Should young women go to college? If not, what should they (realistically) do?

[Starlight]

This thread is inspired by @InternetStranger’s post:

[snip]
At the moment, I’m deciding whether or not to go to college. I’m aware that universities harbor an environment which often corrupts (and I’m disenchanted of the career woman ideal), so I don’t really know where to go from here. I am convinced that my purpose is to become a homemaker and mother, but I don’t know how to get there. Getting married at my age is unwise as I am too young. Any advice?

What a relevant and complicated topic to discuss… I have daughters and I am not sure how to direct them regarding this also. Mainly, I’ve have (since they were young) told them how important being a good wife and mother is and that there is nothing wrong with being a Mom and not having a career. That being said… there is the reality of the world we live in and, unfortunately, they most likely will have to provide for themselves and future family at some point and can’t just live at home for an indefinite amount of time without contributing financially to the household while waiting for a husband to materialize out of thin air.

So, what should a young woman do?

 

[infowarrior1]

Its either going Husband hunting first and of course maybe run a home business to supplement her income whilst living a minimalistic lifestyle:

The Minimalists

Emmy-nominated Netflix stars, podcasters, and New York Times–bestselling authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus help millions of people live meaningfully with less.

www.theminimalists.com

And later take up a career when the children are grown up.

Or dedicate one's entire life to a craft like in the STEM fields(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) sacrificing future family in the process.

Many women try to have it both ways and fail.

 

[christie2]

A young woman can view all men as potential husbands at all checkpoints in her maturing life.
At all points in her life at and past age-of-majority for her area she can be ready to accept a marriage proposal.
Example: age-of-majority to quit high school and marry with parental permission was, and I think still is, 16, in my country and that is what a classmate of mine did in a religious high school I attended. IIRC, it was on her birthday that she had her locker packed up and we didn't have a regular religion class we just sat around and encouraged her and let her excitedly talk about her plans. He was a good man and was there at the end of the class period to take her away.

I have had classmates not graduate high school because they got a marriage proposal-this from the secular second high school I ended up graduating from.
A majority of the girls I used to hang out with, FOUND their husbands in university and didn't graduate university.
(Side note: I believe Darius would find his future wife if he enrolled in university again. Pick a devout university. There's a whole group of young, hot, fertile girls at university that have this hopeful, subconscious expectation that they will FIND their husband there.)

I think for the girls with SMV on the lower end, like myself, go through completing each checkpoint but remain eternally hopeful that each date or boyfriend will bring a forthcoming marriage proposal....be ready to quit that career or quit that schooling as a demonstration of devotion to your betrothed husband.

Do what he says, he has your best interest at ❤

 

[Atlas Shrugged]

I think it’s fine if only going to learn certain things that will help at home. Example would be healthcare with maybe a minor in teaching. You can’t be dumb and homeschool. Lord willing future women will be at home raising their children and homeschooling and the added bonus is being able to stitch up a wound without running to the ER. But going for business or marketing or crap that won’t help at home is pointless.

 

[InternetStranger]

And later take up a career when the children are grown up.

I would imagine it being difficult for a mother in her 30s-40s to enter the workforce while lacking any post-secondary education.

Personally, I’m trying to have a “surrogate career” in programming while I try to find a husband. A benefit of it is that I can stay home, so it’s something I could do freelance gigs for throughout by childbearing years. I suppose programming counts as a STEM career, but in this case I wouldn’t be dedicating my whole life to it.

in my country and that is what a classmate of mine did in a religious high school I attended.

I have had classmates not graduate high school because they got a marriage proposal-this from the secular second high school I ended up graduating from.

This certainly isn’t the norm in America. I don’t have any peers that are thinking of marriage seriously in my age range.

 

[SlickyBoy]

Is she a valedictorian, a promising orchestral musician, or genuinely far above average in terms of aptitude and promise? Then *perhaps* there is an appropriate venue where she can genuinely add value to society, herself and the economy while not completely killing off her chance at a family at the critical time of her fertility.

