6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Go To College
1. It’s Really Expensive And You May Not Even Land A Job At The End.
College is becoming more expensive by the minute, and unless you have super stellar grades or go to a school that has sweet-ass financial aid packages, you’re likely to graduate in four or five years with a whole bunch of debt and no job. The market is so tight that when you go on the market for a job you’re competing with everyone who is thirsty for work. Point is, you should definitely not go to college if the only thing you want out of it is to score a job. Go because you want to learn or have a cool experience, not because you think a college degree is going to get you employed. Bachelor’s degrees kind of don’t mean shit anymore, #realtalk.
2. Colleges Are Becoming More And More Corporate, Meaning They Don’t Even Care About You.
Every single college in the country is becoming more focused on their pocketbooks and what pleases donors than they are about giving you the type of education you deserve and are paying for. I know this because last year I applied to a job as a professor at an elite university and when I had an awkward meeting with the search committee chair, she told me, verbatim, that “Everyone knows that students want to take pop culture courses. We all know that’s what students want. But that’s not where we are putting our resources.” I swear that’s what she told me, and it’s a crying shame because it means students don’t get to learn the stuff they are really curious about. It was proof that most colleges are only interested in rankings, donors, and reputation and not giving students what they want.
3. Do You Really Want To Eat Ramen Noodles Every Day For Four Years?
It’s either that or gaining a bunch of lbs when you can’t stop eating the unlimited waffles on Sundays/beer ponging on Saturdays…
4. Because Thanks To Tinder Etc. You Can Have Hook-Ups Without Even Setting Foot On A College Campus!
Pretty much all people look forward to college because of the bountiful, unlimited sex you can skip class for and have in the campus library. But now you don’t even need to be in college to have that experience! And the benefit of that, too, is that you won’t be forced to go bang some guy and he’s got cummy socks all over his dorm floor and bowls of rusty macaroni laying around next to his bong. Or wait…that guy exists well into his 30s so…mmm.
5. You Can Focus On Other Life Experiences.
Before I graduated in May 2013 I’d been in school literally every single year since preschool. That’s a lot of freaking school, guys. And all that time I spent straining my eyes and brain trying to understand Judith Butler makes me wonder what I missed out on, what experiences I could have had if I’d skipped college and tried to carve my own path. I have a lot of friends from high school who went on “gap year” experiences where they volunteered or studied abroad before heading off to college. Something tells me that that’s a much more memorable and life-shaping experience than packing up and heading to a college campus. Granted, college does make it easier for you to obtain these sorts of experiences, so if you skip college it just means you have to work harder to find the right out-of-college experience that’s perfect for you.
6. You Can Create Your Own Non-Traditional Path.
The real tea is that most people go to college because it’s what they think they’re supposed to do, not what they really want to do. We have this cultural narrative that you are a failure unless you go to college, which many successful writers, businesspeople, and artists have shown to not be true. Avoiding college doesn’t mean being lazy, but it does mean taking charge of what you want out of your life. But you should really only avoid college if you’re fine making your own path and following your own rules. And sometimes, when you’re just doing what you love, amazing opportunities fall right out of the sky. No degree can prepare you for that.