You don’t need to go to college to access knowledge, this isn’t the middle ages anymore.
But
(a) your situation and needs may - and most likely will - change, as either you or your external circumstances change: you will stand a better chance of adapting to change if you’ve got some understanding of different experiences and ways of thought, and how they might be used
(b) if you’re in the situation that your future depends on “our” estimation of of what 'we" might need of you and what you know, you have much better opportunities if you have widely-accepted evidence that you have that knowledge and understanding, and that you stuck to it and saw that programme of study through rather than rushing off for the easy money
(c) what sense of identity and self-worth can you maintain if did throw everything up for the easy money (even if it does stay easy, which in real life it might well not, over time)?
No, but college, if done right, isn’t about “accessing knowledge” – it’s about developing skills and having experiences. One of those experiences is simply spending several years around a bunch of people from all walks of life who are smart and creative in different ways than you are, and having your beliefs challenged and your horizons expanded by them. Others are more specific and may not apply to every student, but are still hard to get outside of a formal educational institution: doing research in a lab or archive with an experienced faculty mentor, for example, or working with other students to design and curate a gallery exhibit or publish a literary magazine, or collecting and transcribing oral histories from people in the community. (All of these are things students at my not-especially-fancy public university do regularly.)
Undoubtedly there are students who can’t or don’t want to take advantage of these opportunities, and for them college might not be the best choice, but “long distance correspondence courses or something,” as the OP puts it, is not a reasonable equivalent.
Sad to say it’s the common denominator in several of his recent posts… I’m very much sensing a theme, here.
What is she supposed to do if you divorce? I can only assume you’d be 100% on board with any sort of alimony she’d ask for, since she would have been required (How? Why?) to give up any chance she would have at making her own income.
Some people can be perfectly happy not working. I think I’d be pretty happy not working, and finding other things to do. Others need to work because they get bored otherwise. I know people who can and probably should have retired years ago, yet they continue to work as long as possible because they choose to. What if your hypothetical wife in this situation is one of those people? She doesn’t want to sit around alone at home - she wants to be doing her own thing and making a name for herself and her own money.
And to address another point, college isn’t about just a handful of book knowledge you can find almost anywhere. Plenty of jobs take someone just FINISHING college over someone who hasn’t, regardless of degree. It shows a high level of commitment to completing something that can be difficult and stressful. That is not to say you can’t be successful without college - of course you can. But it can be a fierce uphill battle and if my only reward is a spoiled dude whose never worked a day in his life, I’ll take the diploma, thank you.
Apologies for another post - I just thought it this a few minutes later.
Since traditional college students are in the 18-22 age range, maybe tack on a few years for some, not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things are getting married before or during that time. So you’re asking a hypothetical 18 year old if, instead of going to school and making sure she has at least a chance at decent earning potential on her own merit, she wants to hook up with a rich guy who I guess has no patience for women and colleges, and PRAY they get a happily ever after scenario… uh huh.
A) You complete high school and go on to college and 10 years down the line you’re able to tell people at a cocktail party that you graduated college and it makes you feel good.
B) You don’t complete high school and never go to college and 10 years down the line you’re at a cocktail party with your millionaire spouse where everyone laughs at you behind your back because you’re a “trophy spouse” and a “gold digger” who is going to take all of your spouse’s money in the divorce, as there was no pre-nup because both parties were completely sure they were so in love when they got married when you were only 17 and oh my god what an idiot they were but really you’re the spawn of Satan who had this plan all along and had the audacity to get old and less sexy.
Let me interpret if I can.
Yo, institutional education just isn’t for me. I think I can make $20 million by becoming a YouTuber. But this girl I like, laughs at my idea. I think, if those idiots on YouTube can do it, so can I. But how do I explain that to her? Please help me.
Most (almost all?) of those YouTubers…ah lets see,
Several physicists, an engineer, a few etymologists, some number of undisclosed “liberal arts” degree holders. Quite a few communications/journalism degrees and one who started out making movies before switching to YouTube with a degree in … cinema? Theater? Something like that
I don’t know of any youtubers myself that don’t have a college education.
