Should I drop out of college?
Probably not. If you feel like it is too expensive, consider attending a less expensive in-state school. You should be able to get a college degree spending less than $5000 per year on tuition, books, and fees. If you are willing to work hard, you should be able to get a job while attending school that will cover many of your living expenses as well as your school fees so you can graduate without any debt. Getting a full time summer job can help give you enough of a financial cushion to cover anything you can’t earn during the school year.
Four years of living frugally is well worth having a bachelors degree. Your diploma won’t guarantee you a high paying job, but it puts you at a much better starting place in an interview than someone with a high school diploma. Early in your career a degree will help give you the opportunity to interview for some jobs that would otherwise be out of your reach. However the real value of your college education is going to be what you learned. Study to learn–not just to pass.
On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to [email protected].
I would like to pose the question to your readers, “Did you learn more in college, or on-the-job?” I think only certain industries should really require a degree, but most executives and HR depts use the degree as a qualifier.
I’m currently studying engineering in college and would have to say that it’s been worth the money. It did cost a lot but I’m going to a state school which definitely costs less than going to a private school.
To answer Bryan’s question, I’d say I learned more on the job. I’m actually interning for college credit and am learning more about having a strong work ethic and general engineering practices on the job than I did at school.
Btw, I love the theme on the site, and just subscribed. Enjoy the holiday weekend.
Sometimes, experience and official certificacions of providers (at least on IT jobs) are computed the same or better than a college degree…
Between community colleges and state schools, a four year degree is affordable.
Two things a degree proves: You can achieve a long term goal and you can prioritize your time.
Did i lean more in college or on the job?
It depends on what learning you are asking about.
I have worked in the ICT industry since 1998. The only courses I took at university at all related were “Introduction to Computers” and “Quarto Pro Spreadsheets.”
However, I learned how to write well, read financial statements, and write SWOT and Strategic Analysis (among other things). Are these skills necessary for my current position? No way! Do they help me have intelligent conversations with the non-technical people in the company? Yes. Am I more well rounded because of this? Yes.
There is nothing I learned at university that I could not have learned on my own. However, the discipline of mastering material I was not necessarily interested in, within a specified time-frame has been a huge benefit professionally.
Visit http://www.npr.org and find the May 12, 2008 “Talk of the Nation” program. There is an in-depth discussion of this exact issue with some very surprising statistics about how many kids flunk out of college, how ill prepared college graduates are, and about the lost opportunity cost of staying in college instead of being trained in a trade. VERY worth listening to if you have doubts about whether college is the right place for you.