According to the book The Millionaire Next Door, someone who is self-employed is four times more likely to become a millionaire in their lifetime than someone who is employed.

I went to college and have a great career job, but I also have side-hustles. My two brothers also went to college, but they started businesses and significantly out-earn me. But, thoses businesses come with long hours and a lot of headaches. The key for all of us has been that we worked our way through college. So, we started earning before most college students and we didn’t graduate with any student debt.

My advice to anyone who is headed into college is to take some fundamental business courses, such as Accounting and Business Law, no matter what your major is. That way, you can always take your skill and start a business, if you choose. And, if you take the corporate route, like me, these skills can be very valuable to your employer. I work in IT, but I report to the CFO. Knowing Accounting has helped me on countless projects and established credibility.

I just don’t think there is enough guidance at the high school level to help kids figure out what to do after high school. They only stress getting into a college when a trade school for some kids would have been a much better choice.

Guinness416 has a good point, that the “no college” route is idealized by people who did attend college. I come at this from a tiny minority, because I attended college at a profit: I turned down attending some expensive private schools I was accepted to (Harvard being the most well-known of the bunch) in order to attend a state university with massive scholarships that paid for tuition, room, board, fees, and even some extra spending money. I finished college at a profit – so I am prejudiced in favor of attending college if you can get it all paid for like I did – I think Mike (Four Pillars) is making the same general point. I do wish, however, I had wrapped it up quicker than 7 years, though.

I would hate to say that in Danny’s case – running a business – I’m not sure I would recommend college. I’m sure the world of entrepreneurs contains a fairly even mix of college graduates and dropouts (Bill Gates, etc.) – but if college made you stop a successful business I would say it was not beneficial to you.

SavingDiva hits one more good point – some people need college as part of their growing up process, and some don’t. I sure wasn’t ready to enter the working world at 18 – I wasn’t mentally prepared at all, and if I had I certainly would have floundered for a few years before finding a direction, I think.

Again, great comments, and I’ll be interested to see everyone’s take on the second part (coming out Thursday morning).

Plus, I don’t think I would be happy being a plumber…

I went to university (as we call it up here) because I had the opportunity and because I really didn’t have anything else in mind. It has definitely paid off for me since I don’t think I would be making the same coin if I hadn’t gone. And yes, post-secondary education is all about coin!!

Mike

For example there seems to be a big disparity in the cost of different institutions which should be factored in the decision of where to go to school.

Also, if you are keen to start up a business or like Danny mentioned “running a very succesful business” then you should take that into consideration as well. Why would you sell a successful business to go to school unless you thought for sure that school was a better option?

…would you consider adding more variables? anyhoo, i like how you set out your first 3 questions early.

Peace!

And I agree completely with Insignificant Moments above, we can discuss this til the cows come home, but even the savviest 17 year old will find it difficult if not impossible to do the cost benefit analyses of college vs work, even if we’re just talking about analyzing cold hard cash.

It all depends on what you studying and how realistic you are in planning your future. Of course, when you are 18 and moving out on your own for the first time, it is really hard to see the economic impact of your decision in college. I try telling my freshman sister to rule out the “soft” majors because I know that even if she gets a “B+” or “A-” GPA with a psychology degree, she would have a hard time getting a job that would pay her $30,000 a year. She would need at least a master’s degree and then she would come out owing even more money.

I always knew that the whole point of going to college was to be able to earn more money when you get out. My family does not have enough money for me to go to college just for personal enrichment. But some how that message got lost with my sister. The message she is hearing is that she needs to go to college because her big sister is a college grad.

Going to college and doing further study will get you paper but it is what you learn from those papers that really matters!

All kidding aside, being a fresh college grad (almost, few days away), I did enjoy the college experience overall. However, I honestly and truly do not know if I have learned much in my classes themselves. I’m more of a self learner from books, websites, life experiences, people etc and I felt that I learned much more during my college years outside of actual classes. Classes actually got in the way at times from me running my businesses correctly and forced me to sell a very successful business in my freshman year. Also, I honestly don’t know how my college education would benefit me in the future. Perhaps I just don’t know it yet because I never went searching for a job, but it just seems as though my college years(5 of them) came with very high opportunity cost as well as crazy tuition and books. I guess I’ll have to wait and see if college was worth it. At this very point in my life I don’t think it was worth it financially at all. Not even close…