I could, and did, write a book (http://www.aarongreenspan.com/authoritas.html) about this subject, namely, why the American educational system is broken. I found college to be particularly difficult, but even so, I still think that James Altucher is wrong. Not only is his analysis wrong, but his facts are wrong. Unbelievably expensive though it may be, I know of no college that costs $400,000 over four years. Students are not cleanly divided into "the well-rounded generalists" and "the focused entrepreneurs." There are considerable virtues to liberal arts education, even if Mr. Altucher is too dense and narrow-minded to appreciate them.
College is a waste of time and money for kids
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Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#12I've found that college is great for the 'pluggers' in life. Those kids you remember from high school who asked question after boring question and spent hours on their home work while you spent class time hacking your graphing calculator and spent study hall exploring your high school's network. Sure they got better grades than you, but instead of an A on your test you got a B- and worked 10x less to get it. College…
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Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#13Look. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to live.
People need to stop focusing on the black and white and become aware of the greyscale.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#14Great piece. Helps re-encourage me that I'm not throwing my life away.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#15I think most of the comments here are missing the key argument in this article: namely that in addition to college being a poor fit for many potential students, there are some much better, more productive ways that young people could spend the time in the years immediately following high school.
The suggestions to encourage your kid to practice one skill, or start a business, are spot-on, at least from an economic POV. Learning a trade and having some business experience are much more effective at increasing your future potential earnings than a liberal arts education.
Personally, I dropped out after my freshman year to go work for a startup I've had a great time working in IT since then, and consistently out-earned my friends who stayed in school, even now that they've had 4-6 years in the workforce to catch up on experience.
That being said, I think that there is still a strong argument to be made for people eventually attending college. I still look forward to college as something I'll do in the future as a sort of "working vacation." I.e., just like faculty take a sabbatical to focus on their research, or spend time with their family, I hope to take a couple of years off to devote myself to intense, full-time study of some subject other than computers.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#16Hes off the mark by a long shot. Is college right for everyone? No, and on both sides of the equation. A very small group of people are too smart for it, get too constrained by it, etc. There is a much larger group of people who are not smart enough for it, or don't work hard enough to get there. For everyone else, it makes sense. To say that you won't make up the money (and he says 200,000 - 400,000, that is a 50,00…
$50,000 per year is not actually that high in the grand scheme of things as a total cost to attend a private college, since most undergrads depend heavily on their parents for financial support.
If you subtract a base tuition of $35,000 from that, you're left with $15,000 per year as total living expenses. That's barely over $1200, and has to cover not only rent and food, but textbooks, computers, and other costs of campus life. Even assuming your kid doesn't do much partying, or need access to a car, $15k is hardly a lavish annual budget.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#17I was with him right until he say not to travel. Travel is the single biggest step in developing a proper perspective of life in this world, and what part you'll choose to play in the future. At 25, you can tell if someone has traveled or not by having a 15 minute conversation with them. The traveled ones are always much more rational in thought, and open in mind, and aware of the possibilities. Non traveled folk ten…
Travel will expose you to new experiences. How much your learn and imbibe from those experiences, depends on individual personality.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#18College gives kids thousands of other kids to hang out with, at a critical point in their lives when they are just entering into adulthood.
College gives kids a chance to create their own social identity, as seen through the eyes of their peers, rather than their parents.
If you are a social recluse, and spend most of your college years hiding behind your computer screen, then yeah, you might as well not go.
If you recognize that human beings are herd animals, and that in order to learn how to be a leader in the herd, you need to have a herd to practice on ...
I learnt some really important life lessons in college, most of them outside of class. I heartily recommend it. Challenge your expectations of what you can and can't do. You may be surprised by how much more you can grow.
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#19I like how the article suggests that the cost of developing a viral Facebook application is $200 for outsourcing to India.
I agree with the premise of the article, though. Except for the $400,000 price tag. Where does that come from?
Re: College is a waste of time and money for kids
#20I don't think he goes far enough. Looking back, my university experience was indeed sort of a waste of time. However, the time I spent in college was orders of magnitude better than the previous four years of high school.
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Ok, I just closely read the piece instead of just skimming it. I do think college can be a waste of time for many people. However, the suggestion to instead outsource Facebook/MySpace application development to India is ridiculous. Also, what college costs $400,000? Ivy League tops out at about $40K/yr. UC Berkeley is about $9K per year.