[shravan]

This is a biased question, because the people who chose not to go to college are not likely to have a clear understanding of what the experience is like.

College for me personally had little to do with academics and much more to do with the people I met once there. When I was leaving high school, I had little idea that this would be the case.

[nostrademons]

That mirrors my college experience, but I'll also point out that people who don't go to college usually don't just sit around on the couch all day doing nothing. They have experiences too, and meet other people that they would never have come into contact with had they gone to college, and often have jobs or other experiences that are much more varied than their college-educated peers.

I think the bottom line is that it doesn't actually matter whether you go, it matters that you make a decision and follow through on it, and that you make a decision based on your life and not the desires of your parents, teachers, the Internet, or society at large. Yes, not going may shut off some opportunities and experiences that you could have, but there will be other opportunities and experiences that fill that void.

[yuhong]

OT but on the no poach agreement scandal this comment suggest that Eric Schmidt should apologize (yea, I know "Jonathan Rosemberg" has already resigned from Google):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7733775

As a side note, I think Eric Schmidt handles most of the legal stuff, right? That probably didn't help.

[mille562]

I don't think the question is biased on it's own.

It would be biased put in the context of "I'm deciding if I should skip college, is that the right decision?" and using those as your main data point to find your answer.

[scott_karana]

I see where you're both coming from. There's a bit of selection bias. Whether or not it's significant is the tricky part.

An exaggerated analogy to show what I mean about selection bias:

"Those who chose not to have sex before marriage, do you regret that decision?"