The other morning I was having coffee downtown after my usual early walk and happened to sit down next to two men who were discussing the present state of college education in the U.S. One fellow said that he had read that 70 percent of college graduates have made a bad investment decision, that had they invested the cost of their college degrees in the stock market or other reasonable investment vehicle, they would have been far better off over the long term. I listened quietly since I am not in the habit of intruding into other people’s conversations, but I couldn’t help thinking that they really didn’t understand what a college education is all about.

Going to college is not simply about getting a high-paying job when you graduate. To believe this is to reduce colleges and universities to simple vocational schools. There is nothing wrong with vocational schools. It is just that colleges and universities are not solely about being trained to enter the job market. The modern college and university are designed to provide students a rich learning environment in which students not only can learn technical skills that will serve them in their later professions, but also how to express themselves fluently both orally and in writing and to think critically against a broad background of knowledge of multiple subjects spread across the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.

Colleges and universities also provide a place where many students live away from home and with their peers for the first time, an experience that helps them to mature into adults. Faculty are there not simply to lecture but also to provide guidance and as role models for their students. In short, a four-year college or university is intended to provide a holistic learning environment in which students gain perspectives on the world around them, learn to live for the first time as independent adults and to prepare themselves not simply for careers but for rich, satisfying lives.

In describing the purposes of the college experience as I do, I am not pretending that all students make the most of their time at college nor am I defending what has become the prohibitive cost of getting a four-year college degree. And I also do not blame people for thinking that the primary purpose of a college degree is vocational. Colleges and universities have done much to foster this narrow view of their missions by responding to legislative pressure to be accountable solely in vocational terms and by fostering the view that a four-year degree is a “good investment.”

The fact is that a college education is a “good investment” for many students, but defined much more broadly than solely in economic terms. A college education is an education for life. It is an education that should make better adults of its graduates, better in every way, not just in earning power.