I'm talking about the top 5% of the class, more or less. The average women are wasting valuable time to wind up graduating as average men, skills wise, taking middling jobs in cubicles, working for.....men (in a tech company, very often gay men, to boot).

Unfortunately, the top 5% can only be limited to the top 5%. Women have a short window of fertility, they just don't have the runway to allow starting from an average position skills wise and building to something greater, as well as giving birth and properly caring for children. Men, on the other hand, can begin at low end jobs, gain skills, move up the ladder or to different positions/companies, or even completely fail and have several false starts before they even start thinking about selecting a mother for their children and having a family.

A woman would do best to be educated in what they used to call "finishing schools" which would finish her so she didn't act like a blundering peasant in social situations and could carry on polite conversations. When they shifted to the idea of raising women as defective men, we wound up where we are - spinsters, old single moms with downs syndrome afflicted children, and men cut out of the picture the minute their economic utility is secured enough to guarantee child support payments to said "career women."

So no, education for the sake of education, to brag to your neighbors about how you put your kids through college, etc. really is an exercise in ego. A father ought to be selecting an appropriate mate for his daughter at the moment of her peak attractiveness and fertility, not blindly sending her off to a coed dormitory for her to be trained in how to be a toy for fornicators.

 

[Blade Runner]

I think that what people find, sadly, is that regardless of our idealism and trying to make it happen, with a bad culture you are just spitting into the wind. So few people are "in it with you" that, unless you are a radical religious minority or ethnicity when in the West (or any "multicultural"/diverse place) you just get pinballed around and yeah, you can get lucky, but it's clearly a lottery. It's the same issue with my complaints regarding the culture and age gaps. You can be a successful man who tries to be virtuous and wants a family, etc but the looks that you get when you say you are only interested in mid to late 20s at the oldest, or the suggestions that a 25 year old is "too young" are funny at first, then sad the more you hear it. You'll just have to take my word for it that I'm not a short, fat, old troll.

 

[holgerdanske]

Let me dumb it down for y'all: A woman's primary goal in life should be to start a family and to have as many children as possible. Anything beyond that should be possible but is secondary to being a mother.

PERIOD.

 

[SlickyBoy]

Let me dumb it down for y'all: A woman's primary goal in life should be to start a family and to have as many children as possible. Anything beyond that should be possible but is secondary to being a mother.

PERIOD.

This is why the oligarchs bemoaned the loss of "education" for girls in Afghanistan. It isn't about education, it's about population control - Roosh pointed that out. The more years spent in school, the fewer children they have.

 

[chance vought]

Most women excel in fields that involve personal relations. Unfortunately those skills cannot take advantage of network effects in traditional careers, unlike more masculine professions that use technology and machines, that can benefit hundreds or thousands of people at once. The return on investment in feminine skills is very low if you are using them to make money, because you are only helping a few people per day. Raising a family though, the benefits are far greater to use those skills to the benefit of your own family, rather than sell them to the outside world.
Technology now is allowing women to use their special people skills in a bigger, more productive way. For example youtube, peloton coaching, patreon, where you can build personal relationships at a scale to be profitable, and make your own schedule so you can still raise children and keep a home properly. Society in the USA is such that women don’t get the recognition they deserve for raising a healthy family, so they go out and try to have a career to feel a sense of accomplishment. Until attitudes change, having a side gig that leverages feminine skills and technology to have a nice income but a flexible schedule might be the way to go.
I‘d say less than 5% of the women I meet are exceptions to the “people skills” rule, and prefer working with machines or hard sciences, so If we had less propaganda and let women decide for themselves, I would guess there would be 5% women in STEM fields, and far less than there are now in the total workforce.

So many women of my age group (late gen X) went to college, using lots of money, loans, and scholarship money, and ended up as public school teachers, or even if they did have a lucrative career, only lasted 7-10 years and eventually quit for “health reasons” or something…chances are their husbands paycheck is paying for their remaining student loan payments. Since the 1970s this lie that women need to behave like and work like men has led to record levels of anxiety and depression among women, but also men because they have to do things that they aren’t as well equipped to handle, like raising small children and housekeeping.

