Do You Need a College Education to be Successful
Do you have a College Education?
In today’s society, young people are told to get an education so they can get a good paying job or career.
There are many professions that require a college degree before you can get a job. But with the way things are going in this country, a college degree may not be your best option.
Look at the cost of an education. Many young people are coming out of college to $40,000 or more of debt and they are unable to find jobs in their field. I know my daughter went to an Art College, studied Animation and when she got out of school she had over $40,000 in debt and couldn’t find a job in her field. About $30,000 is in her name and about 12,000 was in a Parent Plus loan in my name.
Looking back at it I wish I had pushed her to go to the community college instead of a specialty college. The debt would have been a fraction of the cost. With her degree if she would have found a job in her field she would be able to pay off her student loans without a problem. But at $12 an hour, she will be paying off her debt for the rest of her life.
The sad thing is lots of young people are told to go to college by teachers and counselors and even their parents. You don’t tell them that they are going to be saddled with overwhelming debt when they get out of school. I didn’t realize just how bad the job market would be when she got out of college. I wish I had.
I didn’t really know anything about the college system, I didn’t go to college after I graduated from High School. It was something I never wanted to do. I hated school and the thought of going to college was never even a consideration for me. I decided to start going to college when I was 47 because I had been working at a major credit card company and I worked my way up from a Representative to a Professional. I felt like all the Professionals had degrees and I felt inferior because I didn’t have one. I had on the job experience, I just didn’t have the paper.
I decided to try Online classes and I started taking classes toward a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration. I made it through getting 27 credits. The classes that they had me taking didn’t make sense to me. It was things that didn’t have any relevance to the work that I was doing. So I decided to go to the community college instead and change my field of study to multimedia. I was writing for an online reference system and I felt I needed to learn more about HTML and Photoshop. I also took a Technical Writer Certification class. I didn’t get a degree I only took classes I was interested in.
Do you need a College Education to be Successful
My point here is, Is the debt worth it for young people? You can get certified in many areas without going into debt.
Going to a formal college really isn’t the only option, especially with the Internet. You can go to You Tube and learn anything you want to learn about, people are putting up new videos on a daily basis. You can get free or low cost training on any subject you want all you have to do is a search for your topic.
I have learned many new things by watching videos, like how to do marketing with Craig’s list and how to use an auto responder to capture email leads. How to market using Facebook and the list goes on.
Do a Google search for anything you want to learn about and you will find a wealth of information at your fingertips.
Do you need a College Education to be Successful
In my experience, you don’t need a college education to be successful., You just need to have a desire, and a goal to be successful.
Here are some successful people that didn’t get a college degree:
- Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 and went on to found Microsoft. He’s worth an estimated $76 Million. He didn’t have a college degree, but he did have a desire and a goal.
- Mark Zuckerburg dropped out of Harvard his sophomore year to focus on growing Facebook. Today Facebook has over a Billion users.
- Steve Jobs didn’t have a college degree but he founded Apple.
- Michael Dell dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin and founded Dell Computers. He’s now worth $18.7 billion.
- David Wood founder of Empower Network never went to college. He was even homeless. He had a desire and a goal. He had a vision for something great. He’s created 14 Millionaires in the last 3 years since he founded the company. He has a goal of creating 100 Millionaires a year.
I could go an and list many more people that are successful and never went to or dropped out of college. Many have found ways to make money on the Internet. They have found their passion and used it to create wealth.
You can be successful if you have a desire and a goal. You need to keep your focus on your goal and do whatever it takes. Never give up on your dreams. Find your passion and create your own wealth.
Deirdre Powell (Dee)
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Deirdre, like you, I didn’t enjoy the thought of going to college. I went for one year, came home and told my parents, “that’s it, I’m done”. Sure, there’s a place in some folk’s lives for it, but for the most part you could take those tens of thousands of dollars young people get into debt over and do something entrepreneurial with it. My best knowledge for earning money has come from what I seeked out and basically taught myself. Plus, I think it’s tough for some people at age 18 to decide on that ONE thing they’ll do FOREVER.
I totally agree Matt, you can learn the skills you need without going to college. It’s true some 18 year old’s really don’t know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. I know I didn’t. There is so much pressure on Seniors in High School to choose a major for college.
Thanks Deirdre for sharing. I have nothing against college. If you want to go to college, that’s awesome, if you don’t, you can learn skills for life by yourself. The biggest mistake would be if you go to college for wrong reasons and learn something you actually don’t like and enjoy.
Thanks for commenting Marko. College is necessary for some professions, like doctors and lawyers, but there are many ways to learn skills on your own.