You may be in your final year at school right now, and wondering if college or university is the right path or you. You may have heard that degrees are no longer a guarantee of gaining a well-paying job, but that graduates earn more than non-graduates. All of this may have left you feeling confused and frustrated. Should you apply for that engineering mba or not? Unfortunately, no one can answer that question for you, but below are a few things that you should consider before you make your final decision to go to college or not.
Career aspirations
First of all, you need to know what it is you want to do for the rest of your life. This may seem an obvious thing, but some people choose university or college simply because they don’t know what else to do with their lives. This is an inadvisable reason to get yourself tens of thousands into debt. Ask yourself what you want to do for a living, and what you need to make that happen. Some career aspirations might be better served by getting an apprenticeship or starting lower down the ladder. If you can land yourself an entry level job and work your way up to a graduate position in three years, it negates the need for a degree and saves you a lot of money. Research all the different ways of becoming qualified to do the job you want and see if a degree will provide you with a noticeable benefit.
Finances
If you genuinely cannot afford to go to college or university, then the choice is taken out of your hands. But if you think you may just be able to afford it, but you would have to struggle, then you have a difficult decision to make. You could try to win a scholarship which would drastically lessen or eradicate your fees, but these are very competitive, and you would have to be top of your class to be in with a shot.
If you are considering taking out a loan to cover your costs, then you will need to be sure that you are likely to gain a suitably well-paid job when you graduate in order to meet the repayments. If you want some easy student loan offerings for your educational expenses, here’s a resource.
Above all else, you must be honest with yourself with regard to the affordability of your education. If you simply cannot afford not to be working, but desperately need a degree in order to succeed in your chosen field, you could opt to undertake an online degree which allows you to study from home in your spare time while you work.
Social needs
There’s no denying that a huge part of the college and university experience is the social aspect and the freedom that it brings. But if this is all you are going for, you would be better served staying at home and partying on the weekends. The social aspect of college is just that, an aspect. College is all about learning. Learning your subject, learning to stand on your own two feet, and learning how to be a grown-up. You should also bear in mind that heading to college will likely mean you have to move a long distance away from home and depending on your family situation that may be a deal breaker for you.
There you have it, three things you should definitely consider when making the all-important choice as to whether you will be heading to college or university. It can be a difficult decision to make, but taking your time and choosing the right course of action for you is much better than making a snap decision and regretting it later.
