Thread: College or not

Originally Posted by kurtyordy

According to Forbes magazine, average net worth of the members of their list who did not get a college degree- 5.86 billion, those with a degree, 3.14 billion. Looks like I screwed myself out of over 1.5 billion dollars by finishing college. Crap.

Maybe, maybe not. I heard a quote years ago (forget from where) "Don't be average".
Obviously those who have made it on to the Forbes richest aren't average citizens.

KC

granted. I just found it interesting considering our cultur believing that college is a must for everyone. The screwed comment was tongue in cheek

Is the list skewed by a few people near the top of the list (like Gates), or is the distribution fairly even between degreed and nondegreed people.

since it is an average, gates definetely skews things. BTW, a stat for those college frensied. Only 11.26% of the 400 did not have a college degree.

in case it was not obvious, I am a geek that loves stats even though something like 64% of them are made up.

This is what we tell our kids about college...

There are two issues for you to think about as you approach adulthood...

One is your financial life.
The other is your vocation/passion.

For your financial health it is best to build a business and/or be an investor. You do not need to go to college to learn about how to do this.

If you decide you have a passion to do meaningful work in a certain area then you may need to go to college.... example - you want to be a doctor or an attorney or a CPA.

They know that they may go to college if they choose, but that it is not necessary for financial success.

I got my degree in accounting and I have never worked a day in my life as an accountant. I do use some of the knowledge I learned in college - but I certainly could have learned the same things without going to college.

That's according to Forbes Magazine...

According to the guy who runs the homeless shelter down the street, average net worth of the folks who did not get a college degree is much less than those who did...

Of course, I would argue that neither the Forbes list nor the opinions of the guy at the homeless shelter are statistically relevant, so take it for what it's worth...

I studied physics because it has been my passion for years. Space, the final frontier, you know. As soon as I realized that I would starve from that even if I did find a job there, I switched towards economics and IT. Itīs a pity that they didnīt teach me about entrepreneurship. Luckily it had nothing to do with skills I acquired but the degree itself helped people convince to give me a job and to promote me later on. Though financially a loss at he beginning, the college helped me getting much better salary than average in the end. Of course itīs still just a job, sigh.

Btw I only believe in statistics I faked by myself.