Isgoing to a college worth? This is a common question in the developed economies, a survey result shows that 40% students in USA are engaged in the return on investment calculation in the class XII for going to a college right after the school or later in life. This is all because the astronomical rise in the college fee and overall living expenses for the four years of college.
For us in India, we need to understand the trend and make sure to bring in a positive change in the overall education system (because we are far behind in terms of quality of education in most of the private and regional colleges) and make our roots strong before indulging into such questions.
The purpose of a college
Lets understand the purpose of a college first because without getting to the root of this answer we cannot clearly assess whether its worth or not.
Simply put the colleges and universities serves two major purposes:
- Job Driven: Go to college, learn new skills and get yourself well prepared to do a job advertised in the job market, well. Read the deficiencies of manpower in the sectors, and get onto getting the education to fill the gap. Better you are prepared to d the job, more are the chances for you to beat the competition and get the said job. So basically the colleges are preparing you for the job.
- Life Driven: Go to college, learn the most difficult questions of life about survival, engagement, team management, taking orders, giving instructions, understanding instructions and following well. Learn from the learned individuals, share ideas, discuss openly, think critically and communicate clearly. Then transfer the learnings to your off-springs to be a better person. This way you are better placed to succeed in life no matter what you do as your profession.
Purpose of a college
Findings from a Gallup-Bates College study released in year 2019, give us convincing evidence of the importance of both/and – as well as point us toward an improved framework for thinking about the purpose of college.
Representing the views of more than 2,000 college graduates, 600 hiring managers and 1,000 parents of students who are college bound, in college or who recently graduated from college, this study measures the extent to which college graduates seek and find purpose in their work.
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- 80% of college graduates say it’s important to derive a sense of purpose from their work.
- Yet, only 38% of students strongly agree they have discovered work that has a satisfying purpose.
- For graduates with low levels of purpose in their work, only 6% are thriving in their overall well-being. But graduates with high purpose in their work are ten times more likely to be thriving in their well-being (59%)!
- The top two drivers of a graduate achieving purpose in their work are whether they had an applied job or internship and someone who encouraged their goals and dreams during college.
- These findings are true for all generations of graduates, but especially true for Millennials who are more likely to derive purpose from their work than other sources and in looking back on their college experience are more likely to regret not having had real-life work experiences.
- Finally, graduates who are reflective are 67% more likely to have purposeful work.
Work is not just about a paycheck; it’s also about a purpose. Helping graduates achieve purposeful work may indeed be the purpose of college.
The colleges must upgrade themselves to impart knowledge and give purpose
Skillset as well as purpose both are to be achieved by education, but surprisingly the graduates these days lacs both and the credit goes to the infrastructure and procedures at the college and at the same time preparedness and willingness of the students.
NAAC ratings are gaining popularity among all the colleges and the students these days while selecting the college for admission, these NAAC ratings are the parameter of the learning facilities, methodologies, content delivery, labs and aids availability etc. but there must also be an accreditation agency helping the students score high in their purpose, they know themselves well, they understand the purpose of education is not only to get them a good job, but also to prepare them to serve the community and society they live in and in the long run this can only help in transforming our country to a developed nation.
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