western way of "thinking": if somebody (usually a rich man or institution) says that something is XYZ then......... oh magically that thing is true. College is for suckers because... IT IS for suckers. you can learn virtually everything in this world (and beyond) on Youtube. and if something requires practice. then it requires practice. not some theories from the damn book. i hope youngsters will sink in educational debt up to the point of absurd. maybe at that point they will "get it"
This is kinda of funny but way back I applied for a job and the owner wanted someone with a degree. The last manager had a degree (loser). I didn't have a degree but I had my real estate liscense and had taken the free H&R Block income tax course to do peoples taxes. So I tell the owner I could do his taxes if he'd like or sell his business for him if he desired. He laughed and said I got the job. I said "Wait a minute, I want to check out your operation, look around, etc etc. Again he laughed, I think he respected my comment because really if I took the job I was commited and that was what he was looking for. -------------- Imo, without a degree you can hit a ceiling where your co workers could be promoted over you because they have a degree. I knew at that point (and that time would come) I would start my own business.
The only thing that should be studied in life is the Bible! Education is a waste of money unless in involves the word of God!
Silly. A college education is like any other financial investment. A great value at a low price, and a terrible value (for most students) at a high price. Altucher, et. al. only use the best-case scenarios when recommending skipping higher education. They assume the kids are super intelligent, highly motivated entrepreneurial types. Sure, those kids are going to do well whether they go to college or not.
In my opinion, that's exactly why a lot of non-college grads start businesses. Great job of pointing that out.
i think those who recommend dropping out gear their recommendation to entrepreneurs. Its idiotic to drop out or not go to college if your goal is just to be an employee somewhere. As for those who think they can learn on there own, 99% of people don't follow through. I would be impressed if someone showed me there completed coursera.org work, their rossetta stone new language (speaking not literacy), their ability to play a new instrument.
The issue is not so much "better that they become entrepreneurs". The issue is that student loan debt is a scam. The govt backs it and you can't dismiss it in bankruptcy. College presidents know this so they constantly raise tuitions. Tuitions up 10x since 1977 with inflation up 3x. Our kids are graduating as indentured servants. They have to spend 30-40 years paying down debt now instead of being creators, innovators, artists, whatever they want to be. Whatever it was that initially built up America. Debt is a function of supply and demand. If we can reduce the demand, i.e. disrupt college and the higher education system, then the people scamming on that debt will look for other places to scam. -James Altucher
In the long run, a good education is a skill-set to learn new things and be flexible and systematic in your thought process. Any vocation can be learned after sufficient trial and error, while the systematic aspects of the thought process (unfortunately) have to be chewed and fed. I think the question is not whether people need an education, but rather how this education is going to be delivered. An average American college does not appear to be the right delivery vehicle. PS. I have learned multiple programming languages and taught myself how to play classical guitar. This said, I have to give credit to my formal education, even though nothing I do on daily basis has any relation to my degrees.