I just read an article in today's Globe and Mail that suggests a postsecondary education has less benefit today than it did in the 90s. "Last year, for the first time since 1997, blue-collar employment grew faster than the number of white-collar jobs."
After high school, I started attending school a little East on Bloor Street and enrolled at the University of Toronto where I eventually graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Arts. Looking back, I don't really see it as a choice I made but a natural extension of my schooling that was expected from me. At 18 I certainly had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew University was as good a place as any to burn four years while I figured it all out. Besides, what else was I going to do? I could work part-time at the grocery store to pay my tuition and buy my CDs but I certainly wasn't about to get a real job. Everyone was pounding into our heads the fact that you would never find a decent job without a degree. This was the mantra I was hearing since kindergarten. People with only high school never amount to anything. At least, that's what every guidance counsellor, every teacher and my very own parental units would tell me.
As it turns out, many do just fine without high school and many with a University degree don't. I certainly don't regret getting the degree. As I type this I see the lovely diploma on the wall and I know it has opened doors for me that would have otherwise been shut, but it's clearly not the necessity we were led to believe it was.
