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When speaking with a few parents, one of the parents asked us whether they should encourage their son to attend college, even though he is interested in a career that does not require a college degree.
At first, we thought it may be a silly question - why would you go to college if you know your career does not require a college degree?
But then we began to think of circumstances where it can make sense.
We know that many of you may be having similar thoughts - as much of a bad reputation as going to college is getting at the moment, no one wants their son o daughter to skip it and then regret it when their job prospects are not great.
Overall College View
As always, our belief system remains the same - college is a tool to a specific outcome. You should be outcome focused, not process focused. Once you know what you want to do, then you can determine the optimal way to get there.
If your ideal outcome does not require a college degree, then why pursue it? You are taking on debt and wasting time when you could be pursuing your goals.
For example, we do not believe in going to college “for the college experience” only. There will always be time to drink, the internet exists to connect you with other perople, and educational content is available online. That is not a reason to bury yourself in debt.
We are also ignoring situations where people go to college for networking means - those situations are atypical and the rules for individuals in those situations are very different than the every-day indiviudal.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the question at hand -
When Going to College for Non-College Careers Makes Sense
Sometimes, you find yourself in a situation where you know what you what to do but you lack an important skillset to achieve it.
For example, let us assume that you are going to trade school to become a plumber. You do not need college for this role, but an argument could be made that if you intend to build a business, pursuing a business degree makes sense.
This highlights our view on when someone should consider college, even if they do not need it for a given skill or career:
If an individual is pursuing a career that does not require a college degree, they should still consider college if college provides a 1) a fundamental skillset they may need, 2) structured curriculum is a better option than adhoc internet learning, 3) the skilset is marketable and 4) a cost-effective education
That’s a lot so let’s break that down.
Fundamental skillset you may need
Running a business is different than performing a service. There are plenty of people who can perform a service but have no ability to actually run a business. For those individuals, getting supplemental training/a degree in business can help.
The same can be said for other opportunities - you can always pursue a career in sales, but perhaps you need to learn something about technology to be more technically efficient in seling to more complex customer bases.
Structured Curriculum
Let’s face it, there is a lot that you can learn online for free or at significant discount when compared to college education.
If you can learn it online, there is no reason to try to learn it through a college classroom at 10x the cost.
But sometimes, you need something structured that you cannot easily find online. Or you can find them, but you are unsure how to go about using the information you find to really make sure you understand the content.
This is when a curriculum is advantageous. And that is what college is good for.
Skillset is marketable
You don’t want to go to college for a single skill that has no application outside of your non-college career. You want somethingt that you can fall back on.
Getting a business or finance degree is useful because you can get hired for another job. Getting a college degree in general studies to learn Microsoft Excel is not.
Cost-effective
Remember, you do not need a college degree. So if you are going to get one, then you need to find one that is going to make the most sense to you economically. There is no point to pursue debt when you do not need it. It is meant to supplement your skills, and if you approach it that way, you will find the most direct program you can to improve your skillset.