A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

College was a lot less expensive when I went many years ago. However, I suppose that if I had sunk what I and my family spent on it into local real estate, I could have made more money over the years. I have regrets about college--I wish I had taken more math, I wish I had studied more foreign languages--but none of the regrets are financial.

Life is a long haul ride, requires a lot of things to get through it well. College education is obviously one part of it. To me College screwed my long haul instead.

When I graduated, I couldn't find any legal jobs (I could find some jobs masquerading as contracts, that employers offered to avoid paying taxes properly), because whenever I did, the person that got hired was someone else that DIDN'T go to college, but had 4 years of experience more than me.

After some time working (like I said, as "contractor"), and I finally had some experience, my issue was that people hired were either younger with same experience, or my age but more experienced.

And then of course there was the issue that my job selection was extremely limited, I could only take jobs that would let me pay my massive student debt, it felt to me my life wasn't much different than the one of a literal slave, being forced to work into very specific jobs because I couldn't take a job that paid less, or take my time to find a better job, etc...

Now I am 33, I have a wife, don't live with my parents anymore, have a reasonable income.

Still can't get unemployment benefits, because never been employed.

Still I am not even called to many job interviews, because "no experience".

Or one time, I was called to a job interview in a big asian multinational that had a Brazillian gamedev office, they been complaining on media for months they were not finding people qualified for the job, the job title was exactly what I had a degree for, the HR loved me and all.

Then when the last step left was for them to get authorization from higher ups... the authorization didn't came.

Know why?

Well, because although I had a degree, they didn't cared about the degree, what they cared about, was experience.

So no, college is NOT "obviously" part of anything unless you mean being "obviously" part of crushing student debt that force thousands into conditions that in my country are literally legally slavery if the owner of the debt was also the employer (we have a law named "employment analogous to slavery", one of its points is that employing people to have them repay their debt to you is considered slavery).

In summary: many people go to expensive colleges and don't live a good life. On other hand, many people don't go to colleges but live a good life.

That's all.

Maybe it’s half true. I wanted to be in college, and everyone I met was happy to be there. However, there is some anger at the feeling that you HAVE to be there. There is a lot of cultural pressure to get a higher education. I also remember feeling like I had to decide the rest of my life by choosing a degree, and that really stressed me out. However, I still really wanted to go to college.

Yes, we tend to pay a lot to go to college, and yes, a lot of us feel like we must do it. A lot of choices factor into how much you pay - community college can reduce this, going to a lesser known school, etc. However, it’s an investment in yourself. For some of us, that investment works out really well. Others may struggle to get that awesome job after college.

>Well you can't become a surgeon or a lawyer unless you switch a university track at some point.

"Can't" because those are the rules we've established. But both of those professions seem like they be perfect for apprenticeships (they were at one point in history). It's not like studying the literature isn't or can't be a part of apprenticeship curriculum.