Blakkbox Lifestyle

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain

I’ve recently decided, after tossing the idea back and forth in my head for months, that college isn’t worth it. I won’t be returning to school this Fall semester. Sure, college is fun. And there are a ton of benefits (social life, anyone?), which I’ll get into in another post. But there is a a major downside – and that’s the price tag that comes attached.

Imagine I was fabulously generous (not to mention wealthy), and handed you $50,000 dollars in cash to spend at your discretion. What would you do with it?

You could travel, invest it, start a business, spend it all on cocaine and strippers, or go to a 4 year college.

Traditional society will have you believe strippers college is the sure bet. After all, you’ll always have a degree to fall back on and land a job, right? I question that logic, and now consider it a model of the past. America is having terribly bad economic times that won’t be ending anytime soon. Nearly all aspects of the economy are down significantly from their peaks a few years ago (real estate, the Dow Jones, oil, etc). Yet college tuition remains the only thing in America that has not at least temporarily declined in price, besides healthcare. In fact, over the last five years college tuition has seen a 5.15% average annual price inflation. Surely this is because a college education is so valuable, right? Not so. Job placement out of college is also at dismally low levels.

So back to the $50k I gave you. What would you do if I told you to turn this into $100k in the shortest amount of time possible?

Get a 4 year degree?

That wouldn’t make sense to me.

First, to get your 4 year degree, it will probably take you closer to 5 – 6 years. After that you probably won’t have any of the money I gave you left. With no savings and possibly even some debt, you’ll be lucky to get a job that starts you off at $50k a year. Throw in all your expenses and it’ll probably take you at least a decade, maybe more, to save up $100k – assuming above-average money management skills.

What a lot of students my age don’t realize, I’m afraid, is that the money they take out in loans is real money. It’s the same as taking the $50k I gave you and spending it all. Actually, worse when you consider interest rates. Luckily, I only have one year of loans taken out that I’ll have to pay back before I made this decision. Others won’t be so fortunate.

If you’re in high school or college, I urge you to consider other alternatives. Why do you really want to go to college? Is it to learn something you truly can’t learn anywhere else? Is it to get a piece of paper to get a job at Corporation X, or get a promotion? Or maybe, could it be because you feel like you’re supposed to?

If you’re going to college because you feel you’ll learn a skill-set that cannot be taught elsewhere, then by all means go. If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, sure – go to college. It will be essential. But if you want to start your own business, find your calling and do work true to your nature, consider your other options. For way, way less money you could get a more useful education that will allow you to be an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or if that doesn’t sit well, a custom tailored education to suit your interests.

Don’t go to college because you want to do what you’re supposed to, or because you don’t know what else to do. And definitely don’t go to do keg stands at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday. Although there is a time and place for that, too (usually around 3 a.m. on a Wednesday).

Hell, if you’re under 20, Peter Thiel (entrepreneur and CEO of Paypal) might even pay you $100,000 to not go to college. One of the winners of this scholarship dropped out and created UnCollege which could turn into another great alternative to tradition.

I know a lot of my peers that go to college because that was the path in life that was laid out for them since they were kids. It’s just what the next step was after high school. And while I’d never discourage learning and education, I would encourage you to make the next step a logical one that will benefit and make you happy for the rest of your life.

I’m not against college. I’m against going to college uninformed and unaware, and for the wrong reasons.