My youngest son, who was arguably the smartest of the four kids, had a real talent for computers back in the 80s and 90s. But he hated school and decided he’d rather work than go to college. He then spent the next twenty years in retail, basically hating every minute of it, but demonstrating very high managerial talent. Along the way, he got married and had kids. He tried applying for other jobs, but with a history in retail, nobody was willing to take a chance on him for non-retail positions. In order to finally escape his situation, he took a pay cut and went to work for an insurance company. He really regrets not getting a degree, and sees no way to improve his situation. He can’t afford to take the time off for schooling, and his work load makes online classes unlikely. I feel for him.
On the other end of the spectrum from Chefguy’s son, I dropped out of HS and got a GED and never got a degree. Meanwhile I’d been programming since I taught myself at age 11 (in 1973), programmed the heck out of my father’s Apple II and marketed my own computer products in my teens. I ended up doing menial jobs for several years then caught a break and got a programming job around age 20. I relocated to silicon valley via that job, and 30 years later I’m at one of the largest software makers in the US and making darned good money and I live near the beach. I regret not having a degree whenever I need to do heavy math for my job, but I figure it out as needed. I don’t regret missing the partying college “experience”, like who cares?
Well, I savor every bit of my experience. I finished HS in the 13th percentile of my class (31 out of 255) and didn’t get any scholarships and loans weren’t a thing in those bygone days. I figured my best bet was to get into Drexel’s co-op program, live at home, beg borrow or steal enough for the first year and then earn enough in the work terms to pay for the rest. So I looked for a summer job to try to get some money. One of the first jobs I tried turned out to be selling magazines door-to-door. I went off for lunch and never came back. But the next one was an ad in the paper for a lab tech. Since I was interested in chemistry, I was interested and called them. So the next Saturday morning I went to a lab at Penn and they explained to me that this was not just a summer job, but a five year program of work/study in which you worked full-time and took classes in General Studies (essentially night school but they were very generous about allowing day classes when you had no choice). Basically, you took 9 credits each in the fall and spring terms and 3 credits in each of the two summer terms for a total of 24 every year. Then at the end of five years you had 120 credits and a degree.
I jumped on this with alacrity. But probably the most important thing was that early in my second year when I was taking calculus, I overheard two grad students at the lab discussing a strange kind of mathematics, called modern algebra. And thus I was introduced into the wonders of abstract math and my future was settled. Nothing there to regret. I don’t miss the lack of fraternity life or the endless partying or any of that. I worked full time (at least theoretically) and studied and I regret none of it.
Boy, I’m really torn on this. I think it’s possible OP accurately depicted his friend, and that even though G got a bum deal it’s time to stop bringing it up in every conversation. I also think it’s possible OP is being rather insensitive/privilege-blind, and also needs to stop talking about college often enough that something a friend does in response can be this repetitive and annoying. (If my best friend whacked me upside the head with a frying pan every time I brought up college, I’m not sure I’d even know because I can’t remember the last time I did.) I’m also curious about everyone’s age. If they’re less than 5 years out of college, I’m tempted to cut everyone some slack. If they’re more than 10 years out, I’d side-eye everyone for not having anything more interesting to discuss by now.
Regardless of who’s right here, if you value this friendship, you might try to show a little more compassion. Don’t expect people to just get over stuff without having a meaningful opportunity to grieve. Have you ever really listened to G about what it was like to be outed in high school? That sounds incredibly painful. Was that the reason he dropped out? He must have missed out on some high school milestones as well, like graduation and prom. Did he lose friends in the process? What about his family–were they supportive, providing a sanctuary from the world? Or did being trapped at home mean something worse than missing out on dorm life and beer pong?
Have you ever acknowledged what an accomplishment it was for him to have come back from that? To get his GED, put himself through college, and not succumb to despair? Some kids in his situation would have gotten into drugs, prostitution, or crime; many would have settled for no diploma, let alone a degree, and a minimum-wage job at best. He deserves to feel proud.
Have you ever talked or thought about what might still be missing from his life, that he might have had if he’d been given a better start? Is he single and struggling with dating? Maybe he wouldn’t be if he’d had more free time in college. Is he working a job he dislikes to pay the bills? Maybe he could’ve discovered his true passion if he’d had more room to screw up with a safety net. Is he restless, dissatisfied in a way he can’t quite place, wondering if there isn’t something more to life? Maybe he wouldn’t feel quite so frustrated if he’d gotten a chance to travel and be self-indulgent for a little while. Maybe not, of course. But maybe you could still validate his feelings.
Then again, if you don’t really like him that much, you could just distance yourself. Some people are exhausting and not worth the effort. Only you can decide.
I know a guy who dropped out of college after a year and a half - smart, but tired of academics and unable to find subjects that interested him.
Despite no musical background, he decided to become a rock & roll musician, so spent 8 months teaching himself keyboard & guitar (he’s impressively hard-working when he gets going on something). He made himself good enough to be taken seriously, played in a successful band for about 4 years and (unlike the others, I gather) saved the money he made.
He took that money plus some he borrowed and got into real estate, starting with low-rent apartments. His habits of very hard work again paid off. I don’t know his actual current net worth, but it’s certainly $15 M, and could be twice that.
He’s the second most successful guy I know. Number one also dropped out of college - in his case to get into software, start a company, and eventually sell it for ~$50 M.
For my own experience, I went to college after high school and pissed away the opportunity, ending up in the military. That was in 1967. In 1978, I started taking night courses at a local extension university and obtained a BA in 1981. It was a degree in Social Sciences, but it was a case of finishing something I had started and failed at back in the day. As has been mentioned, it turned out that employers don’t necessarily care what your degree is in; they often use the requirement as a culling tool for applicants and I was hired for at least two jobs after the military that had engineering degree “requirements”. I wouldn’t have gotten in the door without the credential, and am really glad that I persevered.
Here is a true story of a guy who was a HS dropout and never went to college at all. Joined the Navy and somehow (he was extremely charming) talked his way into OCS and became a naval pilot. creacked up a plane and was discharged with a small disability pension (the only thing I could see was that he had a stiff left arm). He got interested in math and taught himself undergrad math and then started sitting in on grad courses. Eventually, he got admitted to grad school and got a PhD and spent a career as a porfessor of math at a state univeristy. I knew him in grad school in the early 1960s. Utterly bizarre but true. His son was in college with my daughter and had a triple major in math, German, and history with a 4.0 GPA.