IS COLLEGE EDUCATION WORTH IT?

The debate over whether a college education is worth it
may have begun when the colonists arrived from Europe
and founded "New College" (later renamed Harvard
University) in 1636. With 19.9 million US college
students in 2013 and average student debt at over
$26,500, the debate continues today.
People who argue that college is worth it contend that
college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger
salaries, and more work benefits than high school
graduates. They say college graduates also have better
interpersonal skills, live longer, have healthier children,
and have proven their ability to achieve a major
milestone.
People who argue that college is not worth it contend
that the debt from college loans is too high and delays
graduates from saving for retirement, buying a house, or
getting married. They say many successful people never
graduated from college and that many jobs, especially
trades jobs, do not require college degrees.
Colonial America produced nine colleges that still
operate: Harvard University (1636), the College of
William & Mary (1693), Yale University (1701), Princeton
University (1746), Columbia University (1754), Brown
University (1764), Dartmouth College (1769), Rutgers
University (1766), and the University of Pennsylvania
(1740 or 1749). [3, 78 , 79, 80, 81 , 82, 83 , 84, 85, 86 ]
These universities were funded by the colony or England
and usually catered to a specific religious denomination
such as Congregational or Presbyterian (Puritan). [3, 78,
79 , 80, 81 , 82, 83, 84 , 85, 86 ] Primary and secondary
school systems were not yet established so "college
students" were sometimes boys as young as fourteen or
fifteen years old and were admitted to receive
preparatory education with the assumption that they
would matriculate to college-level courses. [3 ]