undergraduate degree and have a heart to keep learning. I was raised that titles and education are e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. so when my husband didn't finish his PhD at the University of Chicago, my father was incredulous and made it clear how ridiculous he thought that was and I found it hard to understand as well. But God had another plan for him (my husband) and he would say that he is much happier not being a college professor today. (Certainly makes a lot more money - in business.)

I'm ambivalent I guess because there is a little voice in me that says if I got more education I would be respected (more)..., but really appreciated your thoughts. I'm going to go read your link on being a life long learner... God made me curious and ever questing for knowledge.

I managed to finish my BA in Liberal Arts in 1981 and at the ripe old at of 52 find myself unemployed and unemployable. Due to health and family issues I lost my job of over 11years in August of 2011 and it's a sad fact that nobody wants to hire an unemployed woman over 52; statics show that this is the least hired demographic in the US.

Unfortunately, at a certain age, even a degree become useless and I now ponder whether getting an advanced degree is worth the time and the expense. So I am left for ponder this question and the quest for knowledge and it's worth. Get the degree in the hopes that I get a better job or get it because it's something I've always wanted to do? And do they even want me in grad school at this age?

Thank you Michelle for posting this question. And for the record, you are one of the most intelligent, spiritual and thoughtful people in my universe.

I am an avid proponent of higher education, regardless of one's age. I have a B.A. (1975, at age 21), a M.Div. (1988, at age 34), a D.Min. (1992, at age 38), and a Ph.D. (2010, at age 56). You're never too old to go to school, or to return to school. As Scripture says, "Love the Lord with all your MIND."

I need my degree for my job. I cannot be a public school teacher without both my BA and my MA in the state where I live. Also, I LOVE school. Duh. I'm a teacher!

But I'm a strong believer that if college isn't the right path for someone, that's totally okay. If someone doesn't *want* to go to colelge nor *need* to go to college, it would totally be a waste of time and money.

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