by Reshmi

Created on: May 27, 2009   Last Updated: May 31, 2009

Having a college education is cost effective only if the individual attending college uses the privilege of college to his/her advantage. A college education is meant to educate the mind in thinking outside the box. College is meant to teach students basic functionalities of the working world. It is meant to teach students the analytics, history, and logic behind a certain topic to help students move on to a career of his/her choice. In addition to learning from books, students are also learning communication and interpersonal skills from professors and other students. It is not to say that adults who do not attend college do not learn the basics, but it will take them longer to catch up to speed with those who have attended college.

In order for a college education to be fully effective students must take full advantage of college life. For example, colleges offer many extra curricular activities, groups, charity events, and honor societies for students to participate in. If students participate in different organizations within the college there are more chances for the students to network and achieve good interpersonal skills as well as get a feel for a career that they may like to pursue. Many companies when hiring people straight out of college look for specific qualities in prospective employees other than good grades and school rankings. Hiring managers look for well rounded individuals who not only went to class and learned from text books but also participated in other activities. This shows determination and hard work done by the student. This shows that the prospective employee is willing to work hard on many work related projects, can work well with his/her peers, and can also work independently to make deadlines.

Many will argue that in order to get a good job after graduating college an adult must have attended a "good" college or university. In my opinion I do not think that a student attending a high tuition private college is more successful than a student attending a low tuition City/State college. There are many successful people who have attended city colleges and are a lot more successful than those who have attended Ivy League Universities. While attending school to complete my MBA, I met quite a lot of people who are very successful in their career. One woman in particular from an accounting class graduated from CUNY York College. She was a member of the honor society and the president of the business club. After graduating, she worked her way up the chain of a few management positions within 5 years and is now the Director of the Technology department in a large financial institution. This shows that as long as the individual has attended college, taken advantage of the different programs of the college, and worked hard to achieve good grades, then the individual has a strong chance of achieving success which results in an effective cost of the education.

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