Introduction
Higher education has its perks and benefits. In recent years, the world has been increasingly giving more importance to higher academic qualifications, and rightfully so. The world is starting to understand the benefits one can get with a Masters or PhD degree.
For a senior professional without a Masters degree, the changing world poses new challenges both in the professional field and in personal life. Some are subtle and negligible, while others might hurt their career growth in the long run.
There are many reasons behind an individual's choice of not to have gone for higher education; ranging from family commitments to external issues like COVID-19, etc. In each case, we have tried to address the issue and provide a roadmap.
For senior professionals in their mid-30s, most of these issues are a matter of the past. The only thing that is standing between them and a Masters degree is the lack of an opportunity that is tailored specifically for their needs. Pursuing higher education will be a worthwhile investment with the right opportunity at any age and in any situation.
8 reasons why people discontinue academics
Lack of money
In 2020, an average American student's loan debt was around 37500$ (Source: Investopedia). A survey from India Today has found that nearly 50% of college students who dropped out of college in 2017–18 did so due to a lack of funds. Tuition fees have skyrocketed for higher education, resulting in an increase in the number of dropouts from college. If you add the economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic, the numbers would go much higher.
For a senior professional, money won't be an issue. After years of having a steady job, most senior professionals will be financially stable with a nice package, a house, and a retirement plan. If you are still struggling, there are several ways through which you can continue your education. Many universities offer student loans with EMI and instalment options to their learners. It is just a matter of mindset.
Choosing the wrong major
Choosing the wrong college major will leave you stuck. If you are more inclined towards writing but choose to pursue engineering, then you will end up in a tight spot. You will question everything you did and feel out of place.
College is not a place to find your passion. It is a place where you can nourish and grow your passion or simply enhance your qualification.
But after working for years across industries, senior professionals are mature enough to know and decide which major is best suited for their career growth. With commitments like family and work, time is a scarce resource for senior professionals. So, senior professionals are far more likely to choose the most relevant major in college and excel in it.
Even if choosing a major is an issue, you can always consult the HR of your company or career counsellors in the university itself. Similarly, you can ask your family, friends, and colleagues for better feedback. The network is a big asset for senior professionals.
But in the end, it should be a major you are passionate about and know you can work with for years.
Choosing the wrong college
In developing countries, many colleges lack the faculty, infrastructure, and quality of education that are needed to make learning enjoyable.
There are also toxic environments like ragging, partiality, gender bias, and racism that force some to drop out. Times are changing. Most campuses have anti-ragging committees within their campuses.
Some college classroom environments are exhausting and mentally draining. Purposeless classmates and lazy faculty that are not interested in the academic excellence of their highly interactive students will lead them to turn away.
It is not so in the internet age. You can instantly read reviews about a campus. Thanks to the digital world, you can read brochures, check their placement options, visit the campus virtually, and get to know the faculty before even writing an application.
Alternatively, many reputed universities offer distance education. Or better yet, completely online degrees with credibility and global recognition. These might be better choices for the working individual, though they require self-discipline and motivation for successful completion.
Family issues
For many professionals, their families did not have the privileges they have now. Poverty and health issues within the family might be some of the reasons that forced the individual into the workforce, earlier than they would have wanted to.
Marrying early and starting a family is a great commitment. For both genders, parental roles offer many challenges though. Although these are challenging, many young couples have managed to juggle both education and work with their family.
Years of experience in a managerial role will have strengthened the time management techniques of a professional. With age comes greater responsibility. And senior professionals are in a perfect position and have the skill sets to take care of those responsibilities.
Lack of transportation, infrastructure, colleges
Even today, there are no public transport facilities available for many rural areas in developing countries. There are still whole villages without necessities like electricity, the internet, or libraries. For the female population, it is hard to travel to college or stay there without the necessary facilities. As a result, rural youth, particularly rural women, are less likely to continue their education.
Globalisation and technological advances are bridging the gap, but there is still more that needs to be done. Senior professionals are privileged to have lived through all of this and hopefully live in cities with all the necessities. Once again, online degrees will be the best option for those that have such problems.
Entrepreneurship or job offer
For many people, a job offer or a dream of entrepreneurship is what leads them away from college. The instant gratification of a job offer seems like a good choice for them. Working right after high school will give them a head start, with amazing vacations, regular income, a romantic life, and all. Family situations play a major role here too.
In the long run, they will be stuck in the same spot when those with degrees move ahead in life with exponential speed. Though people with higher qualifications had started late and had student loans and debt under their names, it was just a matter of time before they moved ahead in their careers. Of course, many non-graduates are earning more than graduates, but in general, higher academic qualifications offer more money in the long run.
Even if you own a business or have a job, there is a pool of opportunities available to working professionals. Several companies sponsor part or all of the education fees to upskill their staff. Having a steady job also allows you to pursue an online degree.
Gender bias
In recent years, women have outnumbered men in higher education. But it wasn't so in the past. Women were denied higher education and were forced into marriage. Poverty has ravaged and continues to ravage entire communities all over the world.
Women are discouraged from attending college due to a lack of transportation, lodging facilities, and safety concerns. The recent fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban has resulted in restrictions on education for women (Source: LiveMint). Women suffer the same fate in many parts of the world, even to this day.
Distance education and online degrees might be able to bridge this gap. You can pursue higher education from the top universities in the world through an online delivery mode. There won't be gender bias or racism to nag you every day. Just you and your goal. With a lot of effort, the digital age has finally brought learning opportunities to the oppressed.
Survivor bias
There are many highly successful people across a wide range of fields who never went to college or dropped out of there. Tech giants like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft's Bill Gates do not have a degree. Sports icons like Sachin Tendulkar never went to college.