 

[darknavigator]

Disclaimer: I don't have a bachelors degree. 25% of the population complete a bachelors degree. University graduates are the elite of society. I doubt most female university graduates are interested in pursuing 'the life of the mind'. University is just an opportunity for most of them to meet / date the males who will be running society in the future. University is just a glorified 'finishing school' for most women.

 

[Ah_Tibor]

I think college isn't for most. There was a period where it was either a network that led to better opportunities, or genuinely focused on education (modern analogy would be community college, trades, etc).

To some degree it's always been about killing time in that interim young adult period. It's one of those things that varies by class/socioeconomic status, but I think the idea for many is that going to one college vs. another is that the networking opportunities are different. I remember reading a something by one of The Simpsons writers that said that Harvard could be achieved with a two-week retreat/summer camp.

Going into debt over something like that is stupid. I think working a job and building a skill in something one is good at is vital during the teen years, and if living at home it's a good chance to save money for the future.

(One of the reasons I like being a cook is that I can walk away from it periodically or only work X number of hours, useful as a mom.)

I think it's important to keep busy to some degree (idle hands idiom). Keep your spiritual life healthy, have good family/ friends, and work at something useful. I wouldn't rush into a relationship at 18 or 19, but it's more or less laying the foundation.

 

[Blade Runner]

Disclaimer: I don't have a bachelors degree. 25% of the population complete a bachelors degree. University graduates are the elite of society. I doubt most female university graduates are interested in pursuing 'the life of the mind'. University is just an opportunity for most of them to meet / date the males who will be running society in the future. University is just a glorified 'finishing school' for most women.

People quote this supposed fact all the time, and it makes sense, but women don't actually enact it. In this culture, sure they can meet men at that time in their life, but they don't actually marry them, so it's largely irrelevant - except for that it causes even more problems (debt, promiscuity, etc).

 

[Blade Runner]

Most women excel in fields that involve personal relations. Unfortunately those skills cannot take advantage of network effects in traditional careers, unlike more masculine professions that use technology and machines, that can benefit hundreds or thousands of people at once. The return on investment in feminine skills is very low if you are using them to make money, because you are only helping a few people per day. Raising a family though, the benefits are far greater to use those skills to the benefit of your own family, rather than sell them to the outside world.
Technology now is allowing women to use their special people skills in a bigger, more productive way. For example youtube, peloton coaching, patreon, where you can build personal relationships at a scale to be profitable, and make your own schedule so you can still raise children and keep a home properly. Society in the USA is such that women don’t get the recognition they deserve for raising a healthy family, so they go out and try to have a career to feel a sense of accomplishment. Until attitudes change, having a side gig that leverages feminine skills and technology to have a nice income but a flexible schedule might be the way to go.
I‘d say less than 5% of the women I meet are exceptions to the “people skills” rule, and prefer working with machines or hard sciences, so If we had less propaganda and let women decide for themselves, I would guess there would be 5% women in STEM fields, and far less than there are now in the total workforce.

So many women of my age group (late gen X) went to college, using lots of money, loans, and scholarship money, and ended up as public school teachers, or even if they did have a lucrative career, only lasted 7-10 years and eventually quit for “health reasons” or something…chances are their husbands paycheck is paying for their remaining student loan payments. Since the 1970s this lie that women need to behave like and work like men has led to record levels of anxiety and depression among women, but also men because they have to do things that they aren’t as well equipped to handle, like raising small children and housekeeping.

Great post. Especially on raising a healthy family going without recognition = bad culture.
I can tell you that in medicine, investing in women is a huge waste if people were interested at all with efficient public policy (forgetting this kills high value fertility as well), for the reasons you stated. And now in clown world, we train more women to become physicians, honk honk.

 

[Elipe]

I voted Maybe.

