<p>Saying</a> No to College</p>
<p>Avoid College Debt by UnCollege?</p>
<p>Before you conclude that going to college is totally unnecessary, keep in mind that from the perspective of prospective employers or venture capitalists, betting on a person who deliberately leaves a prestigious college in good academic standing is not the same thing as betting on a person who has only a HS diploma or GED, who has never been “vetted” by admission into an elite college.</p>
<p>Good point GMT. Reading into the article a bit, wonderful examples are illustrated of very successful people not completing college and hitting the entreprenurial jackpot.</p>
<p>However, these jackpot winners had already been partially pre-selected based upon where they were studying:
Zuckerberg & Gates were at Harvard
The CTO id’ed in the article was at Princeton</p>
<p>These folks were not attending a run-of-the mill State College. Their chances of success in whatever field they chose make their mark was a bit higher than the mean, median & mode for the average college student who does not complete their degree.</p>
<p>Too many Ivy-obsessed parents on CC. You don’t need Ivy to be successful. Most of the Fortune 500 CEOs are non-Ivy grads. Most Nobel Laureates didn’t go to Ivies. Steve Jobs didn’t go to Ivy.</p>
<p>But if you’re asking other people (venture capitalists, etc) to make a bet on your dream, they’re going to want to calculate their risk, and one way to do that is by looking at the business person’s stats - including where they went to college.</p>
<p>There are a zillion jobs in this world not associated with venture capitalists betting on you to be successful. CC parents need to step out of the bubble into the real world. Ivy grads with their liberal training are probably ill-suited to run businesses which requires both grit and intellect. That’s the reason majority of Fortune 500 CEOs are not Ivy-grads.</p>
<p>@SEWinter,
</p>
<p>All the other notables mentioned in the article were “vetted” by being admitted into and attending a reputable (not necessarily Ivy) university:</p>
<ul>
<li> Michael Dell: dropout UT Austin </li>
<li> Steve Jobs: dropout Reed College </li>
<li> Bill Gates: dropout Harvard</li>
<li> Mark Zuckerburg: dropout Harvard</li>
<li> Jack Dorsey (Twitter): dropout NYU</li>
<li> Evan Williams (Twitter): dropout U Nebraska</li>
<li> Kevin Rose (Digg): dropout U Nevada Las Vegas</li>
</ul>
<p>Or, if they did not go to college at all they received a big injection of venture capital: </p>
<ul>
<li> David Karp (Tumblr): attended an exclusive NY Upper West Side private school before attending Bronx Science and finally being homeschooled. He used his earnings as a software consultant for UrbanBaby to launch Tumblr which expanded after investment money from venture capitalists.</li>
</ul>
<p>The NYT article goes on to mention several “no-college” gurus who are advocating for students to skip college. They are telling students to do as they say, not as they do:</p>
<p>
Thiel graduated B.A. Stanford, then a graduated J.D. Stanford Law School. </p>
<p>
Altucher graduated B.S. Cornell, then was a PhD. candidate at Carnegie Mellon. </p>
<p>The last person mentioned in the article, HS senior Jean Fan, an editor for “UnCollege”, is applying to elite universities right now. </p>
<p>Yes, there may be a zillion jobs out there that don’t require college or venture capital, but I will continue to counsel my kids that their odds of landing a job that pays a living wage and is intellectually fulfilling are severely curtailed if they do not go to college.</p>
<p>College may be paying more but college grads are not able to climb out of the college debt hole they dug in. College debt is the next biggest problem after mortgage debt.</p>
<p>SE: While posing great discussion points, other participants have valid counter-points to the initail thesis. Are you here on CC looking for research validation for a school paper or really motivated by the topic?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The median income of prep school parents is not representative of the median income of parents of the general population of college-bound kids. More than half the prep school kids are enrolled without financial aid. If these parents can manage $40k-$50k tuition/fees for prep school, then it is a reasonable assumption that they can manage $40k-$50k tuition/fees for college.</p>
<p>The prep school kids that are receiving FA are also not representative of the general population of college-bound kids. The high-achiever/motivated kids in selective college preparatory secondary schools have the resumes that made them attractive candidates for admission w FA to the prep school. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that these kids will continue to be attractive candidates for admission w FA/merit aid to colleges.</p>
<p>If you are advocating that kids skip college entirely, you may find a more sympathetic audience outside the CC Prep School Parents board.</p>
<p>SEWinter: I say go with the gut, and say NO to college! Advise your kids not to apply, especially not to ivies! (less competition for my kids ;0))</p>
<p>I’m seeing a trend with @SEWinter’s posts on various threads which is to say no to BS and college.</p>
<p>Oh well - one should consider how many people with dreams show up on Shark Tank and fail. Yes - there are some people who can start a business with no college experience (grad or dropout). But there do appear to be things one can learn at college to shortcut the path. And there are a host of non academic things a student learns on a campus not always having to do with their degree program.</p>
