College or Not?

Reasons NOT to go to college:

1. Graduation Rates:

The overall 6-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at 4-year degree-granting institutions in fall 2012 was 62 percent. That means that roughly 1/3 of people who start an undergraduate program don’t finish it.

2. Skilled Trades:

You don’t like school, or you like working with your hands. This was the reason that I initially went into the trades for work. I didn’t believe that school was “for me”. I wanted to work with my hands, and I knew I could succeed at it.

3. You Will Be Successful Regardless

Perhaps you are incredibly gifted. There is a famous study that indicates students who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads. In other words, successful people are going to be successful regardless of what advantages they are given.

4. Low ROI on college for your career path

High loans/low wages. Many students who graduate have debt that exceeds their annual starting income by 2x or more. This seems problematic. I graduated with less than 1/3 my annual income in student loan debt, and I didn’t pay it off only because I wanted to use that debt to build my first house.

5. You Have Connections:

I’ve run into several people over time who got a good job that they shouldn’t have been able to get because they (or even their parents) were friends with the hiring manager or business owner. Most of the people that I’ve met like this were still working on a college degree, but they were doing it part time because they were also gaining valuable experience. If you have connections, use them!

6. You Don’t Know What You Want To Do:

If you don’t know what you want to do, no reason to waste time and money on a degree. College is expensive and shouldn’t be undertaken on a whim. Do research. Assure that you will succeed in school.

7. You Lack Self Discipline

If you aren’t certain that you will be able to succeed at college level academics, I’d HIGHLY recommend that you search for a career path that would allow you to avoid it. First of all, if you flunk out of or cannot finish for personal reasons, you’ve wasted an incredible amount of time and potentially a lot of money as well. Just wait, your life situation may change in such a manner as to set you up for better success later. But perhaps right now isn’t the time.

Reasons to go to College:

1. You Lack Self Discipline

I want to stress that you won’t succeed in college without a significant amount of self discipline before you begin, but if you have an interest in something but lack the self discipline to successfully self study that topic to mastery, college may be the route to go. There are people out in the world who can master any topic they put their mind to. My brother happens to be one of them. He completed his bachelor’s degree using primarily CLEP testing. He did it on an accelerated schedule by taking a lot of credits, and while doing so he worked a full time job and had two small children, and carried a 4.0GPA. That is serious discipline. If that isn’t you, then consider college as an alternative. Speaking from my own experience, college vastly improved my self-discipline. During my high-school education I wasn’t forced to keep track of my calendar because of the home-school setting that I grew up in. It was only after several years of college that I developed the ability to work ahead on assignments. College was very good for me in that respect.

2. You are Greedy

You want a decent paying job (especially if you don’t want to work in the skilled trades). If you want a job that clears 6 figures, you’ve got to show your future employer that you’ve got self discipline. The easiest way to do that is by finishing school.

College is not a magic pill that you take once and it solves your career problems forever. College is a key that opens the door to potential career fields you otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. It doesn’t guarantee a job, and it certainly doesn’t a successful and interesting career. But decent grades coupled with some club involvement and/or summer internships virtually guarantee successful employment upon graduation or shortly thereafter.

3. You are interested in a career path that requires a degree.

The chances of you being able to break into a career path without the required schooling are low, very very low. I don’t know how to emphasize this, but especially when you start looking at some of the higher paid positions, you won’t likely be able to work your way into those positions without the required schooling.

4. You don’t like menial labor.

The vast majority of jobs that you can get without an undergraduate degree tend to include a fair amount of drudgery. These jobs usually get more appealing once you have some experience and your wage becomes too expensive to pay for low skill, simplistic, or mindless tasks, but it may take you as long as several years to get to that point. I have friends who have worked very unpleasant jobs for many years, simply to get to the point where their job was almost as pleasant as mine was from day one.

5. You want to broaden your worldview.

It is hard to quantify what it means to be in relationship with people from other cultural backgrounds. If you haven’t gotten the chance to do this during your adolescence, it can definitely be a formative experience that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.