Pinned in the corner of Southwestern College professor Dr. Max Branscomb’s office window is a note which reads, “Follow your bliss.” As students reel from the pressure to pick a major, a university, a future, those three words become a fount of wisdom.
Eighty percent of college students in the United States change their major at least once, according to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2013, and on average students will switch between majors three times before graduating.
When it comes to buying a house or choosing a spouse, people are encouraged to wait and give the decision time. A financial undertaking with such a profound effect on one’s life should not be rushed into. And yet that is what college students at SWC and around the country are being pressured to do. Pick a major. Transfer.
Influenced by institutional standards for measuring “success,” community colleges are trying to find ways to increase the number of students who will leave the nest to pursue their B.A.s. This mindset, understandable though it may be, does not calculate the personal growth and development of students who come to this college to learn and find their way.
Priority registration and incentives given to students with clean transfer plans all work towards pressure-pushing students to move quickly through the system. College planning on a state level is becoming increasingly pipelined by legislation.
Although it is understandable that the college would want to streamline the transfer process for those ready to move on, and limit unnecessary lollygagging from students who are procrastinating on the difficult step of moving on, there is something greater at stake.
Higher education has become a diploma mill. The New York Times reported in 2012 that 41 percent of college graduates are employed in jobs that do not require a degree. There is a pressure from administrators to professors to the families we return to at the end of the day to finish our degrees. Get the diploma, they say.
But the diploma a misleading promise of employment and is quickly becoming an unreasonably expensive investment. The Economic Policy Institute reported that the graduating class of 2015 will be facing an unstable market with wages for college graduates down 2.0 percent since 2007.
“The rising cost of college combined with the failure of wages to grow for young college graduates signals that a college education is becoming a more uncertain investment,” the report stated. “The cost of higher education has grown far more rapidly than median family income, leaving students with little choice but to take out loans which, upon graduating into a labor market with limited job opportunities, they may not have the funds to repay.”
None of this is to say that an education is not a worthy goal. Rather, it should serve as a reminder that job assurance is not the sole purpose of the college experience. This is where life happens. This is where we begin to evolve into the people we hope to one day be. But it takes time.
SWC offers hundreds of courses including arts, languages, medicine and various trade skills. Community colleges are home to student veterans, retired community members and young people who have not yet figured out how they fit in the world. With affordable classes and so many opportunities to broaden personal horizons, a slower pace may be just what some students need to find their real passion.
Well-intentioned administrators and faculty might want to get students to move on quickly, there is value in taking time to make a good decision. Finding your purpose, following your bliss, is not something you can put a price on and it is not something you can systemize. We need to stop seeing it as such.
Attending this college is not just a way to get a degree. It is a way to start a life.