For the record, I don't believe that most men should be attending college either. A real college education is, quite frankly, wasted on a lot of people that don't need it. If you were a "frat boy" or a "sorority girl" this goes double for you. You wasted 4 years partying it up when you could've been getting into trades or marrying and having children. Those are 4 years you will never get back and those are 4 years that were wasted on getting a piece of paper that employers are arbitrarily using as a barrier to entry.

Also, not all degrees are created equal. Some degree placards are truly just expensive paperweights, whereas others can actually be relevant. STEM is a commonly relevant one, for example, although that is slowly decaying away now because it is becoming more and more apparent that STEM curriculums don't really teach you what they do in the workplace. I can't think of even one time in my professional career where I've had to solve a differential equation or graph a 3D surface using a mathematical function. I could've jumped into my job just off of the skills I cultivated in my hobby and with some actual work experience as an intern and it would have all just worked out.

How much more could I have done with my life if I had spent those 4 years more productively? And here's the thing, there were also hidden costs to those 4 wasted years. They resulted in yet more wasted years because of the job crisis that was happening at the time.

And for women, with their biological imperative, that effect has to be much worse for them. What hidden costs are those 4 years imposing on women? We've already uncovered a number of quite massive ones, and we're just staring at the tip of the iceberg.

Not to mention that having men and women both work also harms per-capita wages because it enlarges the labor pool. Mind you, I'm talking wage labor. Super-moms that can be moms while running a home business clearly do not fall under that purview, and that is in fact actually a historical norm for women. You've heard the stories of women running the clothes-making industry in ye olde medieval times.

It's not that women shouldn't do any work, it's that motherhood is very, very important. It is a priority that a healthy society should attempt to elevate.

Obviously, women working is a very difficult genie to put back in the bottle, and I don't deny that women can have useful skills in areas other than parenting, but I just don't know how it can all be managed in a way that lets us have our cake and eat it too. Because everything comes with a tradeoff, and obviously our ancestors decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to just ban women from working outright. This preserves motherhood and the single-income economic model.

And yeah, throughout the ages, some women did get envious of men for their ability to work. But you know, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I'm sure many men were also envious of women being free of any obligation to work in a dead-end job with a cruel boss breathing down their neck. And also, we're getting data now that show that women are not really satisfied by having careers like men do. As technology progresses, jobs become more complex and higher-octane. There's more pressure to perform, and women are not as psychologically equipped to handle constant pressure under stress as men are. And women, being physically weaker, are not built for manual labor either, so they can't even escape the stress of the high-tech computerized office where everything moves at the speed of computers like men can.

It's not that women are "worse" than men, it's that women are worse at being men than men are. Feminism is proto-trannyism. Feminists may not be physically sewing on a dangly piece of flesh, but they're doing that spiritually.

What society needs is not more "men", but women. Women that can just be women and not coerced/brainwashed into a role that they never even wanted when they were little girls. Who wants to be an office drone hunching over a computer screen when they were little? Not even boys do! God made women to be helpers to men, not competitors with men.

 

[TexasJenn]

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where all these Godly men were just waiting to marry and provide for Godly women and the families they create. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. Even in the most conservative churches, there are throngs of women of all ages hoping to meet a good man to marry.

I think these days a woman is wise to be equipped to provide for herself if she must. Generally this is easier to do when college-educated. If I had a daughter, I'd advise her as best I could on an approach for finding a good husband. I'd also encourage her to have a backup plan to provide for herself, in case it takes longer than she hopes or doesn't work out for whatever reason.

 

[soli.deo.gloria]

Side question (related). Is there a dedicated thread or space on RVF for singles who are interested in meeting someone for the purpose of marriage and starting a family?

In reply to the OP, I would say no to College and I will explain why.

Proverbs 31:10-31

Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character

10 [a]A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

 

[aeroektar]

College is an extremely over pursued course in life, for both sexes. 10-25% of society should pursue a college education and it should be a pursuit for men. All of the young women I know in college are wasting their time and they're only there because modern society told them that's where they should go. If modern society told women to pursue becoming a good woman, meeting a man, raising a family and the man would support that family, everyone would be happier and healthier.

