More College Students Ask: Will I Use My Degree?

Only 35% of College  Students Consider What They Learned in College to be Applicable to the Work World

Between 2006 and 2011, 3.2 million people enrolled in colleges and universities across America. Yet, while more people are going back to school, graduates of business schools are increasingly asking this question:

Is what I learned in school applicable to the realities of the modern job market?

Despite the growth in college enrollment, the number of people going to college in 2012 fell by nearly half a million, according to the US Census bureau. Much of the drop off in enrollment was among those over the age of 25 – a group that new for-profit schools like DeVry University, Kaplan College and University of Phoenix market to. The question these sorts of schools want to answer is: Why the drop in enrollment? The answer may be that the students feel what they’ve been learning isn’t worth the price they’ve been charged.

To gauge student’s feelings about the value of the degrees they’ve been receiving, the University of Phoenix recently hired Harris Interactive to survey students on this question. Here’s what they reported in a press release the University released August 2, 2013:

… a recent University of Phoenix(R) survey finds that only a quarter (25 percent) of working adults say college education today effectively prepares students for employment in the workforce, with only 10 percent saying it prepares students very effectively.

One reason why these schools miss the mark with what they are teaching is because colleges are teaching students skills they would use if they went out and got a job working for someone else. However, with the onslaught of what some are calling the “part-time economy,” students are questioning the value of a traditional four year degree. The problem for someone coming out of college is they’ve taken courses from a variety of disciplines, but no one has shown them how to put this complex jigsaw puzzle together if their intention is to start their own company

Here at Generation Self Employed, we’ve recognized what these trends mean: That with growing numbers of people working as temp workers or in part time jobs, more people will be looking to become self employed. We see a range of people, young and old, who want to start a business, but aren’t willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn how from college courses that miss the mark.

We think people want information that simplifies the complexity of going into business for themselves – but at a cost of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars

What do you think?