Has a College Degree Lost Its Value?

I can remember my senior year of high school. My high school counselors talked about how exciting going to college was. They made it sound like it was the best thing since sliced bread. I always heard that if you went to college you would have no problem finding a good job after graduation. I could not wait to go to college to see what all of the hype was about.

After four years of intense matriculation, I successfully completed my degree requirements. That Monday morning after graduation I wasted no time, I began to look for work trying to secure my first real salaried job. As I browsed the job classifieds section of the newspaper, I began to notice that almost every entry-level job required a college degree just to be considered for the perspective position. At first, I felt like I was on top of the world because I was a recent college graduate with a degree. College degrees were so common. Everybody has one! Just like with anything else, if many people do not have something the more valuable it is. I was upset because the degree that I went through blood, sweat, and tears to get was worthless.

Now I noticed that when I went on different job interviews most of the people who had the responsibility of making the final decisions on if a candidate was qualified for the job did not even have college degrees. How is this possible? How can I be required to have something that the decision makers did not have themselves? Having a college degree does not mean that you are better are smarter than someone who does not. A college degree is a result of someone who is able to sit in a classroom environment for four years after graduating from high school. I really believe that over the past 40 years college degrees have lost a significant amount of value in our society. Other than the lifelong friendships, I established in college I really regret going. Most people are in debt because they went to going to college. They have student loans, many of which require the first payment 6 months after graduation. Let us not forget those high interest rate credit cards that were so easy to get. It is really a catch 22 situation for people like me who feel like they wasted their time going to college. If had not gone to college I would have probably been one of the few people who could not have found a job that did not require a degree.