I'm a late thirty-something college dropout, and have yet to regret leaving. I attended a fine small liberal arts school (one of those that rotates through the top three spots of the rankings) and attended for three non-consecutive years. I'd start each year with a love of learning and a sense of potential, and finish each one hating the world and most everyone in it.
I learned an awful lot there, but a lot more from the environment than the actual courses. I learned about money (I'd never really seen it before), I learned about class in America (we didn't have much of that growing up in Wisconsin), and I learned about a lot about cultural relativism (theory and practice). Given a chance, I would highly encourage anyone to attend the best institution they can possibly gain entrance to. It will be eye opening.
But actually getting a degree? Optional. It always felt to me that the certification was at odds with the education. Instead of learning anything in particular, I was being taught to juggle, and to not care too deeply about what I was keeping in the air. This is likely of great value to an employer, but as an individual I want the freedom to care deeply about the content, and never found this to be possible in even an excellent liberal arts college environment.
Financially, I'm probably doing worse than most of my peers who stuck with it. But I think this is more a factor of my personality than the lack of a degree. I left the final time to work at a computer company founded by some friends of mine (social networking advantage) and we managed to sell that successfully. The current startup is much shakier, and at this point all the savings are gone, but I'm pretty sure the lack of a degree has not been holding me back.
Anyway, I'm all for Peter Thiel. I wish something like this had been around for me. It would have been great to have the feeling there was some approved alternative to college rather than just slogging through.
I learned an awful lot there, but a lot more from the environment than the actual courses. I learned about money (I'd never really seen it before), I learned about class in America (we didn't have much of that growing up in Wisconsin), and I learned about a lot about cultural relativism (theory and practice). Given a chance, I would highly encourage anyone to attend the best institution they can possibly gain entrance to. It will be eye opening.
But actually getting a degree? Optional. It always felt to me that the certification was at odds with the education. Instead of learning anything in particular, I was being taught to juggle, and to not care too deeply about what I was keeping in the air. This is likely of great value to an employer, but as an individual I want the freedom to care deeply about the content, and never found this to be possible in even an excellent liberal arts college environment.
Financially, I'm probably doing worse than most of my peers who stuck with it. But I think this is more a factor of my personality than the lack of a degree. I left the final time to work at a computer company founded by some friends of mine (social networking advantage) and we managed to sell that successfully. The current startup is much shakier, and at this point all the savings are gone, but I'm pretty sure the lack of a degree has not been holding me back.
Anyway, I'm all for Peter Thiel. I wish something like this had been around for me. It would have been great to have the feeling there was some approved alternative to college rather than just slogging through.