What Is the Point of University? A Parent and High School Teacher’s Honest Perspective
I was wiping lime salt and crumbs off our kitchen table after Tuesday taco night when my 17-year-old son Javi pushed a stack of university brochures aside, took a bite of his leftover churro, and asked the question I knew had been coming for months: “What’s the actual point of university, anyway?”
His laptop was open to a TikTok thread of 20-somethings bragging about six-figure trades incomes without degrees, and he’d just come home from a college fair where half the admissions reps dodged his question about paid internships for construction-focused programs. I almost blurted out the generic line I’d heard a hundred times: “It opens doors.” But I stopped. I hear this question from my 12th grade students every other week, and that answer doesn’t cut it anymore.
I pulled my old college notebook out of the top junk drawer, the one with a coffee stain from my 2007 summer camp job and a faded R.E.M. concert sticker on the cover. I flipped to the back, where 18-year-old me had scribbled my own reasons for going, scrawled in blue ballpoint: 1. Don’t want to stand on my feet 10 hours a day at the factory like my dad, 2. Want to meet people who didn’t grow up 10 miles from here, 3. Want to figure out what I like before I have to pay a mortgage. That was it. No grand plan to change the world, no guarantee of a perfect career.
Last month, a former student stopped by my classroom to say hello. Mia graduated three years ago, went to our in-state public university two hours away, got a degree in sociology, and now works at a local non-profit that runs after-school programs for low-income kids. She told me the best thing university gave her wasn’t her sociology textbook notes. It was four years of low-stakes exploration that she couldn’t have gotten any other way. She tried three different part-time jobs, quit the sorority that felt fake, joined a campus community garden club that made her realize she loved working with kids. Before that, she’d spent all of high school assuming she had to go to law school because her mom wanted it. That time to mess around and adjust, she said, was worth every penny of her $12,000 a year in-state tuition.
On the other side of the coin is my 24-year-old nephew, who never went at all. He did an HVAC apprenticeship straight out of high school, now owns his own small service company, makes $20,000 more a year than I do as a teacher, and has zero student debt. Last Christmas he told me he knows university would have been a waste for him. He learns best by doing, hates sitting through lectures, and was ready to start earning and building equity right out of high school. No shame in that, and no shame in choosing a different path.
Over the years of talking to students and parents, I’ve landed on a few concrete things I share when people ask me this question. First, don’t buy either extreme hype: it’s not the only path to a good life, and it’s not a total scam. Both narratives are pushed by people selling something, whether that’s a trade apprenticeship program or an overpriced private college. Second, sit down with your kid and map the actual numbers, not just the sticker price. Look up the average starting salary for the field they’re curious about, calculate what monthly student loan payments would be after graduation, and see if that adds up. If they want to be a social worker making $50,000 a year, $80,000 in private school debt doesn’t make sense, but an in-state degree with a Pell Grant usually does. That’s a conversation anyone can have in an hour, no expert needed.
Third, ask them what they want from the next four years, not what they want to do for the rest of their life. If they say “I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to get out of this small town and try new things,” that’s a valid reason to go, if you can afford it. If they say “I hate school, I want to start working and build something right now,” that’s a valid reason not to go. No shame either way. There’s also middle ground these days that most people don’t talk about: hybrid programs that blend apprenticeship work with a part-time degree, gap years with structured work plans, community college general ed classes that cost a fraction of a four-year school while you figure it out.
When Javi asked me if my own degree was worth it, I told him I never use the 19th century American lit themes I memorized for my final exams anymore. But I learned how to write a clear email that gets people to respond, how to read through a 20-page document and pull out the important parts, how to meet a deadline even when I don’t feel like it. I use all of that every single day. I also met my best friend there, the one who helped me move when I got my first apartment, who brought me meals when I got divorced, who I still hike with every fall. That’s not nothing, and it’s not something I would have gotten if I’d stayed home working at the local grocery store straight out of high school.
After we talked, Javi pulled up the website for our local technical college’s hybrid construction management program, the one that lets you work full-time as an apprentice while you earn your degree in four years. He started scrolling through the course list, asking questions about how the apprenticeship pay works. I didn’t push him to decide that night. I threw the taco wrappers in the trash, wiped the last of the churro crumbs off the table, and went to fold laundry.
We still don’t know exactly what he’ll do, and that’s fine. The point of university isn’t to give you a perfect life or a guaranteed job at 22. It’s just an option, one that makes sense for some people some of the time, and not for others. I don’t have a neat, one-size-fits-all answer to the question, and that’s okay. No 18-year-old, or 48-year-old for that matter, needs one anyway.
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