Don't Glorify Dropping Out

There's something to be said for going out and learning how to get things done and build a business as well. A college degree is hardly insurance for anything.

It's clear this guy doesn't have any actual experience with startups. He rattles off the usual talking points:

> startups can be as profitable as a few are, only because the great majority of other entrepreneurs with similar ideas fail.

Uh, no, they didn't succeed because others failed; they succeed because they were able to sell a product. Also, the ones that failed did not all go hungry in the streets, many if not most of them gained priceless experience of far more financial value than what academia is offering.

I don't necessarily advocate dropping out or going to college. You can learn a lot in college, and I certainly value my degree, however it is not the source of my financial security. As the cost of college goes up, grades inflate, and the percentage of people with college degrees increase, the cost-benefit of college is rapidly shifting. Going to college simply isn't much of a differentiator any more, and because it's gotten so easy, it's not as good an indicator of competence the way it used to be.

Especially these days when companies are no longer loyal, the type of job that a degree is required for is not some bastion of stability. 30 years from now when those college graduates get layed off to cut costs, what is the value of their college degree then? At that point they will be much better off if they've learned some business hustle.

There is something to be said, and it's been said.

The question is whether not it's just said or it's real. Growing evidence suggests that college degrees are falling out of line with needs of society. (I'm not saying degrees are bad things. I love education and keep learning every day. If anything, I have a problem with certification madness)

If you'd like some arm-wavey slandering of the tech community, I'll give it a shot: younger and younger people are making millions of dollars at startups. This has, in effect, created something of a lottery system where there is huge payback but most folks don't win. VCs and Angel groups are jumping on the bandwagon, using age as a indicator of startup potential. All of this creates a perverse set of counter-incentives against a traditional classic liberal education. That's a bad thing.

But it's not bad enough to get all upset about. Not yet. It's simply something to observe and see how it progresses.

First off, I don't have a college degree. I have something like 102 hours, so I'm a year'ish short.

That said, I'm always a bit wary of hiring folks who don't have (at least) a liberal arts education of some kind. I don't really care about the computer science, engineering, physics part of the degree.

I care about the part of college that prepares you to learn. I care about the breadth of experience that literature, writing, philosophy, and the like give you. I've now interviewed far too many folks who have deep computer science knowledge without a degree, but lack the ability to internalize and learn at a deep level. I think that's what college does a tremendous job of preparing people for.

I jump at the chance to hire people who took strong programming skills to college and got a degree in something perpendicular to their programming skill set. One of the best hires I ever made had a degree in hospitality management. Short of that, at least stay in college long enough to complete those required core classes. You'll be a much stronger developer, business person, whatever for it.

I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero inkling of what's involved in the PhD process (no worries, most people don't even when they think they do). I've lived through my wifes years in PhD school (accounting). It was as intense a 5 years as I could imagine anyone enduring.