The latest NBC News poll shows two-thirds of registered voters down on the value proposition of a degree. A majority said degrees were worth the cost a dozen years ago.
Americans have grown sour on one of the longtime key ingredients of the American dream.
Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, according to a new NBC News poll, a dramatic decline over the last decade.
Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,” while 63% agree more with the concept that it’s “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.”
You are ready and qualified for a management position right now. This is most of what I would want to hear if I was interviewing you for a leadership role.
A degree fixes one single problem that I couldn’t overcome any other way: meeting the requirement of having a bachelors degree which employers require. It will do the same for you.
I stayed in the evaluation stage for far too long. There are steps a few into the process which require actual commitment. The first few steps don’t. Do those first few starting next week. What I found was that I was missing critical information for my evaluation I couldn’t get any other way beside action.
If you’re interested I’m happy to share more tactical knowledge and experience about what to do next as a mature working IT professional wanting a degree. Let me know if you’re interested in that.
Once again, thank you so much. It means a lot coming from someone in the industry, who’s walked a similar path.
I have been making some moves. I am evaluating, but I don’t want to get stuck in analysis paralysis. I’m in the “what happens if my situation changes” stage, and right now, I still think having a degree will be a benefit.
Warning incoming wall of text!!!
There are two things I’d recommend you give some consideration to altering from what you described as your current path so far:
#1 Don’t go for an IT degree
You have decades of experience in IT. You are going to learn very little from trying to get a degree for an area of expertise you already know. Yes, you’d be able to test out of a bunch of stuff, but in the end you’re still going to have to take lots of classes that will be boring for you or worse, you’ll have to “learn it wrong” because of the gap between academic answers and what we both know from experience is how it works in the real working world. From my previously aborted attempt at college after high school I knew “getting bored with classwork” was one of my weaknesses. Pushing myself to do work I knew was useless or wrong is a large part of why I think I failed to complete the first time. You may or may not have the same issue as I did. At best, if you are successful getting an IT degree, you’ll likely have learned little to nothing more than you know now.
Consider instead getting a degree in an area you don’t know backwards and forwards already. I chose the business/marketing path. There are a number of reasons I liked this path:
The coursework is not generally difficult compared to technical IT material you and I have to consume on a regular basis for work. As I was doing full time IT at the same time, it was a really nice change of topic to be able to do coursework without getting more IT to deal with. It made it something to look forward to instead of dreading.
Having the business education gave me fantastic view of what the organizations I was working for were trying to achieve with IT, where the challenges existed we have almost no visibility to in IT, and the ability to speak the language of business to C suite executives while fully retaining all of my IT knowledge I already knew. This business communication ability alone I can point to for several specific instances where I was later successful in an IT objective because I was speaking their language.
As for the worry about having a degree not in IT, nobody cares what you get your Bachelors degree in. Employers always assume you did it after high school anyway, instead of as a mature adult. They just want the “degree” box checked for the hiring requirement. If you truly want a degree in the field you work in, do that as a graduate degree. There, it matters.
Its cheaper to get the degree! Business and marketing classes are available from far more schools on far more frequent schedules. This means you can shop on price for your school with far more schools to choose from and things like lab fees and textbooks were generally cheaper too.
#2 Don’t go to WGU as your school of choice
WGUs business model, as I’m sure you’re aware, is different than most schools. Instead of a “per credit hour” fee, you pay a flat fee “per term” that allows you to take all the classes you can handle. However, that flat fee requires nearly a full-time student course load to break even compared to other “per credit hour” schools. One the surface its a good deal. If you were quitting your full time job, I might recommend it. Instead, if you’re keeping your full time job that means you’re going to be paying FULL PRICE per term, but only able to take advantage of a small fraction of that high cost.
#3 Costs (bonus unsolicited advice!)
Avoid taking on debt for school! I’m hopeful that your employer has some sort of tuition reimbursement. Many do! Check into that and find out what the terms and conditions are. Though many have a golden handcuff clawback provision, they are usually limited to 1 year. So if your degree takes you 3 or 4 years to complete part-time, you quit your job immediately upon graduation, at worst you only pay back 1 year’s costs. Further, if you’re laid off you don’t even have to pay back that 1 year! For whatever isn’t covered, pay out of pocket if you can. This is also why choosing a cheaper school is important. You’re at an age you should be contributing heavier to retirement, not taking on student loan debt (again if you have the luxury to avoid it).
I’m not sure if you have done much if any college before, but if you have, its entirely possible that any courses you passed can still be applied to your new degree attempt. I had credits that were over 17 years old (English, History, Math) that fully applied to my new degree saving me time, money and effort. You’ll find out all of this when you pick a school and have your first talk with your assigned advisor.
As for picking a school, this part of the advice may be out-of-date so take it with a grain of salt. Avoid “online only” schools. These target people just like you that are working adults, but they charge a high premium because they know you have money. There is also a bit of a stigma with employers for some of these schools. Most state support schools which are bricks and mortar offer many online-only degrees. This means you can get a mostly or entirely online degree, from an actual accredited (seek regional accreditation only! “national” accreditation is a scam!), while getting low cost schooling from a school that is established and recognizable to employers as legitimate.
Select your 4 year school, and see which Community College credits they accept. Community college be the least expensive courses you can find, and have your advisor at the 4 year school confirm these CC classes transfer 100% into the 4 year school. Your Bachelors degree will say the 4 year school name. Nobody asks or cares where you completed your pre-req courses. Don’t pay high 4 year school prices when you can pay cheap 2 year school class prices! Also, frequently there is an Associates degree with 100% overlap with your Bachelors school. This means you can achieve a 2 year degree without having to spend all the time for bachelors before you have something to show for your work. I got a 20% pay raise with a better job just from my prior IT experience and my new Associates degree in business/marketing.
If I may be so bold, here’s your homework for next week:
100% of the above homework steps have ZERO COST and ZERO COMMITMENT! There is no reason for you to NOT do these things as these are the critical answers of evaluation info I was missing when I was taking too long to get going. The very first time you have cost or commitment is when you enroll in your first class. Start with just one. Use that to get in the grove with what school will demand of you. After than you can ramp up the number of courses at once. Again, I did a regular load of 2 courses at once as I found 3 to be too many.
I hope this is helpful info. If this was too much info, my apologies. If you have other questions, feel free to ask. I want you to be successful in this!