Opinion: The trouble with big name, big priced colleges: They’re not worth it

Vanessa Bertrand always intended to go to a big-name, out-of-state school. She made the decision as a little girl, watching Cliff Huxtable on a rerun of The Cosby Show argue the merits of Princeton, Yale, Howard, and his father’s favored alma mater, the fictional Hillman College, says the National Journal. The conversation that unfolded on that episode of the 1980s sitcom—a show whose run ended before she was even born—left a deep impression on the child, driving her to research universities before even reaching high school. And at 18, it informed the decisions she made about college applications and the way she ranked the most desirable universities.

“A school’s name opens more doors than many others,” Bertrand explains. “Not only did college open doors, but the school’s name did. So if you have Yale on your resume, it felt like an automatic yes, you’ll get a certain job. So I felt like Ivy Leagues would help me out more than certain colleges would.”

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Five reasons to go to college (besides career advancement)

"In our discussions about education, so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life," said one reader.

Conventional wisdom says that, unless you’re an entrepreneurial genius, you need a college degree to land a well-paying job; yet, thanks to the slumping economy, even that’s not a guarantee.

An anti-college backlash recently has emerged from the confluence of soaring tuition rates, political forces, and a desire for more accountability in higher education—not to mention a tough economy that has many students rethinking the value of a college education.

But for those critics who say the debilitating effects of college loans just aren’t worth what you get in return, the issue begs the question: “Is a postsecondary education really just about finding a good job after graduation?”…Read More