From the moment we are born, it seems as if we are on a predetermined path towards college. You go from elementary school to middle school to high school to college and then…

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you and your brain full of knowledge are ready to face the world.

For years, college has been presented as the prerequisite for a successful career. Sure, going to college gives you a quality education and teaches valuable skills, but it is certainly not the only way to achieve these things. Because of this, I find it increasingly difficult to side with the masses in their claim that college is necessary to receive an education and prepare for the work force. 

Jobs

Take blue-collar and service jobs, for example. We often assume that these jobs are only physically demanding, but as Mike Rose points out in his article “Blue Collar Brilliance,” they are cognitively demanding too. In her work as a waitress, Rose’s mother “devised memory strategies so she could remember who ordered what” and “became adept at reading social cues and managing feelings,” both of which exercise the mind, not the body (Rose).

Sure, she wasn’t learning calculus or physics, but Rose’s mother was learning how to interact with others, manage supply and demand and refine her skills to achieve maximum success. Basically, she was learning all the skills that employers value. In a way, the diner and her work acted as school and teacher, providing a work-relevant education.

Sports 

Like blue-collar and service jobs, sports are often seen as using only the body and never the mind, and are therefore classified as anti-intellectual. But, if we really sit down and think about it, the professional world is quite similar to the athletic world. For example, sports teach their players to work in a team, to meet demands under pressure and to problem solve in a split second. All these skills constitute the foundational skills of a successful employee.

You might be thinking that these two types of education would hardly be sufficient for someone trying to become a doctor or an engineer. And you would be right. BUT, even though jobs and athletics don’t teach the relevant scientific and mathematical information, they do teach skills that are applicable to most, if not all careers.

Technology

Perhaps the most obvious alternative to a college education is technology. The evolution of technology has truly revolutionized education throughout the years.

But, the Internet has had the most significant influence on education. It has made information much more accessible and available by placing all the information we could ever want at our fingertips. Have a question? Hit up your good friends Siri and Google. Want to go to college without actually going to college? Enroll in an online university like the University of Phoenix. Want to get a college level education without paying a dime? Watch CrashCourse videos or visit Khan Academy. Basically, the Internet has brought education to us.

Because of this, the “brick-and-mortar campus is increasingly obsolete” (Murray). In his article “Are Too Many People Going to College?” Charles Murray claims that colleges used to be necessary because they provided amenities that were otherwise unavailable, such as a good library, the physical proximity of scholars and the interaction between teachers and students. But, as Murray points out, technology provides all this and so much more! With things like search engines, email and video-conferencing, the reasoning behind physical college campuses seems pretty weak. In this way, the Internet is an adequate substitute for the on-campus college education we are so accustomed to. 

Technology is effective because it allows us to unleash our full cognitive potential. The combination of a computer’s lightning-fast processing speed and infinite data base with a human’s intuition and insight produces a super-human capable of learning and achieving more. A similar notion is claimed by Clive Thomson in his essay “Smarter Than You Think.” Thomson claims that technology is a tool that, when used correctly, strengthens and augments our human capabilities and makes us “radically smarter than we’d be on our own.” So even though your head won’t become massive and you won’t develop super powers like Megamind,

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you will still be expanding your learning capacity.

Although most believe that technology helps us, some, like Nicholas Carr, insist that our use of technology actually hurts us. In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr claims that “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” Even though an argument could be made that we rely too much on technology, Carr’s assertion that we are degrading our own intelligence by using computers is a bit extreme. If used correctly, technology should increase our intelligence, not flatten it.

Thomson contradicts Carr’s assertion, emphasizing that technology and the Internet do not degrade our own human intellectual abilities, but rather “advance [these abilities] to new levels of human excellence.” Technology makes more information more available, allowing us to develop a broader, more thorough education and better prepare for working life.

So What?

I am not saying that going to college is a bad decision and that universities don’t educate their students. Rather, I am saying that college is not necessary to receive a quality education; there are various other options that achieve the same goal. As long as you receive an education that prepares you for the work force, it doesn’t matter whether you attend college, enroll in an online university, work as a waitress or play a sport. So maybe, instead of asking, “should I pursue a higher education?” we should ask, “how should I pursue a higher education?”

For further reading on this topic, see articles by Forbes and the New York Times.