What Is the Point of University? A Parent’s Honest Take After Watching Two Kids Graduate
Last weekend, I stood over a charcoal grill in my backyard flipping burgers that were already charred black on the outside and raw in the middle, when my neighbor Karen leaned in and asked the question I’ve been turning over for almost five years: “What’s the actual point of university, anyway?” Her oldest is a high school senior dead set on majoring in creative writing, and she’s been scrolling TikTok every night seeing people rant that any degree that doesn’t lead directly to a six-figure tech or finance job is a waste of $100k. Lila, my oldest, was wiping mustard off her graduation hoodie and rolled her eyes when Karen asked, and Sam, my youngest, just ran past chasing our golden retriever who’d stolen a hot dog bun. I wiped charcoal dust off my hands and told her I didn’t have a one-sentence answer, but I had a lot of thoughts after walking this road with two of my own.
When Lila was applying to schools five years ago, I was the one asking that question, too. She’d written all her application essays about wanting to study freshwater conservation, and I’d sit at the kitchen table after she went to bed, scrolling salary websites, muttering to myself what the point was. I kept pressing her to add accounting as a second major “just in case.” I told her if she was going to pay all that money, she needed to have a clear job lined up before she walked across the stage. She ended up going to a mid-sized public university, took one intro accounting class, dropped it, and never looked back.
She graduated three years ago, and didn’t get that fancy conservation job right away. She waited tables for 10 months while she applied for entry roles, and I’d bite my tongue every time she called me complaining about tips being bad that week. Then she got a job as a program coordinator at a local land trust. She doesn’t make six figures. She still has $18k in student loans to pay off. But last Christmas, she told me the best thing she got out of university wasn’t the degree. It was the all-nighter she pulled with three other kids in her research lab, testing water samples from the local river, when they realized they’d messed up half their data and had to re-do it all in 12 hours. It was the professor who stayed after class every week to help her write her first grant proposal, even when Lila wasn’t getting a grade for it. It was the group of friends she still rents a house with, all of whom work different jobs, but all care about the same things she does.
Sam took a gap year after high school, worked at the local hardware store, and saved up $7k before he decided he wanted to go. I was even more nervous this time around. He wanted to study sociology, which felt even less “useful” than environmental science to me. We worked out a plan where he did his first two years at our local community college, gen eds only, paid in cash with his savings and what we’d saved for him, then transferred to the same public university Lila went to for his last two years. That cut the total cost almost in half. He spent almost all his free time at the campus food bank all four years, organizing food drives for students who didn’t have enough to eat. He just graduated last month, and he already has a full-time job doing outreach for the state’s food bank network. He got the job because the director of the campus food bank introduced him to the hiring manager, not just because he had a sociology degree.
I’ve thought a lot about what to tell parents like Karen, who are scared they’re doing something wrong if they let their kid pick a major that doesn’t have an obvious career path. The first small shift I suggest is to stop asking “what job will you get with that degree?” and ask “what three things do you want to try while you’re there?” It’s just a swap of one question for another, but it changes the whole conversation. Instead of forcing your kid to justify their choice before they even start, you’re asking them to think about what they want to get out of the time, not just the piece of paper at the end. The second thing I tell parents is to help your kid prioritize low debt over a fancy school name. Both my kids went to a school I’d never heard of when I was their age; it’s not an Ivy, it’s not even a top 50 national school, but it was affordable, and they got to do the things they cared about without owing $100k before they turn 25. Third, I’m honest that it’s okay if the point isn’t a job right away. For a lot of 18 year olds, university is just the first chance they get to live away from home, figure out what they like and don’t like, meet people who aren’t from their hometown, and that’s not a waste.
I also make sure to add that university isn’t for every kid. My sister’s son didn’t go, he did an electrician apprenticeship right out of high school, he makes $90k a year now at 26, owns his own truck, and he’s happier than most of the college graduates I know. The question shouldn’t be “should everyone go to university?” It should be “what is the point for my kid, if they want to go?”
After I talked to Karen for a little while, she said she’d stop pressing her kid to switch to business, and just talk to him about what he actually wants to do. After she left, Sam sat down next to me on the porch step, and said a kid he went to high school with had texted him earlier that week asking if university was worth it, because all his older siblings said it was a waste. Sam told him it’s only a waste if you go, sit through your classes, and never do anything else outside of the requirements.
I looked out at the yard, saw Lila playing frisbee with her friends, the dog rolling in the clover, the charred burgers sitting on the platter. I still have days where I look at Lila’s loan statements and wonder if we did the right thing. I don’t know what Sam’s career will look like in 10 years, or if he’ll still want to do food bank work. But I do know that the point of university isn’t the same for every person. It’s not a guaranteed ticket to a good job, and it’s not a requirement for a good life. But for my kids, it was a place to figure out what matters to them, and that’s been worth more than any starting salary I could have predicted.
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