From the moment young children attend preschool, everything they do in school is centered on one final destination, college. It has been ingrained and carved into their malleable minds that they need college to be successful. Without it, the American dream is deemed unachievable. However, what schools fail to tell these students is that college doesn’t determine their futures, they do. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Geffen, all have something in common besides being wealthy. They never went to college. Most may wonder how this is possible. The answer is simple: not going to college teaches you more about the real world than any book or lecture ever could. Paving their own path allowed these influencers to not deal with the college debts, constrictions, and any setbacks that come with not starting their careers early.
To begin with, college is known for emptying the pockets of students and families. The cost of tuition, books, and other ‘necessities’ creates large amounts of debt, which is said to be covered by financial aid and returns from degrees. However, according to the EPI’s survey, wages for college graduates have been decreasing over the years. It has been estimated that hourly wages for college-educated men in 2000 were $22.75, but that dropped by almost a full dollar to $21.77. For young college-educated women, hourly wages fell from $19.38 to $18.43 over the same period. It is unfair that these graduates crossed every financial obstacle only to find out that their degree is unable to get them a wage high enough to cover their student loans. With wages not saving students from debt, you would think that financial aid and scholarships would. However, even with scholarship opportunities and financial aid, the average student will still have $100,000 worth of debt. You don’t have to be a math professor to realize that this scam doesn’t add up. What students don’t realize is that by not going to college, they’re saving money. They would be investing in their futures instead of investing all of their savings into an institution that doesn’t even guarantee them a financially stable future.
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Although college allows students to learn a surplus of things, it only produces robotic knowledge workers that are restricted from being innovative because they’re used to being confined to traditions and rules. Schools, in general, dictate how and why students must learn something. They go out of their way to restrict creative learning by punishing those who break the rules or those who want to follow another career path that isn’t education based. It’s as if their ultimate goal is to “round up every warm body and send it to the cubicle” (Crawford, NY Times). Students are conditioned to believe being sent to the cubicle is the only way to succeed in life. By not going to college, students are set free from this toxic mentality and can explore ‘risky’ career choices that they would’ve not picked because of societal pressure. They can build things, pursue the arts, become cosmetologists, and follow the dreams that have been shunned by society.
Moreover, those who start their careers without going to college get a head start on their futures. Going to college can be a waste of time, energy, and potential for people with certain career ambitions. People like entrepreneurs or businessmen/women don’t need to go to college because their job requires them to start at a young age. By not going to college, they could gain more experience, opportunities, and connections. They could also “develop their ideas more quickly than they would at a traditional university” (Ben, Thiel Fellowship). College isn’t for everyone because it doesn’t cater to everyone’s needs. People with alternative careers would be better off developing their futures themselves.
At the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves, why are we going to college? Is it for the bragging rights, the American dream, or because of the pressure society puts on us? College or not, we’re all going to end up in the same place where a job employer will ask us, ‘What makes you special?’. Those that had a traditional education will probably not have much to say because years of conforming to rules will have made them lose who they truly are. Those that didn’t, will have spent so much time developing themselves that they would know just how to answer this question. When employers make their decision on whom to promote or select for their company, they look for innovation and character, not a student’s choice of an undergraduate major.
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