I am a super proud graduate of The University of Texas at Austin. I have very fond memories of my college years and wouldn’t trade them for the world. I sincerely believe that my time spent in Austin helped me become the person that I am today.
That said, with the amount of time it takes to get a college degree, and the enormous cost of higher education nowadays, it is worth asking the question – is it worth it??
The answer is complicated. Obviously, there are certain professions that require a college degree. If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, college isn’t a waste of time. It may be worth shopping around, but you must have a degree to get that dream job.
There’s a huge percentage of students, though, who enter college—and many who leave college—with no idea what they want to do with their life. It’s much more difficult to argue that college is worth it for them.
While it is undoubtedly true that a lot of people “find themselves” in college and learn how to transition from high school to adulthood, those are other things that happen during your college years. Students don’t take classes about growing up; they just do.
The education itself, though, seems overpriced for a lot of people. Students and their parents borrow tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for a four-year college degree with no guaranteed job at the end. All too often, the years culminate with these graduates accepting a job totally unrelated to their field of study and then begin paying off those loans with interest. With the recent push for student loan forgiveness, we’ve heard countless stories about people retiring with student loan debt; they never pay it off.
As an alternative, a high school graduate could skip school, get a job, and begin working on acquiring knowledge on his or her own. How? It’s really not that difficult in today’s world.
YouTube has lessons on just about any topic you can imagine. In fact, it’s possible to find actual classes on YouTube. And LinkedIn has a learning channel. So does GoToWebinar. And there are more. In other words, people can teach themselves, no need for a formal education.
People can also learn on the job. And having a job can help them grow up and become an adult, just like in college. So while they may not get a degree, young adults who choose this path can get a great on-the-job and online education while making money rather than going into debt. And, during that time, it’s entirely possible to take some online classes at a fraction of the cost and still end up with a degree.
Is this strategy a sacrifice? Sure it is. These young adults will miss out on the “college experience.” But they’ll also get a head start on their career and may learn some valuable skills in the process that they don’t teach in college. This could help them start saving for retirement much earlier than others their age. They could be more likely to start their own business. They could avoid the financial trouble that many people find themselves in. And they ultimately may end up achieving their goals and retiring earlier than their counterparts. Something to think about.
It is worth noting that I’m by no means the only person with this idea, though I did think of it myself. But after being convinced I was really onto something, I did some research and found that lots of people are talking about this…
College isn’t for everybody. This is something we’ve heard a million times. For these young adults, a vocational school is often recommended. And even though its quicker and less expensive than a four-year college, you’re still paying with the goal of getting a job.
What if you were paid to learn? You can do that with on-the-job training, and it’s entirely possible we’ll see more of that in the coming years from bigger companies that feel they can train their people better than a university can.
The biggest argument against college is it prepares you to work for someone else. But what if that’s not what you want to do? What if you’d rather work for yourself one day? Could college actually be hurting you? Maybe.
It turns out that MBA graduates are actually less likely to become entrepreneurs. The degree becomes a ball and chain because you have debt to pay off and because you need to work a certain about of time in your chosen field to get your money’s worth. Otherwise, what was it all for?