Top Ten Reasons To Skip Out On A 4-Year Degree
1. Save on paying aid student loans. An article from USA Today estimates the average student collects $19, 300 in debt from all sources. Although this can be considered manageable; $20, 000 is nothing to scoff at. This means the debtor will be required to pay an average of $150- $250 per month. And considering the average is 20k, this means some students graduate with zero debt while others graduate with over $100, 000 in debt. Imagine being unsure of your job prospectus with $100, 000 in student loans and a monthly payment of over $800. For some this is frightening to think about but for others it’s reality. Even if your payment is the average stated above, paying minimum payments usually means you will be paying off your college for roughly 10 years.
2. Your ideal career may not require a degree. I am a perfect example of this. I went to business school without knowing that I would go crazy in an office setting. Why do I abominate the office life? Simply set, I enjoy managing diverse tasks while being physically active at work. So I graduated from college, and by that time knew I would go crazy in an office. Therefore, upon graduation, my career opportunities were limited by my personal preferences that I finally figured out after college.
3. College may not be the right fit for you as a person. Some people go to college because that is what the social norms pronounce us to do with our life. Rather than doing what everyone else is doing, find out what you want to do. By typing “career assessment test” in Google, several websites will pop up that have tests you can retract to better understand your personal skills.
4. Wait to figure out exactly what you want in a career. I remember asking peers my freshman year what their major was, and asking the same people again their junior year only to contemplate he/she was studying a different subject. What this means is that most people should start at a junior college to study all of their basics. Upon completing basics, the student will have saved money, and had more time to judge about what he or she wants to eye. From my personal experience, I changed my major twice.
5. Invest your current income. Imagine a world where rather than accumulating college debt, you are investing in rental property. After several years of working, not only will you have a 401k working for you, you may be able to invest in something such as true estate.
6. Advance in your current career. If you are tickled with your current job, you can use the time you would have spent in college moving up in the company. My current job does not require a degree, so if I worked for my company rather than obtaining a degree, I would more than likely be two levels higher than I am now. Promotions are big because although you have more responsibility, you will receive a bigger paycheck.
7. College does not determine a person’s success. I do understand that there is statistical data out there that states that a person with a degree will produce XX number of more dollars throughout his or her lifetime, on average. This statistical data, however, does not take into consideration the millions of people without degrees who are much more successful than those with degrees.
8. No Degree? Doesn’t mean you are uneducated. A person with a degree may go to work and come home and do nothing. A person without a degree may go to work and near home to study the stock market for several hours. So, it isn’t really fair to label those without degrees as “uneducated.” What matters is how smart you are. Think about all of the success stories of people who did not go to college, there are too many to list!
9. The decreasing value of a college degree. The cost of a college degree is rising but the wages of degree holders isn’t always steadily increasing. One of the main concerns for employers is that job skills can be so narrow for each company that universities are certainly not teaching those specific skills. An interesting article about the declining value of a degree can be found here: http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB121623686919059307.html
10. You can self-learn. The internet and improving technology makes your self-learning limitless. Most that go to college are detached being supported by parents, so take the time to figure out how you can be both independent, and successful.
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Filed under Student Loans Without Cosigner by on Nov 17th, 2011. 