Throughout my childhood, I always looked forward to future milestones such as getting my driver’s license and leaving home to attend a prestigious university. Despite all of its ups and downs, school has always been one of my favorite places. On the surface, school is a place we go to learn about math, history, literature, etc. But if you peek below the surface, we also learn about life and people. We begin to understand what types of people we want for our friends and what types of teaching styles we like. School is arguably the most important aspect of growing into an adult.

According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the percent of people attending university has steadily declined since at least 2012. This would not have made sense to me before I graduated high school. Today, this seems completely logical, so I would like to explain my reasoning.

I grew up knowing I wanted to go to the University of Florida, my father’s alma mater. My dad was the first person from his family to graduate from a university, which makes me the second person in his family to accomplish this feat. On my mother’s side of the family, her father and both of her brothers attended business school and have done incredibly well because of it. In my mind, college was a necessity in order to be successful.

I had all the tools I needed to succeed: intelligence, motivation and support from my loving family. The one problem I didn’t realize was that I had no clue what I wanted to do as a profession for the rest of my life…

Unfortunately, you can’t graduate as an undecided major. I loved all types of science, but I had no idea how to narrow that down and still choose a major that would help provide me with a good job. With the clock ticking, I chose to major in exercise physiology with a minor in business administration. I wanted to be business savvy like my mom’s side of the family but I loved science, exercising and sports. I figured that was a comfortable medium between the seemingly infinite choices of possible majors.

When I decided on my major, my goal was to go to physical therapy school and eventually open up my own clinic. I wanted to help people recover from their injuries and improve their quality of life in a way that no physical therapist had ever done for me. As I grew older, I realized I wanted to make a difference in the world. I didn’t want to help individual people or oversee a business. I wanted to help the entire world. I wanted to contribute to our existing body of knowledge and help further advance our civilization towards being healthy, happier and more peaceful.

Today I am enrolled in UNF’s Doctorate of Physical Therapy program. The coursework has been bountiful, and I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing material over and over again in order to attain a good grade. This should be expected from a higher-level learning institution. However, I’ve learned that this is not healthy, and the values that have been placed upon us are not values that promote success. I have had several classmates dropped from the program because of grades from high-stress classes; others have dropped (or wanted to drop) for mental health related reasons. These difficult classes are considered highly stressful due to the layout of the classes and the manner in which they are taught. When many students are accepted into a graduate-level program but are unable to pass exams, in my opinion, it is more indicative of the quality of teaching than the level of the students’ knowledge.

The education system that is set up today is not one created for student success. Today’s education system is nothing more than a business. I have funneled thousands of dollars into a program that requires me to teach myself the material because the majority of professors are more concerned about their own research than the success and knowledge of their students. That’s not to say every professor acts in this manner. I know of a few professors at UNF and UF that did everything they possibly could to help their students both achieve their dreams and achieve the level of knowledge desired by the professor. I can’t thank these professors enough for their effort and for providing us frantically stressed students with a glimmer of hope.

I grew up believing college was a necessity. I thought that only the most intelligent people went to college and the only way to capitalize on your smarts was to harness your abilities through a university. However, brilliant innovators like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't succeed through college. Clearly, that did not hinder their (at the time undiscovered) potentials. Not that money defines success either. There are plenty of people that never went to college but are much happier than rich college graduates. Happiness cannot be quantified like money. I know now that I would much rather be happy than rich, for true bliss is the richest of treasures. For every “rich” or “successful” college graduate there are a dozen more that are struggling with their current situation because of a seemingly insurmountable amount of student loan debt. A fair number of these graduates are not even working in the fields in which they attained degrees.

So, is a college degree an investment worth making? In hindsight, I would say that it is not. Unless you are 100% positive you need a college degree for your dream job, I would advise not going to college or waiting until you are 100% sure. Life was developed to learn, but that doesn't mean we are required to use thousands of dollars to do so.