Plus being a successful YouTuber costs some amount of money
There are make-up artists, guys who pull practical jokes, guys that do trampoline tricks, singers, video game players, etc etc. Plenty without higher education degreees. But to be in the stratosphere of supporting yourself, is very rare. Much less pulling down $20 MM.
Even the youtuber with 1,000,000 subscribers only pulls down about mid $50k a year, and that’s if you keep them.
knock-knock?
Being a successful YouTube business-person who is worth $20 mill is like saying, “I want to be an inventor. I will invent something that everybody needs, and I’ll be famous and rich.”
Or someone saying, “Rap music is easy. I want to be a rap singer and make kajillions of bucks.”
Do some research. Find out how many people FAIL at those professions for every one who makes it to the top. What makes you so sure you have what it takes to succeed?
And dear GAWD help me if you say, “Mr mother, or my cousins, or my best friends say I’m the best they’ve ever heard.”
~VOW
When I was a kid I wanted to be a butterfly scientist*. :smack:
I decided I like to eat regularly.
And I didn’t like bugs all that much.
*niche
Funny, I recently wrote a story about the martyrdom of butterflies. I wanted to be a writer not too long ago, but ultimately decided to pursue a legal career instead for a similar reason.
Because life is long and not predictable - may as well get educated especially if it’s free.
Please, please, please be Interrupting Cow. I still do that one with my kids. They generally roll their eyes. Sometimes they leave the area. I don’t care. Best knock-knock ever!
British novelists Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope both talk about education obliquely, mostly as a class thing rather than a trade. A “gentleman’s education” was a highly valued thing and included a lot more than Greek. It was about how to live amongst other (privileged) men in society. Trollope often alludes to “the ways of a gentleman” as an almost mystical state of being that includes, among other things, dignity and self-control. For women, a Jane Austen character in Pride and Prejudice describes what it took for a female to be considered “accomplished”:
Austen’s female characters probably had tutors and didn’t go to school. Other girls went to fancy academies or finishing schools to learn the social graces, which could be very important in advancing their husband’s careers. The men could go into the military and sometimes get real-life experience, or they could go to the Colonies.
We’re not in 1813 or 1850’s England. So what does the above have to do with OP’s question? He’s asking whether you can get the knowledge you need to run a “vast” business without the formality of going to school. That would then be called the School of Hard Knocks, and the wealthy equivalent is getting robbed blind by skeevy lawyers or crooked accountants. Knowledge is not enough. You need some form of hands-on accomplishment, or action. And I think you need to be in contact with other great minds, not mediocre ones. You have to prove yourself amongst them, and find mentors who believe in you and want you to succeed. A few self-taught types are geniuses, but the majority are crackpots. They pick up some stuff but then get very defensive when anyone challenges them. They don’t develop humility or critical thinking skills. That challenge is what it takes to get tough.
For a modern-day trophy wife, she actually needs to be accomplished in the same way that Austen’s upper-class female characters need to know what’s up. If they’re not savvy, they’ll be sorry when they get dumped for a younger model. They need to be tough all around. Plastic surgery is not enough. A trophy who does nothing and thinks nothing isn’t going to do well most of the time.
Knowledge is not reading Wikipedia and regurgitating the parts you found interesting enough to remember. Knowledge requires discipline and accountability, the willingness to push through the bits you consider boring. Are there people who can do this on their own? Yes, but they’re damned rare. Education is not about becoming a human encyclopedia; it is about learning how to apply information and create new knowledge.
And always have been. People haven’t really needed “to go to college to access knowledge” since the invention of the printing press, public libraries, and correspondence courses. But the world didn’t suddenly become full of erudite, critically aware self-educated people just because “access to knowledge” was available, and the same still holds true in the modern age of the internet.
True, but I’d say it is harder now. 200 years ago people could get to the frontier of a field that way, today learning anything in depth (especially science and math) takes four levels of classes and often more. Not four classes, four increasingly difficult levels.
That has happened in computer science in my lifetime.