What do you think of someone who doesn't want a college education?

My friend quit college and worked construction.

He sucked at it and got fired.

Then he started selling pot.

Then he got arrested.

Now he is poor and has a fat chick.

True story.

I used to be a fine arts major (drawing/printmaking). Probably should have went the design/computer graphics route. After three years decided that degree would lead me nowhere....so switched to exercise science. Should have stayed in and went for a graduate degree (physical therapy).

So ended up with a BS in Exercise Science and paid for an ACSM certification. Made 25k after school working in corporate wellness. Did some personal training on the side. Worked there from 2004-2010. Promoted twice. Ended up at 35k. I was one step below the facility director who only made 40k.

Joined the Army in 2010. The degree helps with promotion. My civilian equivalent salary is close to twice what I made using my degree.

Alan

I dropped out of community college bored out of my mind, no surprise because I hated HS except for girls and parties. I hated the military(reserves) and did terrible. I started selling gym memberships and was pretty good. Went to work selling insurance and did better. I average $120,000 a year in a small town where that income is pretty good. I just had to find out what made me tick. No way could I fit in the normal work world. I wake up knowing I can usually do what I want as long as I sell. I work out of the house and go upstairs to my office at 8 am and either go sell something or workout. Not bragging here because I went through some painful times until I really got to know who I was and what would and what would not work for me.

Chaunuchi wrote:

?

I'd say....

They don't want to be brainwashed by libtards only to have a job as a barista making minimum wage plus tips when they joined the REAL WORLD.

I have a buddy who lives outside DC. Everyone else went to college and he was a roofer one summer and kept doing it. Long story short went into business himself after starting at the bottom. He learned a few things and this is what he did, residential roofing, no cussing or music played on people's property. His guys guarantee the yard will be as clean as the day they started.

No yelling or acting up while working. He pays his guys well for doing a good job. Little to no advertising and twenty years later he is a millionaire. All word of mouth. All he has is a high school education. He drives a nice pick up truck and his wife has a navigator. He owns several rentals and could quit working today and be fine.

A buddy of mine wouldn't pay for all of his kids college education even though he is a dentist. The brothers went out in the summer selling alarm systems door to door to get the income they needed for a no name small college in Virginia. They paid for college and the sales managers noticed how hard they worked in the summer and hired them after college to knock on doors all year. With no better opportunity the brothers kept knocking on doors and made money. A solar company hired them to manage an office out west and they make $200,000 a year managing door to door salespeople. They went to a no name college but had little opportunity until they made their opportunity.

My brother in law was a cop outside of DC with no college education. Did 25 years and done with a county pension that's pretty good. Went to community college and then a four year school over his career. He is now in his second career in charge of court house security for the State. The two checks combined he makes bank.

My point ? More then one way to skin a cat...or make a living. The common fabric with all of these guys is they are honest, hard working people.

One summer, I worked at Target as a cashier when I was a teenager. Half the new hires were fresh college grads with liberal arts degrees like journalism, marketing, art, etc. We were making the same wage except I was 16 with no debt, and they were 22 with 50k-100k+ in debt. For these people, college is the new high school.

Like many here, I went to a state school for engineering and paid for most of it myself. I worked part time during school and full time in the summers. I made $10-$15/hour from internships. I finished school with a job that paid $54k/year and had about $16k in debt, not bad. As for my classmates whose parents paid for their entire tuition? 9/10 of them dropped out because they skipped class, partied, and smoked weed all day.

I'm now in my 30s and play pick-up basketball. These guys were complaining about how much their kids' tuitions cost them. One guy had 3 kids that all attended private undergrad schools, each cost $40k/year. I didn't even ask what their major was because no undergrad degree is worth that much. I told them I paid for school myself and they both stared at me blankly like I was an alien from another planet.

I did not go to college. I started my own business and make $3,456,900 a year. My friends who went to college make $3.54 an hour. My business is shoveling bs on the internet.

Not arrogance at all, and the "fight it out" is the resume and/or perhaps a phone call to each of them to see who I want to call in for a face-to-face interview. You HAVE to make judgements on resumes when they come in. if a job posting brings in 100 resumes, I'm not going to interview them all. I'll cut it down to 2 or 3 initially and see who does well in the interview and accepts the job offer if one is given. If they don't work out, then I move to the next 2 or 3.

Criteria for getting the interview:

1) Proper education. If a college degree is required, then they need that. Will want a related degree. Ohio State grad with the right major would trump Harvard grad with wrong major.

2) Performance in college...GPA, involvement, leadership, internships, etc.

Once the 2 or 3 get whittled down out of 100, then it's time to decide which 2 to call in for the interview. If they are all tied with previous criteria, the student from the elite college is coming in for sure. It's just an extra test they had to pass...it is not easy to get admitted to an elite college.

AND, no one said anything about debt vs. no debt. Fact of the matter is that for most people, a degree from an Ivy League college (and other elite colleges) will cost the same or LESS than a degree from the flagship state university. Stanford just announced that if your household income is $125,000 or less, and you are admitted, you will get FULL TUITION, having to pay just room and board. If you make $65,000 or less, you will get FULL TUITION AND FULL ROOM AND BOARD. This is very close to what Ivy League schools offer and just slightly better than many other elite colleges. They can do this because they have BILLIONS of dollars in their endowments. Harvard's endowment is $32 BILLION+. Can't just assume an elite education will cost more. For those who pay full price, they can afford to do so in most cases. Ivy League and other elite colleges annually make the "most affordable" college and "best value" college lists.