<p>So when in doubt, get the degree. Although it does not have to be an IVY league degree. There are plenty of good colleges in the US that don’t require you to sell all your internal organs to pay for them.</p>
<p>Guess how many people at work are paper pushers for which you need no college degree?</p>
<p>Don’t confuse needing college-level knowledge with needing a college degree. </p>
<p>The unfortunate reality is that those people would not have been considered for the job without the degree.</p>
<p>One thing I notice is that many of the college quitters are involved in technology. One might argue that the reason that success comes without college is because the field is so new and changes so rapidly. </p>
<p>College to me was never about winning a financial jackpot. It was where I learned to think and to express my thoughts in a way that others could understand. As a teacher, it’s still my emphasis, and something my students badly need. </p>
<p>That said, I agree that student debt loads often makes me wonder whether they get what they pay for. The answer, though, is to make smarter choice about where and how to do college or other post high school programs. And, yes, in rare cases to decide that no formal training is needed. As others have pointed out, though, those who forego college and succeed generally come from the kind of privilege that few enjoy.</p>
<p>I guess I see this college vs. no college as the same issue as BS vs. public school. Which is better, in terms of getting you what you want out of life? I don’t see it as particularly useful to debate which is better in the general sense. These are questions that need to be addressed by the individual. For some people, college is not the best choice, for others it clearly is. Similarly, for some kids, BS is the best choice, but for others, public school is best. Just my .02.</p>
<p>Also, forgoing college right after high school is not an irreversible decision. One can always go later. Some people get a lot more out of college once they have some experience and direction.</p>
<p>As someone who went to public HS, I don’t think it’s right at all to compare college vs. no college to boarding school vs. public school. Going to public school is not the equivalent of not going to high school. A more apt analogy to boarding school vs. public school would be expensive big name private college vs. state school. Foregoing college entirely means foregoing an educational experience that can be extremely helpful (if not essential) to a successful career. There are some fields where college is unnecessary - my brother left college after one (very unhappy) semester, and almost immediately afterwards began pursuing a career in stage lighting and sound. He has a stable job at a production company, is working his way up in the industry, and hopes to own his own business someday. However, it’s unrealistic to think that leaving college is the right choice for everybody, just because it was the right choice for a few very wealthy (and also, let’s not forget, very determined, intelligent, and LUCKY) individuals. In my opinion, if you choose to leave college you should have a plan. If you don’t have a plan, stick it out and get the degree, so that you can keep your career options open. My stepsister also dropped out of college, but she had no plan, and is now 26 and has only held waitressing jobs and a few administrative assistant positions. Twice she has gotten really nice job offers, only to have them taken back once she told them that she didn’t have a college degree. So there you go, an example of the right way and the wrong way to drop out of college. Everyone’s situation is different, and there is no answer that applies to everyone.</p>
<p>I finally got around to reading the article (the paper version was laying round our house) and have a few issues:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>While the entrepreneurs mentioned in the article did have positive outcomes, how many people who have dropped out can claim similar results? Those company founders are famous because they were smart and driven (and more than a little lucky), not because they dropped out.</p></li>
<li><p>One part I totally agreed with was Jacob Weisberg’s (Slate) point that Thiel’s idea could be “diverting a generation of young people from the love of knowledge for its own sake”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>+1 for 7Dad’s comments. College is now seen as a direct path to a job in, theoretically, one’s majors. Thus the attrition in, and subsequent dropping of, Classics and Philosophy programs (to name just two) from many colleges’ curricula.</p>
<p>Spirit also makes good points, and I have seen mirrors of the exact two scenarios described, in my own personal circles. While the lack of a degree may be less meaningful to a driven, capable person whose path lies in a particular artistic, technological or entrepreneurial direction, such a person is not the norm. The handful of “success stories” highlighted in the story are outliers in the extreme. Spirit’s stepsister’s outcome seems the more likely for even hardworking kids, unless they have a particular goal and the drive to pursue it at any cost or amount of personal discomfort. Although you’d think the companies who offered her jobs BEFORE finding out if she had a college degree, would have done a better job vetting, if a degree was an absolute requirement.
But that would not, of course, have changed the eventual outcome of no job offer after all…</p>
<p>My apologies. I meant to start a new thread. I have deleted my text.</p>