Why Go To College?

Why go to college? Three reasons:

For a Credential. For a lot of students, college is about making friends and memories for a few years before getting out with a credential everyone sees as a ticket to the middle class--but not because you learned anything useful. As Bryan Caplan explains, the signal you're getting explains most of the financial return on investment in schooling. You're at least responsible enough to get from freshman orientation to graduation, which is enough to separate you from the pack.

For Training. Some people learn something useful while they're in college. If they're in a vocational field, they might actually learn how to do something useful, but once again, they might just be signaling potential because the real learning happens on the job.

For an Education. This is the highest and noblest goal, the raison d'etre for the university. It's great to get trained in something useful so you can have a long and lucrative career, but I remember something Stanley Hauerwas said when he visited Samford University about a decade ago, which I paraphrase: going to college means you get four years to read books and think about great ideas. Why waste it not learning how to read? Indeed, it took me a long time to learn how to read well, and I'm still learning. I hope and pray that students wake to the opportunity before them. The answer to "when am I ever gonna use this?" is "every time you make a decision." If you recognize this, then you'll start thinking about what it means to seek an education rather than mere training or a credential.

Why do people actually go to college? It's a mix of things from columns A, B, and C. What would it take for more people to pay attention to column C?