But all these people had some sort of backup plan before they decided that college was not for them. The problem arises when someone stops their education without a backup plan.
Taking only these highly successful people into consideration and making their actions ideals for success is what makes people vulnerable to lifelong failure. For every successful individual without a college degree, there are many more that couldn't make it to the front page of newspapers.
Pandemic and unemployment
The economic disruption caused by the pandemic is hard to comprehend. In India alone, 10 million people lost their jobs in the second wave. The household income of 97% of families has declined since the beginning of the pandemic. The unemployment rate rose to a whopping 23.5% in May 2020. (Courtesy: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy CEO - Mahesh Vyas). The job losses within India were as high as 122,000,000 according to "The Hindu" data team.
According to the International Labour Organisation, 81 million jobs were lost in 2020 in the Asia-Pacific region due to the pandemic (Document resource - pdf). And 114 million jobs were lost worldwide in 2020 alone. Young people and women were the major working groups that were forced out of the job market. The median salaries had fallen, which resulted in a loss of 3% of the GDP.
Doubtless, the pandemic has played a major role in the past few years in the lives of professionals. Many have lost jobs since the lockdowns. The recent economic slowdown has had a major impact on the professional lives of non-graduates. The struggle was harder for those without degrees to find new jobs. In such difficult times, it is good to have an edge like a Masters degree.
The pandemic has been proof of how unstable your career can become in a short time. It also showed how troublesome job hunting can become without a degree. Even for the highly educated, the pandemic posed new threats to their jobs. When the whole industry was shut down, regardless of education level, people suffered. Without steady income for months, people searched for jobs in alternative industries. Many wished that they had completed their graduation.
All is not lost, though. There is an increasing trend in the corporate world to not require graduation/Masters for employment/growth. Many tech giants no longer require their employees to have a degree, like Google, Apple, and IBM, to name a few. About 50% of Apple's hires in 2018 were non-graduates (source: Business Insider).
Still, graduation will be your best bet when external factors like COVID19 come into play.
Some problems non-graduates face in the future
Low-end jobs will be filled by AI and ML
Technology is not yet advanced enough to take away jobs like managers, creative workers, politicians, and bureaucrats that require constant human input. It may never be.
But AI and ML are advancing at a steady pace. With emerging companies like Tesla, it will not be long before self-driving vehicles take away several driving jobs, which might include Ola and Uber.
Customer care workers are being replaced by AI chatbots or pre-recorded answering machines. Low-end jobs are expected to be taken away soon by AI and robotics.
It is nothing new to humanity, though. Every new invention has forced people out of their trade in some way or other. From the stone age to the industrial revolution, and then to digitalization and the space age, technology has influenced the job market both positively and negatively.
Earning a degree will move you ahead in your career, away from the vulnerable job positions that ever-advancing inventions are likely to threaten in the future.
Status quo
In a newly updated analysis from RMIT, Melbourne's principal advisor, Angela Calderon predicts that, by 2040, 600 million students are expected to enrol in higher education (Source: Angel Calderon, RMIT)
There is a social bias in society towards the less educated, though in recent years it seems to be changing. In higher socio-economic class events where everyone is well-educated from reputed universities, you will feel a little embarrassed about getting around.
The higher academic qualification has become the general norm in recent times. And it will be more so in the future. Having a decent degree will give you a certain amount of respect, even among your family, friends, and acquaintances. In your workplace, you will become even more respected and be viewed as a role model for "never stop learning."
Problems in career
It is no surprise that people with higher academic qualifications have the privilege of favouritism in job hunting. Companies and HRs make a distinction basis academic qualifications. Many top-level jobs in most companies look for a candidate with a degree.
Career growth: How many times have you seen a person with higher academic qualifications given a promotion or higher pay instead of others? More often than not, companies treat their employees differently and make biased decisions when it comes to education.
Career switching: People switch careers all the time. Toxic workplaces and unreasonable workloads are on the rise. Better opportunities and shifting trends in work schedules are also reasons for a career switch. Career switching will be a better option when you are no longer passionate about your job. Changing careers without a degree on your CV is hard though.
Negative views on the experience
More often than not, people with the lower academic qualification will have worked in several industries in multiple job roles. As a result, they will have a broader skill set compared to a discipline-specific graduate.
It is good to have experience in several fields. But most of the time, the corporate system views it as something else. A CV with multiple career changes and job roles is viewed as inconsistent. Employers will have a hard time trusting the applicant with a job.
Though it completely depends on the employer, a degree will give value to all these various skill sets and experiences. With a degree, all these skills will be put into the right context.
Limited salary range
According to a report from the "Bureau for Labor Statistics," those with higher education qualifications earned, on average, three times more than those with lower educational qualifications. In the UK, graduates earned a median 33,000$, five years after graduation, while non-graduates earned 26,700$ (Source file: Department for Education, UK).
Non-graduates are denied better pay grades than graduates. It is because companies view graduates as more "job-ready" than non-graduates. Employers feel that people with higher academic qualifications have earned more hard and soft skills than others. A degree certificate from a university is widely considered as a badge of employability, which is why corporate companies are far more likely to make decisions basis academic qualification.
Conclusion
We are not saying that you cannot live without a degree. Countless people are living happily without degrees, doing what they love and being content with what they have.
All we are saying is that a degree will make your life easier. It makes your job hunt easier, your career switch smoother, and your salary and status a bit higher. In a corporate setting that is reluctantly changing at a slow pace, a degree will give you instant recognition and turn the tables in your favour.
It is especially true for senior professionals who are perfectly positioned to pursue their degrees. With enough life experience to choose what they love and benefit from; with enough financial security; and with decades of career still ahead.
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