People use cost to explain why they (or their kid) went to a lower-level college than to an elite one. BS a lot of the time.

For every anecdote of someone earning $300k without any higher education there are 10 doing it with some higher education IMO.

Getting work is more difficult today for EVERYONE - NOT just those who graduate from post-high school programs.

If you don't believe in studies then that is ok but here is some information that you may want to use as a basis to form an opinion:

"Among millennials ages 25 to 32, median annual earnings for full-time working college-degree holders are $17,500 greater than for those with high school diplomas only. That gap steadily widened for each successive generation in the latter half of the 20th century. As of 1986, the gap for late baby boomers ages 25 to 32 was just more than $14,200, and for early boomers in 1979, it was far smaller at $9,690. The gap for millennials is also more than twice as large as it was for the silent generation in 1965, when the gap for that cohort was just under $7,500 (all figures are in 2012 dollars).

Put another way, today's young high school-only grads earn about 62 percent of what their college-graduate peers earn. In 1965, the figure was nearly 81 percent."

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/02/11/study-income-gap-between-young-college-and-high-school-grads-widens

I wouldn't think much of it.

If you aren't sure what you want to do, I don't think you should go to college. I don't think it should be any cause for concern if someone doesn't want to go or even have an alternative plan. The important thing is to make sure you do whatever you do to the very best of your ability and to be 100% dedicated.

I know plenty of people who didn't go to college and enjoy what they do. I know a guy who went to wash dishes after high school. He had no direction but he was very loyal, responsible and has always took pride in his work no matter how menial some people could think it was Now he's managing partner of a pretty high end restaurant making amazing dishes that you'll never see anywhere else. He's got quite a bit of status in the area. People drive hours to eat his food. He makes a decent salary too but that's not what's really important.

For me, I would have benefitted waiting a few years before going to college to get my mind straight and focus on what I really want my life to be about.

I listened to much to other people about what a good path might be because I was too insecure to listen to myself. As a result I got crap grades because I didn't truly enjoy the subject matter of my degree. Some people can ace tests on subjects they don't care about but not me. I have to be truly interested.

If I could do it again(and I actually might) I would get a different major. I'd end up having a significantly smaller income cap in that career but I think I'd feel much more fulfilled.

I'll admit it. I was on the dad scholarship. I knew how lucky I was and it made me feel uncomforable seeing everybody working so hard. I did work 10 hours just for my own cash to go to concerts and what not. Had I been paying for my education I might have thought about it differently. oh well. I'm not going to should all over myself.

What did you major in and what do you wish you had?

Small town living wrote:

A buddy of mine wouldn't pay for all of his kids college education even though he is a dentist. The brothers went out in the summer selling alarm systems door to door to get the income they needed for a no name small college in Virginia. They paid for college and the sales managers noticed how hard they worked in the summer and hired them after college to knock on doors all year. With no better opportunity the brothers kept knocking on doors and made money. A solar company hired them to manage an office out west and they make $200,000 a year managing door to door salespeople. They went to a no name college but had little opportunity until they made their opportunity.

Those have got to be mormons.

Mormons sell alarms door to door after their mission

There is also a tiny mormon owned school in virginia.

Am Iright?

That was kind of a douchey thing to do no?

I mean, you are a dentist. Are you that strapped?

major minor dude wrote:

What did you major in and what do you wish you had?

I majored in political science thinking it would be a good precursor for law school(which I never even applied for because I had such poor grades). I ended up in the financial industry. I don't think I had a clear idea of what a lawyer really does in the modern day. I just knew lawyers made good money and it is a respected profession(despite all the lawyer jokes).

I would like to be in counseling. It was one of the many careers I entertained. Although it's very possible that it has more appeal now because I've had to sort through all the emotional/pshychological/sociological facets of what landed me in a job that doesn't fulfill me. So maybe it was necessary for me to get the wrong major. Who knows.

The point is..I don't know if OP was asking this out of concern for a friend or kid. Or if OP was asking about whether people judge non-college folk.

If it's out of concern. People can sometimes come out the other end of directionless ok. If it's out of judgement then....well college isn't necessary for wealth as many have discussed here. Wealth isn't always about income either.

major minor dude wrote:

What did you major in and what do you wish you had?

First major was fine arts, changed to exercise science.

Wish I would have gone the graphic design or computer graphics route. I learned to be a pretty good teacher/instructor through personal training/military. So maybe teacher. Could have gone the collegiate strength coach route but my knowledge base was pretty weak back then.

I'm going to try to get a masters while I'm in the Army. If I do it all online it will probably be exercise science. If I go green to gold it will probably be something generic like an MBA.

Alan

Yeah my wife did poly sci and went to law school

I did engineering and went to law school after grad.

She hates her job and is actually quitting this Friday. I don't care about being miserable too much so long as the paycheck is big enough. Big Law is pretty miserable.

I miss working on cool engineering projects for the Navy and others. I may go back. The loans were substantial but they are getting paid off.

If you can do what you love that is like winning the lottery no matter how you get there.