Counterpoint: A degree can be a huge waste of money

A common belief among students is that, when they obtain a degree, they will earn a salary that will give them the financial means to pay their student loans back. But with the costs of higher education continuing to inflate, maybe students need to reevaluate their financial situation—and decide if college is a realistic option.

In reality, a degree does not guarantee you a job in the field. And as our economy slowly deteriorates, jobs are becoming more and more scarce.

Let's say you graduate and start looking for a job. Now imagine the demand for employees in your field has decreased dramatically since you first started pursuing your degree. It's a realistic situation, since the demand for goods fluctuates as each year passes. For example, each university's demand for teachers changes as the demand for classes changes.

A situation like this would leave you stuck at a dead-end job struggling to pay your rent, while still attempting to provide yourself with the necessities, on top of your student loan payments.

Even worse, you could be stuck dedicating most of your time to a low-paying (if it pays at all) internship. Internships can be useful, and formal education can be useful in finding one. But there are many degrees that are not as valuable as the actual work and experience in the field.

For example, one of the most famous filmmakers of our generation never received any formal training at all. Director Quentin Tarantino did not even graduate high school. Sometimes it's not about what you know, but rather about who you know.

According to StudentDoc.com, college student loan debt is gradually increasing overall. "A recent study shows that about 50 percent of recent college graduates have...an average student loan debt of $10,000," the site said.

So why not just start at zero and work from the ground up? It's perfectly possible to pick up a few do-it-yourself filmmakers' handbooks and teach yourself. Isn't that what your teachers assign you to read in order to learn about what we're talking about in class anyway?

Putting yourself into debt in hopes of one day earning enough money to pay them back—let alone profit—seems pretty misguided in this economy.