Why do people go to college or university

People go to college or university for different reasons. Often, these reasons are related to the stage that they are at in their lives.

Most people who go to college or university do so straight from school. Among them, a few may be going just because they are extremely keen to learn more about the subject or subjects of their choice. Such students are very much in the minority. Most school leavers attend college or university in order to acquire the qualifications they need to obtain a reasonably well-paid job.

Some of the students with such an intention would already have decided on the nature of the job they wish to obtain. They may want to be doctors, vets, biologists, professional musicians, textile designers, computer programmers and so on, and they will need to obtain the relevant degrees or diplomas.

Others will see a degree simply as an indication of their intellectual ability and will not seek a job that is specifically related to their degree subjects. For example, they may obtain a degree in psychology and yet go in for marketing of some kind.

It has to be said that a few school leavers are not overly concerned with their career prospects when they decide to go to university. Their minds are not on their studies, but on the freedom and fun which they think a university life will provide. They think that life will be one long round of student parties. Hopefully, they will change their attitude when they get to university or they will not be there for very long!

Not only school leavers go to university as a way of enhancing their career prospects. Some more mature people, for various reasons, decide to go to college or university with the same aim.

For example, a woman who married young and has spent quite a few years looking after her children and the needs of her family might decide, when the children are more capable of taking care of themselves, to concentrate on her own needs. This might include finding a job and acquiring the necessary qualifications first by going to college or university.

Other people might also decide, for their own reasons, on a change of career and so go to college or university, whether for the first or second time, to obtain the necessary qualifications. Perhaps they might be declared redundant and decide that a change of career is necessary. This could be due to the lack of opportunities in their present fields or because they realize that they had become bored with their old jobs and now see redundancy as a means of escape.

Not all mature students who attend college or university do so as a means to finding a job. Some of them genuinely want to learn more about a subject. This is particularly true of people who find themselves with time on their hands and are financially well provided so that they do not have to work. Some of these may have retired from their jobs and have sufficient pension to live on.

Some people in this category, while looking around for something interesting to do, may have decided that a college or university course would fulfil this criterion. Others in the same category might see attending a place of further education as the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream, because there were reasons for their inability to do so when they were young.

There is a wide assortment of students to be found at colleges and universities. There are also many reasons why they are there.