Millennials Are Finally Realizing That Most College Degrees Are a Scam
Times have changed. College doesn’t guarantee success as it used to before.
College degrees are one of the most elaborate scams of recent times. In fact, in today’s time, college comes in the way of most people’s true success.
I’m in medical college right now. However, I’m also at a place in life where I can make enough money from writing to never depend on my degree.
This means that I’m able to psychologically get out of the system. And like they say, you can only judge a system accurately when you’re out of the system.
And that’s what I did. In the process, I realized some awful truths about college degrees that opened my eyes to the fact that most college degrees are complete scams.
Note: Please note that this article is just in relation to the financial returns of a college degree. A college degree provides returns in other non-quantifiable ways like learning, experiences, friendships, and more that are pretty valuable.
Do some math to realize that the ROI is disgustingly low.
Let’s take a medical career in India as an example. Here are the numbers:
- The fee of most private medical institutes in India is just a little shy of $20,000 annually. And medical school is five years long in India. So that adds up to $100,000. (However, I study in a Government sponsored college so my fee is only around $1000 annually, but then again, it’s really hard to get into a government medical college in India.)
- College studying hours are from 9–5 for at least 250 days a year, for 5 years. Even by the most conservative estimations — where you subtract for holidays, bunks, and more — that adds up to around 6000–7000 hours.
- But of course, medical students often study pretty much all the time even after college hours are over. In total, I’d say that medical students easily put in 10,000 hours of their time over the course of six years.
So the investment is crazy, to say the least.
And what’s the starting salary of a general practitioner in India? My seniors who have passed out as of now earn somewhere between $700–1100 (and that’s after a year of compulsory internship where the stipend is only $140 per month). And even after years of work in colleges, the pay isn’t that great. Most of my professors who have specialist degrees earn around $2000–3000.
And here’s the cherry on the cake: these people think what they’re getting paid is great because most haven’t seen any real money all their lives. So even this disgustingly low ROI seems fair to them. But in reality, it’s honestly a joke when compared to how much time and money they have invested into their degrees over the years.
Of course, specialists who end up opening their private setups and working in association with multiple hospitals earn much more. But again, that’s not very easy to do and requires a lot of investment and experience.
This is the situation for medical degrees in India. Medical degrees are, of course, one of the “safest and highest paying” degrees out there. And India is one of the cheapest countries to get quality education. And yet, the ROI is disgustingly low. The situation is even worse for other degrees and other countries.
Apply the same numbers to a personal endeavor and you join the elite.
What if you take the numbers from what we discussed above and apply them to a personal endeavor like music or an online business?
For instance, so far as a writer, I’ve invested a max of around 1000 hours, and not more than $500. And I’m already making at least over $1000 per month from writing while working less than 20 hours per month.
Now, what if I invested $100,000 to hire the best coaches in the world and invest in the best tools an online writer can have, and put in 10,000 hours of learning and work?
What will happen?
Simple. I’ll join the elite club of writers pretty easily.
I imagine that one can do that even without that kind of investment. Because I know for a fact people earn millions of dollars after having invested enough time and money (but still, far lesser than what most people do in college) into their craft.
The genius lethal combination
Here’s the lethal combination.
They put you in super-competitive environments to normalize overworking. And then, use the principle of supply and demand to drive down your salaries.
For instance, medical colleges are a highly competitive environment. We study when we see others studying out of fear of being left behind. We study when we see others chilling — to feel like we’re getting ahead of others. I’ve even caught myself studying on my phone in the shower a few times. Over years, this normalizes overworking on a mass scale.
Then when it comes to getting a job out of college placements, there’s a high supply of students just like you eager for a job due to huge education loans. If one student thinks the pay isn’t exactly fair, there’ll be another ready to jump at the same amount of money. This means, that the demand is limited because of a low number of jobs. And the supply is high because there are so many people who graduate all the time. This makes it so fucking easy to drive down the starting salaries. (This high-supply, low-demand situation does not exist in the medical profession, but it is very evident in other professions.)
For instance, one of my friends who is an engineer learned to design on his own. He now works as a freelance designer, is damn good at it, and gets paid pretty well. One time, he met a couple of his friends who went to design school. They were fascinated to find out that he’s a designer now too. And then they mentioned that they both got jobs from college replacements and what they earn. And it was super low. He felt bad for them and ended up deciding that he’ll not mention that he earns much more than them as a designer, even though he didn’t go to design school.
This is how they reel you into the scam and make sure you’re not able to get out of it.
Firstly, most people have to decide what to do with their life — meaning, what degree they want to be graduated in — at an age when they can’t tell their knees from their elbows.
I mean, who knows what they want to do with their lives at the age of 18?
But still, they have to decide. So they make a suboptimal decision heavily influenced by society’s nudges, and parents’ fears. They end up getting into a college to work for a degree they might not even like.
And worse, most people take a huge educational loan to do so.
Then, they drag themselves and somehow complete their college because quitting college is not that easy.
But wait, the scam’s not over yet. Because this is when the loan payments kick in. Now they have to get underpaid and frustrating jobs so that they can slowly sell their souls to pay off the loans. And eventually, they will pay off the loan.
But then again, the scam’s still not over. Because this is when the responsibilities kick in. By the time most people pay off their loans, they are grownups. They might get married and have children. And hence, it’s much more difficult to quit their jobs and take any kind of risks. Then they have to support their children and family at least until the children are old enough to be able to support themselves.
But by then, it’s too late for most people. The vigor’s gone. And they just don’t have it in them to even find their gifts, let alone develop and make a career out of them.
The result? Most people never find what they truly love, and live a life where they’re not really living, but merely surviving.
Maybe there was a time when college degrees were useful for success. And for some career choices like medicine and law, college degrees are still essential. Yet for most other career choices, college degrees have slowly turned into one super elaborate scam. And none of us noticed exactly when and how the conversion happened.
But we have realized it now. And it’s not too late.
Maybe you’re already reeled into the scam. And I’m not saying that getting out of the scam is easy, but it’s certainly possible. The answer lies in what you do in the after-hours.
Instead of spending your downtime Netflixing, spend as much time as you can experimenting with different crafts. Try online writing. Perhaps youtube might be something you’re good at. Maybe start your own online business. Or be a habit coach. Whatever you like.
Spend the time to experiment. And when you find something you like, hustle your ass off to get good at it. Then figure out how to get paid well. And slowly, build yourself so that you’re in a place to quit the elaborate scam you became a part of without realizing it.
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