How much is my education worth?

The new semester and recent articles in newspaper publications have me thinking about the cost of a four year college education and the true value of it. Some people would say that I am lucky to receive the HOPE scholarship – a scholarship based on merit, not financial need. But I worked for the scholarship. I was an A/B student, mostly A’s, in high school, and I maintained my high performance in college from the beginning. I have a 3.80 GPA and “am lucky enough” to have 100% of Georgia Tech tuition paid for. In-state tuition, the amount HOPE pays for, is under five thousand dollars a semester.

A roommate from last semester is an out-of-state student. Her parents, as she said it, shell out forty grand a year for her to attend Georgia Tech. I knew the tuition for out-of-state students was high, but I hadn’t thought of myself, or my parents, paying that much for my education, especially for an undergraduate degree. I was wondering if my roommate thought that she was receiving forty thousand dollars worth of education. But then again, how can you measure the worth of an education. It can’t be based on where undergrads go to graduate school or how much money they make at their first job because these are not guarantees. Georgia Tech cannot guarantee me admittance to Columbia or NYU, nor a job.

It really infuriates me that ‘the rising cost of tuition’ can be attributed, partly, to colleges and universities ‘hiring more administrative staff’. First of all, some of the administrative staff is useless; fewer employees are needed to actually to get the job done. Secondly, if I have a question, I receive an automated response or a response by a student employee. 

I honestly cannot say whether I have or currently am receiving a forty thousand dollar a year education. I find it difficult to give my education a price tag. I don’t know what the true monetary value of the quality of my, or for anyone else’s for that matter, education is. Realtors ask, “How much is this property worth?” Well, the answer is “what someone is willing to pay for it.” If colleges had open seats, and had a pool of applicants that were ‘pre-approved’ and then would be allowed to bid on how much they would pay for that spot, then, and only then would we know how much an education would be worth.

I am in my junior year of college and so, naturally, I am preparing for the future. This means deciding on what to do for graduate school, because let’s be honest, you can’t afford to not make money and I don't want to struggle to live how I want. I’ve come to the decision that law school is what is at the top of my short, short list – that is if I can get into one of the top ten law schools in the US (and I greatly prefer Columbia University or NYU and I do not want to go to a school in California so Stanford is out of the running). If I can’t get into one of the best, I am not sure it would be in my best interest, or in the interest of my parent’s bank account, to go to a lesser school for a J.D. It’s too bad that apprenticeships in the field of law just don’t happen too much anymore (will firms want you if you do an apprenticeship?) because we all hear that it’s experience that facilitates learning. I like the idea that I would take the LSAT’s, apply to law school and then, I would go shopping around for a sponsor, a law firm, that would pay a percentage of my law school tuition (some or all of it) guaranteed if I commit to working for them when I graduate for a period of time. This way I would be guaranteed the funds to make it through law school with little to no debt, and a job (that's unheard of...just kidding)! Anyone out there want to be my sponsor? Yes?