You have to go to college to get a good job and make money
Actually, college grads have an average of $35,000 in debt and 60% of them have no job or jobs that don’t require degrees. Those silly earnings statistics have the causation backwards.
But you still need to learn skills for the real world!
Actually, employers report that college grads are completely unprepared for what’s needed in the real world. You can learn all the skills you need better, faster, and cheaper through an apprenticeship. College tends to foster all the worst skills; the type that make humans dull rule followers, easily replaceable by machines.
You can’t be so one-dimensional and materialistic. The liberal arts are important to becoming well rounded person.
Precisely why you shouldn’t go to college. Student knowledge of liberal arts is the same when they exit as when they enter school, and none of them like going to class anyway. Anyone who is interested can read books and articles or take classes for free or incredibly cheap and get a far better liberal arts education.
It’s not about the knowledge, it’s about the network!
College networks are incredibly limited and uniform. Anyone can build a rich, diverse network through work, travel, social clubs, or any number of ways that don’t cost six figures or take five years.
It’s not about the specific job, skills, knowledge, or network, it’s about the glories of the unique campus environment, the parties, the football, the four year escape to live and grow up!
Anyone can move to a college town and have all that and more without ever paying tuition or registering for classes.
Employers still need a degree as a signal of hireablility!
Actually, fewer and fewer require it and even those that do care far more about things that actually signal value creation. A degree is one of the weakest signals on the market and the most expensive. There are more ways than ever to get great jobs and stand out without wasted time or wasted dime.
Some jobs have mandated legal requirements for a degree!
Yes. Yes they do. And they shouldn’t. Of course, many of those jobs are “prestige” careers that students don’t actually enjoy but feel like their parents need them to pursue like law or medicine. Even there, opportunity to innovate and work in those industries as an entrepreneur without the costly credential exist and are growing rapidly.
But old people and parents might look down on you if you don’t do it!
Yep. They look down on just about everything young people enjoy, create, and do well. They’ll adjust.