NJ has the best colleges in the country … to waste your money (Opinion)

College has become a racket, heavily subsidized, far too expensive, and generally a waste of time and money.

Unless you're going seeking a degree in medicine, engineering and half a handful of other careers that would require a degree, it's a pretty poor use of four years of a young life.

That time, and far less money, could be spent learning about life through working a service job or manual labor, to gain an appreciation for things in general or traveling either domestically or abroad. Nothing broadens the mind and your horizons like travel and getting out of your cocoon.

It seems nothing narrows the mind more than a standard American college experience. Most graduates don't have any more practical knowledge than when they began their "studies."

Talk to any group of people in their late 20s and see if the people who got into "the trades" or other practical careers without college are better off financially than those who borrowed tens of thousands of dollars to get a "good education." There's no comparison.

College used to be a way to better oneself and set you apart from the rest of the crowd. Well now the rest of the crowd has been coerced into attending college and coming out with worthless degrees putting them behind their old high school classmates who found meaningful, useful careers without a "degree" in the game of life.

Luckily here in New Jersey, most counties have excellent technology high schools that can put you on a great career path before making that awful decision to buy a four-year, far away vacation that they or their parents can't afford.

And if you didn't consider it until after high school, there are still plenty of affordable programs for you to learn and actual skill without all of the needless nonsense so many universities shove down students' throats, making them strangers to their parents before the end of their first year in many cases.

I'm not saying college is a bad idea for most kids. I'm saying it's a HORRIBLE idea for most kids. But students and parents alike are brainwashed and peer-pressured into finding that "great" school to send the kid off to ever year.

Many students who've just begun their college experience in the past month will be done with it within a few short months. To many that would be a huge disappointment. With the right direction it can turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to that kid.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy. Any opinions expressed are Dennis Malloy's own.