Is College Still Necessary for You?

Trent Hartsook
Sep 3, 2018 · 5 min read
“woman wearing academic cap and dress selective focus photography” by MD Duran on Unsplash

Growing up, I was told the same story that you were.

“You need to get good grades so you can go to college.”

“You need to study so you can get a good job.”

Our parents and our teachers tell this story to us, and their intentions are well-founded. They come from a time when the “good” jobs were hard to find. The coveted high-paying corporate America jobs that paid high figures. Back in their time, high-paying jobs (that weren’t incredibly dangerous) were locked behind a degree gate.

Employers actually did expect their employees to have a 4 or 8-year degree in their name. It was either that, go to trade school and learn a trade, or go it alone and start a business for yourself (without the help of the Internet.)

Birth of the internet

Times have changed since the days of our parents. Now, we can access millions of libraries worth of data and information from anywhere in the world. All you need is a laptop and you have the key to learning from the most influential minds the world has ever seen.

It doesn’t matter what industry you want to go in. Whether you want to learn about engineering, medicine, chemistry, sales, marketing, retail, or (now) ecommerce, there is an expert in that field that has made their expertise accessible from anywhere in the world.

The societal consensus around college is changing as well. It is not universally accepted anymore that the youth should go to college to become successful. All you need to do is look at statistical trends and you’ll see what I mean.

According to the New York Times, the percentage of high school graduates going on to college has actually decreased, not increased. From 1945 to 2008, a period of 63 years, college attendance has been on the rise. It peaked at 70% in the year 2009.

This was the same year that we were met with the Great Recession. The economy crashed and many businesses (meaning jobs) went under.

It makes sense. Since the US was undergoing massive financial stress, society and youth would be fearful for their future. A degree to them meant security against an unstable job market. Especially back then.

Where are high school graduates going if not to college? Well, some of them are heading straight to trade school.

Breaking the mold

The benefits of trade school rather than going to college are impressive to young adults that can’t or don’t want to pay for the latter. Instead of being the eye-watering $100,000 for a 4 year Bachelor’s Degree, a trade degree averages around a much more reasonable $30,000.

And most trade school graduates ACTUALLY make that their first year working full-time. Young adults are taking notice to this. In 1999 there were only 9.6 million students in trade school. That number rose to about 16 million students in 2014.

So, is a college degree still necessary to being successful in life? That answer largely depends on you and your perception.

Take, for example, a doctor. They hold real human lives in the balance. Their actions make the difference in whether a sick person lives, or whether they die. Their job comes with massive amounts of responsibility, and so they are paid very handsomely for it.

Becoming a doctor, along with a few other job titles, are actually inaccessible without a high amount of schooling.

If your life ambition is to save the lives of other people, contributing to the fair justice of all people, or conceptualize and design innovative technology and get paid to do it, you will need a college degree. Medical, Law, and Engineering are a few of the fields left where you will not get in without college.

On the flipside of that, there are several different positions where college degrees will not be the key differentiator in your position.

I can name several degrees that are unnecessary in your ability to succeed and succeed massively.

Theater, art, music, liberal arts, gender studies, business, computer science, sociology, history, graphic design, marketing. Worst of all is business.

Think about it, there are millions of college graduates that major in just Business. What is there that differentiates you from millions?

Probably not much.

If you just want to acquire a skill and apply it (which is key in making money), you do not need a college degree.

Like I said earlier, now we have the Internet. We can access hundreds of educational articles, videos, and courses at the stroke of a few keys.

What you should do, instead of go to college and acquire massive debt, is this:

  1. Pick a skill, any skill. Pick something that will not take long for you to learn and something that can make you money. I’m not talking about an extra $500/month. I’m talking about 10,000 freakin dollars per month if you focus and go all in on this skill. There’s things like sales, copywriting, creating videos for businesses, building sales funnels, and building out websites.
  2. Learn the skill. There are thousands of articles and videos out there if you don’t have money to pay to learn. Even paying for a course has more immediate value than college tuition. Imagine paying $500 or $1,000 for an online course and in the next year or so you grow to raking in $10,000 every single month. Sure would beat getting there in 30 years, wouldn’t it?
  3. Get clients. These are high-income skills. All it takes is acquiring and keeping ONE client to consistently make $1,000 per month. So get out there. Start cold calling businesses that could use your services, cold emailing, messaging on Instagram, giving value to people in Facebook groups, or anything else that can lead to you getting a paying client.
  4. Repeat step 1–3.

It’s a very simple process. Simple, but extremely hard. Don’t go in without expecting a level of resistance and for it to be harder than anything you’ve done before.

I am still on the road to getting that client. Once you get the first client, it becomes much more comprehendible. Until you get the first client you have no idea what you’re doing, you’re likely to make mistakes, and you don’t have a grasp of whether you’re looking for clients in the right place.

Once you get one client it’s easier to get a second, then a third, then a fourth and fifth and a sixth… you get the picture.

This digital age has absolutely revolutionized culture. It has revolutionized technology, interaction, and the face of business itself. It is now possible to drop a grand on a course and make it back in the first month and then 5 grand in the 3rd month.

Just make sure you do research on who’s teaching the course. Then, you can hustle, grind, profit, and repeat.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/business/fewer-us-high-school-graduates-opt-for-college.html


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