I was talking to a young guy today. Let’s call him Theo. Theo is a sophomore Psychology major at the local state university. He is also 21 years old. He is smart, driven, positive and full of energy. He is a leader at his place of employment where he has worked since high school. When I asked how college was going, he responded I want to quit but my mom won’t let me.
I dropped out of college. I remember the disappointment that came over my parents when I walked into the kitchen and told them. It wasn’t easy telling my parents that after 5 years and only 9 credits shy of my degree that I couldn’t afford to go to school anymore. College regret is such a common feeling that I want to break the argument down so that if you decide to leave college (or better yet not go), your parents are behind you or you are confident enough in your decision not to care if they are.
The first argument is that you have to go to college. College is important on the condition that you want to be a lawyer, teacher, doctor, nurse, or engineer. Unless you go into one of those broad fields, you do not need to go to college. Even then, there are avenues to those careers in lieu of a degree. Most careers can be achieved by creating a body of work as a signal to employers rather than using your “college experience.” If you want to be a journalist, start writing and publish your work, not because someone told you to but because that’s the career you want. Take initiative. That’s what you will need to succeed on your own or in a career and no education can teach you to take initiative. If you want to be in business, get an entry level sales position anywhere and keep track of your numbers. Take ownership of your sales and customer relationships. By keeping a record of those, you have proof of success in performance reviews or future interviews. Saying you generated 220k in sales is more of a signal than saying you have a business degree. A pedigree is not your worth, value, or success.
The next argument is that you will get a higher paying job because you went to college. I’m only going to say this one time. You will not make more money just because you went to college. You will make more money because you want to grow and bust your ass every day. That was the origin of college. People wanted to grow and needed resources to do so. They went to schools with large libraries because books were the source of knowledge. Today, there exists an object in your pocket that has nearly all the information in the world and you use it to look at cat videos. The possession of resources is no longer relevant. What is, is the desire to be something. There is no professor on earth that can make you go to class. Learning to expect greatness from yourself is only learned through self-discovery.
Do not go into debt for an education. The average college debt is $37,172. If you get married, that’s $74,344 that you have to pay off. That’s a large bill every month for the next 10 years. Consider the alternatives to that dollar amount.
- Buy a house or a car and still have a solid chunk in savings.
- Spend a year traveling to broaden your horizons and blog about your experiences along the way. You can grow a large social media following through this and that is an amazing asset.
- Start your own business. Don’t do it right away but after you have gained insight through experience, use that dollar amount as capital to pursue your passion.
- Go into a program like Praxis. Praxis is an Apprenticeship Program to learn alongside professionals in their field at a startup and get paid for your work.
Your parents want the best for you but despite the expression, father may not know what’s best. To use another expression, actions speak louder than words. Don’t tell your parents that you are leaving college. Show them the growth that you can achieve another way. It’s a classic sales pitch.
You think college is the only way for me to grow.
But really, there are other investments that I can make in my future.
And if you stand behind my decision,
Then you will see I have the potential to create a fulfilling life for myself.