I am a retired teacher.  I hope your girlfriend finds a position.  English is very competitive.  English classrooms rarely turnover. Subbing well is a good stepping stone, though, who really knows. English teachers usually assume extra duties with; the school paper, yearbook, honor society, ACT/SAT prep, Academic Team, school plays, dance team, cheerleaders,  class sponsorship, etc. Coaching is a real plus. These duties and a crazy load of papers to grade make a long commute difficult.  Living in the vicinity of the school is highly recommended.  It would be recommended that young teachers gain their education degree/teachers certificates with minimal debt since continued education/professional development is expected. Local graduates from directional institutions, with JUCO prep, who handle duties are most common in classrooms.  Again, investing with borrowed money is a bad plan.

It's a mistake to equate a type of degree to a career. The workplace is far too dynamic for that, and jobseekers need to be as well. Most employers require bachelor’s degrees less because those skills are required for the job and more because it’s a cheap and easy way to initially screen applicants. A degree shows you are at minimum able to follow directions and complete tasks over the course of four years. I’m not saying all majors are meaningless, but most are not as meaningful as people think. OrlandoCat’s girlfriend has an English degree, which is a fantastic asset. The market sucks for most professions (and in an era of government austerity, especially for teachers), but if she really wants a job using her degree, she should cast a wider net than English teacher, where she’s competing against people with experience, teaching certificates, education degrees, etc.

I’ve worked for more than two dozen companies and clients, and I can tell you they all needed communication help. I’d have never learned that if I stayed within the narrow focus of my major. I graduated with a news editing degree just as the internet was getting big. I wanted to be a print journalist, and I did so for a few years until the wheels really started falling off the industry. Since then, I've done PR, corporate communications, marketing, web editing, and a bunch of other communication work – much of which didn't even exist when I was in college. Instead of thinking my degree taught me how to be a print journalist, I've embraced what it did teach me:  To research well, write clearly, hit deadlines, and craft stories that resonate. Don’t let your degree define your career. Use your degree to help guide your career.

Key skill, across the board:  ability to write well.

Key traits:  smarts, drive, integrity.

The rest is less important skills for a particular field.

Indeed, college is a great investment. However, you have to get any investment at the right price.  Scholarships, grants and working all minimize debt at graduation.  There has to be a plan that includes where you will work and paying your debt in the shortest run possible.

In my daily life, I spend a lot of time helping my clients develop strategies to save enough money to help educate their children.  The cost of a college education is nearly a ridiculous total compared to the financial value of most degrees.  I am seeing few students graduating with critical skills like the ones Monroe mentioned above.  In my opinion, a college degree proves two things:  1)  You are capable of learning, and 2)  You can finish what you started.  

There are different views of higher education.  Many think that college is a place to develop critical thinking and become more well-rounded.  Others view college as strictly a vocational training ground.  I see the merits of both, but tend to look at education as a passage to the real world.  You need both, but ultimately companies are hiring on their perception of your value to their specific trade.  

Personally, I had a double major in Finance and Marketing.  One would think I was uniquely qualified to market financial services.  As it turned out, very little of my classroom training has ever been used in my career as a Financial Advisor, and I chose a profession that was exactly in line with my major courses of study.  The real skills I developed in college were work/school/personal life balance and my ability to communicate with others.  The social interactions I had in my four years were far more valuable to me than any single class I took.  Ohio University provided an environment for me to grow up in.  I learned how to manage my life.  I learned how to get good grades, work at least 20 hours a week, volunteer with charities, be in a relationship and have a good time on evenings and weekends with my friends.  The only real difference in my life now is that I substituted more work for school and added kids to my responsibilities.

Nobody likes writing big checks for college, but there is no way around it.  As painful as it is to pay for the education, the alternative is exponentially more painful.  While students at public universities are staging protests, I think the real problem is with small, private colleges.  Marietta College has a tuition rate of over $30,000/year right now.  Outside of their Petroleum Engineering program, you could argue until you're blue in the face and never convince me their students are coming out of there 3x better prepared than the students an hour away in Athens.

This is a really interesting discussion.  I can't wait for the eventual transition in this thread to the cost of health insurance and long term care.          

Well this discussion that so many were enjoying just got killed.  Sad.

You will make hundreds of thousands of dollars more in your lifetime than a non-college graduate. That is a darn good investment, even after paying off your student loans.