As the clock winds down on another semester and with spring enrollment well underway, it is important to reflect on where we are, and possibly recalibrate the direction in which we are headed.
Are you on track to graduate? Are you earning the right degree? Should the choice of a major be a reflection of personal interest or the result of a carefully calculated cost-benefit analysis?
Staring out into the rapidly approaching job market, which reeks of high student debt and low employment opportunity, it is difficult not to ask these questions, feel disillusioned and anxious and second-guess our decisions.
ASU often boasts over 250 programs and majors for its 70,000-plus undergraduate students. The explicit values of our “New American University” are accessibility and diversity for students and between disciplines.
This tactic has also apparently led to one of the lowest graduation rates in the country. For 2009, the most recent data available, ASU reported a four-year grad rate of 29.3 percent; over a six-year time frame, that rate climbs to just 55.8 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
Many reporters have correlated these rates with the low admissions’ standards at the University — 82.1 percent of applicants were admitted in 2009, according to the same data.
And increasingly we hear about the deteriorating state of higher education. Reports like The New York Times’ Nov. 23 article, “The Dwindling Power of the College Degree,” continue to remind us that hard work and a college education no longer guarantee job security, let alone a high wage.
This is even more terrifying for students treading thousands of dollars in student loans, which now account for more debt than credit cards, according to a Nov. 12 NPR story. It would seem financial literacy and fiscal responsibilities have reached a critical point in our generation.
Another recent NPR story addressed the evolving types of students in higher education. It claimed the key to success in college — getting a degree, particularly one that will ensure financial security — is to focus and complete it as quickly as possible.
According to the article, enrolling part-time and commuting to campus, an increasingly popular trend among students, actually significantly decreases the likelihood of a student completing their degree on time, or at all. It is a waste of precious time resources for students who walk away empty-handed.
Paradoxically, a 2008 report by The Institute for Higher Education Policy and Excelencia in Education, nonprofit advocacy organizations, suggests the problem is that students aren’t taking on enough debt, according to an article in The Huffington Post.
Their analysis suggests that students who take on student loans are more capable of attending school full-time, and thus more likely to graduate on time and enter the job market.
Contrarily, students who refuse loans and struggle to get by, attempting a longer route via part-time enrollment or community college are much more likely to never complete a degree — effectively throwing their money away.
So, what to do? Don’t be fooled — nobody knows for sure. The best thing to do is to take a deep breath, carefully reflect before making any life or academic commitment — but once they are made, don’t look back.
Choices are nice in theory, but too many of them are an undergraduate’s worse enemy.
Reach the columnist at djoconn1@asu.edu Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
