| As someone who dropped out of college and had to cope with the consequences, I often think if college is worth it for the typical use-case in HN discussions: an ambitious & hard-working American citizen < 24. While there's plenty of edge-cases in that definition (esp. the orders of magnitude over-represented college dropout billionaire), indubitably I think it is worth it for the vast majority of people for these two reasons: 1) The majority of society (aka the people who work in HR) still thinks it's important. Being the guinea pig (or crusader) isn't fun. While people like Peter Thiel, who graduated from Stanford 2x, pontificate about the outdatedness of education, note that before becoming a billionaire he leveraged his education to earn serious money and experience in respected careers that unanimously goto college graduates: finance & law. This gave him the financial foundation & creditability to invest in Max Levchin and ultimately run PayPal. The same opportunities are not offered in our society to people who graduate from top 10 universities vs drop out from the average American university. The latter will have to prove themselves 5x more to compete for the same opportunities - whether it is jobs, capital, co-founders, or even dating. Theres nearly no statistically likely argument where dropping out leads to better outcomes for the typical HN user over the long run across almost any metric. 2) Wait till you want to change careers or move into senior management to earn more money. Want an MBA so you can double your salary for the next 25 years? Want to become a teacher or a professor? How about a lawyer. Great, now take a bunch of classes with 18 y.o. know-it-alls and earn zero money for 4 extra years of undergrad tacked onto grad school when your opportunity cost is literally $500k (just for undergrad). I fought the good fight, and the lesson is it's generals and politicians who win wars, not soldiers. |