Education is a Sunk Cost

Lots of people make career decisions based on what they have done in the past rather than on what they want to do in the future. A big factor in that is education. I cannot count how many times I have heard someone talking about a job they would enjoy and then say “but I would hate to waste my university education,” because they studied something different. That is a bad reason to stay in a job or career field that does not feel right for you.

First, consider that education is a sunk cost. That is, you have already paid for it in time and money. You cannot get those back, so should you really be making all your future career decisions based on something that is not going to change? Perhaps you should be making those decisions based on things that CAN change in the future, such as your own satisfaction with your career, or the contributions you could make that you are not making now. Look at the possibility for growth in the future rather than the impossibility of change in the past.

Second, remember there is no such thing as wasted education. Just because you are not doing the things you studied in school does not mean you wasted your time there. Education helps you be a more informed citizen, it helps you understand the world around you, it helps you see possibilities in the future and employ ways of thinking that are most beneficial to you in a given situation. Education is a good thing that we consider a “public good,” meaning that an educated populace is beneficial to society as a whole. If you studied biology but are not a biologist, it doesn’t mean those 4 years at school were a waste.

Third, think about what your education was designed to do. To a large degree (especially at the bachelor’s level), education is designed to teach you how to learn and how to communicate that learning. At that level, you are not really trying to master a subject; in a sense, that’s what master’s degrees are for. A university education is not a job training program that sets you up to do only one thing. For that, we tend to look at certification programs and other kinds of training. While some bachelor’s degrees are more specialized (a B.A is pretty general but a B.S., or B.B.A, or something like that is a bit more specific), your education is really designed to prepare you for life, not just for a particular job.

So never use “I don’t want to waste my education” as an excuse, and do not allow your employees to use it, either. Many people who are successful in their fields did not actually study those subjects in school; in many cases, their education in an unrelated subject provided them a foundation for growth and a context within which to develop their talents. Education should push you forward; it should never hold you back.