The Ethicist: "My Parents Paid for My Education — Does That Mean I Need to Take a Soul-Crushing Job?'

The Ethicist: "My Parents Paid for My Education — Does That Mean I Need to Take a Soul-Crushing Job?'

Thanks to the full financial support of my parents, I recently graduated from an expensive private college in the Northeast with no student debt. After graduation I secured a salaried job with benefits at a large publishing house. I found the work thoroughly soul-crushing, so I quit and began working a number of minimum-wage jobs that do not set me up for any sort of “future.” While I enjoy my current lifestyle, I fear I might be violating an obligation to my parents, since my college degree is irrelevant to these jobs. Do I have an ethical duty to find a better job even if I’m unhappy with the work? NAME WITHHELD, BOSTON

Every family is unique, so it’s difficult to place this kind of problem into a clear context. If you directly asked your parents to finance your college experience with the explicit intention of pursuing a specific career, that would be like a contract; if your parents’ willingness to pay your tuition has been dependent on your willingness to pursue the best possible job it afforded, you would have essentially agreed to a familial form of indentured servitude. But in all likelihood, the real situation is not that straightforward. Your parents probably paid for your education because they could afford it (and felt it was their responsibility). You probably accepted their support because it seemed like the obvious thing to do (and because you were broke). Your current predicament wasn’t really considered by either party, despite how common an occurrence it now seems to be.

Your parents have a moral burden here as well: They can’t demand that you take a job that makes you hate yourself simply because they spent money in order to put you in that position. They’re not venture capitalists, and you’re not an investment opportunity. That said, there’s a reason work is called “work” (as opposed to “wall-to-wall awesomeness”). I strongly suspect your soul-crushing publishing job might have seemed significantly less soul-crushing if you were also receiving the soul-crushing bills that accompany soul-crushing student loans.

Still, you are not ethically obligated to live your life in a way you dislike just because someone else willingly subsidized the means by which you achieved that unhappiness. You might feel a personal obligation to do so, out of respect for your parents. But there is no ethical framework that requires you to be miserable as repayment for their investment in your future. Moreover, the purpose of college is not solely to get a high-paying job when you’re finished. If the experience made you a more complete person, it wasn’t a (total) waste of their money. Link

My Response: 

     This post on the Ethicist discusses the extent of a person's obligation to pay back their parents for the money spent on their college education and if there is a duty to pursue a career based on the degree earned from your parents money, even if it is soul-crushing. The anonymous writer to the Ethicist has recently graduated from college with no student debt, started a good job but then realized that they hated it. Feeling guilty and in debt to their parents, the graduate then chose to work several smaller jobs of which had nothing to do with their degree, but made them happy. The Ethicist comments that it really depends on what the family situation is but that each person has a right to their happiness and there is no ethical contract with your parents to get a job that pertains to the degree they paid for.

     The conflict that the anonymous writer struggles with has to do with whether paying back their parents or get a soul-crushing job to follow their degree is an ethical or a moral obligation. While ethics is the study of right and wrong and your moral are your personal practice of ethics, we get the sense that this is a moral dilemma because society has no rule set in stone that an offspring must pay back their parents for their education. The Ethicist makes a comment that the college graduate might choose to follow the soul-crushing job pertaining to their degree out of respect for their parents, but that is a choice based on your moral up-bringing of what one believes is right and wrong. It then becomes a topic of debate of to what extent is it your duty to do what you morally believe is right even if it takes away your personal happiness? If this was a signed and agreed upon contract that the offspring, going into university, would either have to pay their parents back or get a job that follows the degree the parents paid for, then it is someone's duty, ethically, to respect and follow that contract. However, I don't think that there is a duty to keep a soul-crushing job because as a US citizen, this person has the right to pursue happiness, and before this situation occurred the family did not agree upon what would be done if this happened.

         I agree with the Ethicist that there is no obligation ethically to pay back their parents or get a job that coincides with what they studied however, a discussion about if the value of the education the parents paid for was worth the money, regardless of the job, or, if they parents feel so inclined to ask for the money back. More information would need to be known about the family’s financial background and the parents’ ideas of what their offspring should do with the college degree they paid for. Of course, at this point, without a contract, the graduate is not legally obligated to pay their parents back or put their happiness in jeopardy with a soul-crushing job. However, if he/she cares about maintaining a peaceful relationship with their parents, the graduate may want to have an open discussion about what would be best, in order to satisfy their moral conflict and any guilt their feeling.

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