Most men here and probably most conservative men want a woman to give them kids, stay home with the kids and look after the family and home while he is earning and providing. It only makes sense we would want our daughters to follow the same path as our wives.

 

[Elspeth]

Its either going Husband hunting first and of course maybe run a home business to supplement her income whilst living a minimalistic lifestyle:

The Minimalists

Emmy-nominated Netflix stars, podcasters, and New York Times–bestselling authors Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus help millions of people live meaningfully with less.

www.theminimalists.com

And later take up a career when the children are grown up.

Or dedicate one's entire life to a craft like in the STEM fields(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) sacrificing future family in the process.

Many women try to have it both ways and fail.

Going off what infowarrior1 said, I think the answer to this question is the same for men as it is women: What do you want in life, and is college the route to achieving that?

Between my sister and I, I chose higher education at a public university (and remained a virgin until my now husband found me in my last year of schooling), and she chose family towards the end of her military service. My husband and I don't have children and don't want any -- we have plenty of nieces to dote upon between our two families. For this reason, we're able to pursue our careers. Also, it just so happens that my career is 100% remote, and completely conducive to being a homemaker (which I currently am) and a stay-at-home mom if we ever decided to adopt (he can't have children), but I've always been willing to make that sacrifice if we did have kids in the picture because while I think anyone can do anything, no one can do everything. Regarding my sister, she is currently preparing for a career in politics once her children are grown. I don't know if she thinks she'll need college courses to help her achieve her goal or not.

In my experience, no matter who you are or where you come from, college is a tool like anything else in life. The answer to whether one goes to college or not is whether one needs it or not for what they want to do.

 

[DanielH]

I'm surprised how well college is being received in this thread. I wish I could go back in time and undo my college education in a specialized engineering field with all its usurious loans. I suspect there are a lot of Gen X and older millennials offering at least partial approvals to college. Since they went to college, it is now a lower return on investment and colleges are even more evil. Oh you'll opt for the virtual STEM college route? Well a newly arrived Chinese man will do that job way better than you or I can do it, and the newly arrived Indian man can do it for way less. And even if you do get the job, they're going to require you to get inoculated with the mystery dead baby juice, which may prevent you from having your own babies, or if they're nice they'll let you keep working as long as you sodomize your nose at least once a week. This all presupposes the college even wants you, you "unvaccinated" prole.

I'm also baffled that women think they can't find decent husbands. I'm going to mansplain something to you. Men don't care how much money women make. At all. There was a survey somewhere on this forum asking men what they find important in a woman, and we were given the ability to select multiple answers. Despite that, only about 2-4% of men iirc said a woman's income was important. We don't want independent women, we want women who are dependent on us for income, how it has always been. We don't want women with a chip on their shoulder that they're just as educated as us/make as much (or more than us) and don't need our guidance or our leadership in a marriage.

That's the biblical, Christian view on marriage. The man leads the woman but both forfeit control of their bodies. Modern western women as a whole don't like that. So when women complain that they can't find Christian men, maybe that's the case, but they also might have a misconceived notion of a Christian man as an equal who respects her feelings above all else who will merely be a copilot, instead of the leader, in their relationship. Something like the male lead character in a Hallmark movie. I have a friend who is an extremely good Catholic with a great job and education. He had to go on so many dates before he could end up going steady with the woman he is currently courting. The reasons women stopped dating him were always "I'm not ready for commitment" or "I want to mature/explore/advance my career first."

Also women need to understand socio-sexual values. Given that men don't care how much you make, your value as potential spouse is derived from your fertility. Attractiveness is simply a proxy for fertility. As you age, you are less fertile, and you are worth less to men. However there is an advantage for women in that they are in much higher demand than men in their age range. A woman can find far more men willing to date her than a comparable man can find women. That's great because women have less time to get this figured out.

I have a background working at sea. Believe me, I understand there are a lot of bad men out there. But if you're not obese, you can easily find a decent Christian man just as flawed as you are. If instead you want to live a life of chastity as a nun, that's fantastic, better than marriage in fact.