My Education – What’s It Worth?

If someone offered to buy your education from you, how much would you sell it for? Or ask the question from a different perspective – if you saw an education for sale on eBay, how much do you think the winning bidder would have to pay?

A few thousand pounds might sound like a nice trade-off – no more sitting in stuffy classrooms, struggling with subjects you hate – and think of all the video games you could buy! But if you spend a few minutes thinking about it, you’ll realize it’s hard to put a price on your education.

That’s because the value isn’t tangible – it’s not something you can hold in your palm like cold, hard cash.

Yes, there are a lot of facts and figures you have to learn in school that you might never need in life, and some that you won’t even remember past the school gates, but your education is so much more than the individual subjects and the information you learn.

“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.”
Plato

Choosing to value your education is like stepping up onto a ladder, or picking a path that takes you down a new road. Showing up at school isn’t enough – appreciating what is on offer and deciding to grab it with both hands is the only way you’ll really learn and get the grades you want.

Success comes in many forms, but if there’s a university you really want to get into or a job you’d love to do one day, then getting the best grades you can gives you a much better chance of achieving those goals. In our globalised economy, jobs are in short supply, and only the best candidates – who have passion, determination, and the right qualifications – are lucky enough to be selected.

Some people choose not to step on the ladder – they don’t do their best at school, and their life takes a different path. Some of these people will find other routes to success, but they often have one thing in common – they return to their education as adults and regret not knuckling down and learning when they had the chance first time around.

School isn’t that different from life beyond it – there are rules, people with more experience than you, bosses who you might not like, tasks and jobs you have to do even though you find them boring. And above all there are people – people from all different backgrounds, with different ideas, beliefs, and ways of communicating.

Your education is not just teaching you about the subjects on your timetable – it’s teaching you about life. School is a great place to learn how to get along with others; how to respect people even when you don’t agree with them; how to be compassionate and accepting of difference; how to treat others as you would like them to treat you.

In some parts of the world education is still a privilege. Here, it’s a birthright – and we all have the chance to go to school and get out of it what we want. Imagine if that choice was taken from you. If suddenly there was nowhere you could go to be with your friends and learn from your teachers. You can choose to value your education, because it’s there for you to value. Not everyone is that lucky.