Everyone is taught (sold) that college is this life-changing experience that will prepare you to succeed.

College exists to make you a good EMPLOYEE. In other words, if you want to work for someone else then college is a good place to start.

All my friends and family acted like I had a terminal disease when I dropped out of school. Fortunately, I make more than all of them now so there really isn’t a damn thing they can say. (and I work less too)

College is full of social opportunities though, and is a great place to meet others…it’s also a great way to get buried in debt before you’ve even had a chance to get started in life and then spend 10-40 years paying off the loans while working as a cubicle drone. My “college educated” friends are all miserable. It’s not 1950 anymore folks…

Seth baby Marketing is not a profession its not even a fracking associate profession eg technician.

Management skills – I think that the best place to learn management is to actually go to work. To experience the things college is just trying to show you. People that haven’t went to school don’t just lie on the couch and doing nothing. They are learning and gathering experience.

I don’t know much about US or UK universities but at my place there is no school that can teach me SEO, PPC or any other SEM related domain. I can’t imagine learning something for 4 or more years and going to my first job and realizing that all I have learned is no longer valid. The industry is changing so rapidly that way of doing things a year ago I now outdated.

The thing that I think some people are missing is that when you’re not at collage studying your not doing nothing.

I think I can make some observations form my own experience. I do not have any degree. I’m 23 years old and I have my own family by now and living for my own – what I can’t say about my friends in universities. I’ve managed to learn and to work hard and gain trust of my bosses. People that are fresh from school are being trained by people such as myself. Heck! I even have to check their texts to fix spelling and grammar.

So to sum up. I believe that people that are successful are passionate about what they do and have the courage to do it. Statistics are for average Joe and I believe that average Joe and success are not on the same page. University is probably a good experience for everybody whom had the privilege to go there. But it’s not for all of us. I recommend watching this TED video about how we are educated out of creativity http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66 it’s really something.

I hate to see people trying to judge other people with the same rules and statistics. If we were to be judged this way we would be probably robots not creative humans I would also recommend reading this post about what can happen to intelligent people after college because they don’t have the experience to choose their work accordingly to what they want to do http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/04/google-putting-up-fence-and-gate-to.html.

My father had 11 siblings and four children. Out of that group only 3 or 4 got a college degree, but 5 or 6 became millionaires (some of them did it back when that was a lot of money). No overlap between the two. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t point that out to my kids.

True. But most of the folks who do that kind of thing will never be employees anyway.

of course probably worth noting a heck of a lot more memorable things get built by taking risks and chances than with a CYA attitude.

But don’t get worked up about Seth. As I said before, he doesn’t walk on water for me. He’s nothing special.. in fact, his success is probably because his stuff has great appeal for the masses.. and we all know the masses have no taste, right?

I agree you can learn a lot of really great things in school, but to look down on people who didnt go, or treat them as inferior second class citizens, or disqualify them from positions they are qualified to do, just gets me going …

Some of us need to be taught, and some of us need to learn on our own.

I hated every minute of school – couldn’t wait to reach the age of 16 when I could legally quit. I was bored, bored, bored – and I was fortunate enough to be in a “gifted and talented” program!

I learned from reading, from experimenting, from asking questions, and that’s still the way I learn today. College had nothing to offer me. But not everyone is the same: some people DO get great benefits from being led to knowledge.