A college degree is not the only key to success

When I first saw my friends from home over spring break, the normal updates were inevitable. How is Margaret? Are Laura and Will still together? You did what at the frat party? Then came the part when we all discussed people in the younger class and their various destinations. He's going to Dartmouth, she's going to UVA, he's going to NYU. Then came the unexpected—Kevin's brother is not going to college! How could that be? Where is Kevin again? Stanford? And his brother Phil isn't going to college? What is he doing? Oh, he's going to be an assistant in a famous New York pastry kitchen. He wants to be a pastry chef. We've heard he's really talented! All right, I said, but how could he skip college? Doesn't he know that he'd regret it forever? What is he thinking?

RAVI D'CRUZ/YH

I was simply appalled. A college education is the most important goal of a young person's life. Isn't it? Of course it is! I searched for the reasoning behind this statement, but none came to me. Then I decided I had to prove it to myself. Why is college important? Isn't going to college the only way to get a well-paying job? Isn't a college experience an essential step in going from bratty high schooler to mature adult? Or is it that a college education is a crucial asset toward becoming an informed, intelligent citizen in the 21st century? My first instinct was to say all of the above. College is a place that educates you and allows you to mature, then sends you out into the arena of the better paid. I wondered how, then, Phil would become a productive adult without these benefits. I took on the problem myth by myth, starting with the first. 

(a) The only way to get a well-paying job is to go to college.

According to the kith and kin of Phil, once he has worked at this world-renowned pastry kitchen, his career will be made. He will have the skill and training of a in-demand gourmet pastry chef and will be able to find a good position virtually anywhere. So will he be deprived of a well-paying job? I guess not.

(b) A college experience is an essential step in going from bratty high schooler to mature adult.

Phil is a cool guy. Though he might have gone through a phase of filing his nails to a point and painting them black, he is probably as mature as almost any Yale senior. Working in the real world is surely much more of a jump into maturity anyway. It must be fairly sobering to realize that your actions and quality of work directly affect your ability to cover your house and food bills. If anything, it probably causes one to grow up faster than in a college environment. In college you bomb a midterm, and there are generally no consequences that could endanger your food supply. So will Phil rise to the title of "man" without the aid of a bachelor's degree? Probably.

(c) College is a crucial asset in becoming an informed, intelligent citizen in the 21st century.

Will Phil be ignorant if he skips college? He may not be as well-informed on specific matters, so what? He graduated from a good high school and is now a voracious reader. He is not the type of boy to let his mind rot inside his skull. He will probably take advantage of all of the pathways to knowledge open to him in this information age. And if he doesn't, does he not have the right to be as well-informed as he chooses? I think he does. He has gone through as much education as the government sees fit. Living in a free country, the rest is up to him.

He's got 'em all! So what does he win? If he follows his present course, he wins the right to choose a future that may not be the norm for most educated young people but still seems right for him and does no harm to anyone. I realized that in being so easily appalled by a person's decision to not pursue higher education, I was imposing my own set of values on the situation. Phil, sadly, will be missing out on the wonderful experiences of college—wild dorm life, exciting classes, and endless parties. But I will be missing out on the experiences he will encounter in pursuing an occupation he loves while earning a paycheck. If I value a college education, I should try my best to get one. If Phil finds a life without one, he is no more or less a worthy citizen in the information age than myself. Too tempting is skiing the slippery slope from valuing higher education to preaching intellectual snobbery.

"Education" comes from the Latin word to lead out. By following his heart, Phil is going directly out into the world, and is likely the better for it. 

Lainie Fefferman is a freshman in Silliman.

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