Higher Education is outdated for the millennial generation

Rebuttal 1:The millennial generation can be characterised as being ‘interested in daily work reflecting and part of larger societal concerns’, helping communities, caring more on corporate social responsibility and the environment. Importantly, millennials place higher worth on experience rather than material things. (1) 87.5% millennials disagreed with the statement that ‘money is the best measure of success’, in contrast to 78% of the total population (2) - lighth0us3This is true, though there are also many opportunities to be able to obtain a degree for a career that helps society out. For example, one can't become a nurse without a nursing degree, and not only is higher education necessary for doctors and specialists, who also help society, but post-higher education is as well. With a high school diploma, one is very limited in what they can do, so a college degree opens up many ways in which millennials will be able to help the community in some way. Also, if college education is truly outdated for millennials, why are there more millennials than any other generation going to colllege or who have a college education?[7] They must be getting a college degree for some reason, and it would be logical, that since the millennial generation is more interested in doing a job that is helpful to the community, that they go to college for a meaningful degree that will lead them to a career with which they can do much for the community. Rebuttal 2:P1: Yes, a college education is an indicator that you have reasonable knowledge to qualify for a job. But if this is considered a reason as to why you should go to college – so you can indicate to employers of higher skilled jobs that you are qualified (and not to learn and get more skills), this merely strengthens my case that education needs serious reform! As reinforced by A4: students go to university for the degree, and not the education. - lighth0us3Well, this isn't the only reason to get a college degree. There are plenty of other reasons, which I gave a few others already. If this was the only reason to get a college degree, then yes, college would be outdated. Agreement 1:P2: Yes, a college education indicates to employers that you are qualified. Similarly, a college education also increases inequality by providing less opportunity for the poor, where they are kept from knowledge! and jobs! Due to their economic position. I know scholarships exist and all that but in an ideal society a poor kid with above average intelligence should not be prevented from entering college due to monetary issues when a rich kid with below average intelligence can graduate from one. Of all millennials that are not in college/have not earned a college degree, more than a third (36%) say that it is because they cannot afford it. (3) This is why I think, perhaps, I misunderstood what con was supposed to be arguing for, because I agree that college education should be reformed to be available to everyone regardless of income. This isn't a concession, because I believed this before I began the debate, so I'm not sure that this should be a reason why voters should vote against me, since I simply may have misunderstood what con was arguing for. Again, I was thinking along the lines of that con was arguing that college education in general(and not how it necessarily is currently) is not outdated for the millennial generation. It wasn't clear upfront (to me at least) that con would be arguing that how college education is currently executed is not outdated for the millennial generation. I would agree that how college education is currently executed is outdated, and I agreed with that before the debate began, so again, I'm not sure if we should continue this debate or not. Either I misunderstood still, or this point is irrelevant because it can be solved by making higher education tax-payer funded.Rebuttal 3There also exists a large array of alternative pathways apart from a college education today. You can take an exam to do actuary. If you are skilled and want to be a lawyer badly enough you don’t even have to go to law school – you can pass 3 examinations and sit with a practising attorney for four years – you can save time and money by avoiding law school altogether. -lighth0us3 But I don't believe it works that way for every field. To become a doctor, for example, I don't think you can just do something similar: Pass examinations and sit with a practicing doctor for a few years. Maybe one can do this, and I don't know that one can. Even if it does also work that way for doctors, there are so many fields out there and I doubt all of them work that way. Not to mention, if we did make college tax-payer funded, then either route is just as viable as the other as neither cost money for the student.A degree is not the only indicator of being qualified – experience and skills are also good qualifiers. You do not need to major in journalism, history, french, photography etc. to qualify for work in these career fields. This is as skills can be used as a qualifier (which is arguably the better indicator for job performance). -lighth0us3 Yes, but it's often the case that one doesn't obtain the skills needed unless they have a college degree. Not every employer will give you an examination to see if you're qualified and have the skills for the job, so a college degree is necessary to indicate to them you have the skills needed.Rebuttal 4/Agreement 2Additionally, 50% of students in 2005 (including myself) who declared a major changed majors. 40% of students who enrolled in a 4 year college program will not have graduated by year 5 or even year 6. (5) This is alarming given that a college degree is very expensive, and should not be wasted on young people who do not know what they want due to the pressure to decide and fast track to a certain pathway with little to no experience with the working world or what a certain career path will be like. -lighth0us3 The only thing I have to rebut here is the cost wasted you brought up. No matter how you go about getting experience within a field, it will cost money. There's nothing that can be done about that some people will waste money. Whether you waste it on paying for classes that are going to be useless because you changed career paths, or do it by paying for some sort of career workshop or really any alternative to education but later change your career path, you're still spending money and it costs money to teach people in a specific field or give them experience. I agree that there should be something done to change the pressure to decide a career path immediately, or at least some sort of class or something that will give people experience in a given career field. I also agree with what you said in the following paragraph that reform is needed. Again, this might be due to that I wasn't clear on what con is arguing for. I absolutely agree, and would have from the beginning before accepting this debate, that education should be reformed. Rebuttal 5This statistic excludes those who entered higher education (like me) below 18 years. (I spent half of my first university year being underage, it is not as uncommon as it may be in America) -lighth0us3 Well, yes, the statistic I used was a survey of adults 18+, but if teenagers were included it would likely only lower the percent a little. Either way, the point was that adults, in general, have more instances of anxiety or depressive disorders than university students. Really, the problem with my statistic is that it includes university students(those who are 18 or older). That would lower the percentage since the percent of university students with depression or anxiety is lower than for adults out of college. The problem is, if you combined both figures to calculate the total of those with anxiety or depression in higher education, 13% + 15.6% = 28.6% affected.Those numbers cannot be combined though, as they represent two completely different populations. The 13% statistic is those who are in undergratuate education with depression or anxiety, and 15.6% is those in graduate school with depression or anxiety. It's not 28.6% of college students(of both grads and undergrads) that have depression and anxiety, rather, it's the average of the two numbers(though it's a little more complicated than that because the number of undergraduates outnumber the number of graduate students in education). First, we need to take into account how many graduates there are in post-graduate school, then add it to the number of undergraduates. That's the total number of college students in either undergratuate education or post-graduate education. Now that we have that, you take the number of graduate students who have depression or anxiety(15.6% of the total number of graduate students), add it to the number of undergradute students with depression or anxiety(13% of the total number of undergraduate students), and then divide that by the total number of graduate and undergraduate students. Adding the percentages does not work, and the actual percentage of college students(including both graduate students and undergraduate students) with depression or anxiety is somewhere in between 13% and 15.6%; it would be closer to 13% than 15.6% since undergrads outnumber graduate students(I don't think I need a source for that undergrads outnumber graduate students right? That should be common knowledge that most people stop after 4 years of college education) Source:[7] https://www.whitehouse.gov...