Happiness without Higher Ed?

For as long as our oldest son (who is nine) has been aware of college, he has proclaimed to my wife and I that he would not go. Until recently I found this a bit odd. My wife and I never spoke ill of higher ed. and although I didn’t go to college, she did. Most kids want to go to college. It’s conventional wisdom that the best path to success and happiness in adult life is to get a degree and get a good job. There is of course very heavy promotion of this path as the ONLY path to success in the school system, but even folks like ourselves who opted out of the grind of K-12 still looked at higher education without much critical thought.

I was late to realize something my son figured out very early- especially embarrassing since I myself did not attend college. What he realized is that the life we chose for ourselves does not end at twelfth grade, and that college is not the only path to success and happiness. In fact, I would go further and say its role in such aspirations is diminishing more and more thanks to technology, economic reality and changing attitudes towards institutional learning. As I said though, it took awhile for these points to drive home in my thick skull. When we decided to homeschool, making sure college was a viable option for our kids was one of my top priorities, despite our son’s protest that he would not be going when the time came.

Now before I try to convince you of what I have recently learned to be true, I would like to share a little of my own history. My path in life from struggling grade school student to father, homeschooler and IT professional has some pretty off the beaten path dimensions to it that I think illustrate how a happy life can be achieved by following a different path, and also how dense I am that I am a living example of something I didn’t even realize until the last year or so.

When I was in school, as far back as I can remember (kindergarten maybe?) I struggled mightily. I had difficulty following instructions, paying attention in class, and completing assignments and so on. I was labeled with ADD (ADHD wasn’t in the diagnostic handbook yet) and put through many novel approaches, from extra one on one teacher time, to counseling and of course Ritalin treatment. None of it was very effective and I sunk deeper and deeper until finally in my Junior (actually sophomore take 2) year, when I was old enough to drop out I did.

As I left school behind the world-wide web was just starting to take shape, and I became a voracious consumer of information delivered electronically, first via phone lines, then with cable modems and now via phones, tablets, refrigerators and who knows what else. I developed my knowledge and skills in topics that interested me, particularly technology, and eventually parlayed those interests and budding skills into an entry-level tech support job. 8 years later I have a lead technology position in the operations group of a leading growth company in the e-commerce space. Along my way I tested for my GED. I also took a couple of college classes, and found them no better than what I had quit in high school. So I quit that and instead found technical training with heavy hands-on learning and pursued that with vigor to earn industry certifications.

You would think that someone who managed to achieve a modest amount of career success without more than one or 2 college courses and not even a real high school diploma would be primed and ready to advocate “uncollege” as passionately as unschooling. However, I had been conditioned like most of us to believe in the innate and unassailable value of higher education. Luckily, my 9-year-old can teach me some things!

I’m admittedly late to the party, but there is a whole movement building in the country of questioning a college degree as the key to success in life. Many people are questioning the value of college education, and a lot of that is from a purely economic standpoint. Going to college costs too much money, and the return on investment is diminishing. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17 million people with Bachelors Degrees are in jobs that do not require any type of degree. So in light of the ever-increasing cost and diminishing returns, why are we all so worried about getting into college?

Paypal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel made waves last year in announcing The Thiel Fellowship. The Thiel Fellowship is a grant available to students and entreprenneur’s 20 and younger to launch the next big technology innovation- the catch? They have to suspend their pursuit of a 4 year degree and put the funds to use immediately to launch their business. Thiel believes that higher education is the next bubble to burst. From this tech crunch article earlier this year, he says the following:

“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

It’s this prevailing attitude that explains why even folks like myself hadn’t questioned the wisdom of this sentiment until recently.

So if you are a graduating high school student, homeschooler or adult looking at going to college, and now questioning if that’s such a great idea, what can you do? What worked for me will certainly not work for everyone, my own kids included so what’s the alternative? First of all, realize that not going to college does not instantly mean you will be stuck with a mcburger-flipping career. Check out this list of 19 great jobs that do not require any type of degree.

You may have your eye on a job that has a stated degree requirement. However, that may not be as big a barrier as you think. A smart person with networking abilities and a willingness to find an angle to market themselves and stand out from the crowd can get their foot in the door. This is what Thiel Fellow Dale Stephens is promoting with his grant. He has founded the UnCollege movement, a movement that seeks to provide networking, support and guidance through social networking for individuals looking to replace the traditional college experience with practical experience and acquiring skills outside of the classroom. In the same vein is the Zero Tuition College, the brainchild of author and self-proclaimed “edu-hacker” Blake Boles. ZTC offers a plan for replacing every aspect of an expensive university education with free or low-cost alternatives, right down to the social aspect (move to a college town!). These two sites also advocate ideas that would apply well to someone interested in entrepreneurship and going into business for themselves.

Obviously, this is not for everyone. There will always be professions in the world that you can’t “open source”. If you want to be a doctor, nurse or lawyer, you will not be able to get around the education requirements. And some may still prefer the traditional path even if a viable alternative exists, and that is OK. If my kids want to go to college after all, I would certainly support it. But I no longer take “college=success” as an article of faith, and I hope others will open their minds to new possibilities as well.