badmouthing college, the start of a trend?
When we last talked about college education, the question at hand was whether the benefits of the standard four year degree and post-graduate studies were necessarily a guaranteed way to better jobs. But with tuition costs steadily rising and student loans becoming toxic debt new graduates might be paying off for decades, a new sentiment seems to be getting some mention.
Why go to college in the first place? It’s expensive, picking the right degree for what companies will require in the next four years can be an exercise in precognition, and many elite colleges are often more interested in doing research than in simply teaching. So why not just call it all a scam, get some connections, then use your sheer moxie and savvy to make a living? And that’s the basic summary of the argument being advanced by financial writer and hedge fund manager James Altucher.
Sure it’s tempting to just put the money slated for your education in a bank, travel around or start your own little business like Altucher proposes, but it’s absolutely terrible advice for two reasons. First and foremost, asking someone who just got a high school degree to go start a business as a viable alternative to getting a degree is kind of like telling a novice rock climber to take on Everest for his first solo expedition. What kind of serious business can a newly minted high school graduate start without a millionaire parent to find it? What could he or she offer that would provide a steady income for years to come?
It’s one thing to suggest an apprenticeship for about a year to give would be college students a good idea of what their jobs would really be and get some real work experience under their belts, but simply bumming around, learning to paint and reading books on a leisurely schedule is no substitute for a real education. Instead, perusing real world experiences and reading as many books as you can on the topics that truly interest you should be an addition to college lectures, not a replacement for them. Running a business is far easier with an understanding of accounting, management practices, and basic grasp of corporate law, than by simply intuiting these vital skills on your own.
Secondly, and perhaps most telling, Altucher didn’t exactly follow his own advice, getting a degree in computer science and even becoming a doctoral candidate before running a hedge fund. Would he really want to trust an 18 year old just out of school to provide some sort of qualified service for him? How many people without a degree or experience has his firm hired, for what positions, and how long were their tenures? Just listing the problems with today’s state of higher education isn’t grounds for throwing the whole idea out the window and giving up on college in general.
Do you simply throw cars away if they need maintenance and repairs and say that driving is completely useless because dealerships don’t necessarily offer good deals, vehicles need fuel and attention from mechanics on a regular basis so instead you’ll just walk? No because that’s a hyperbole, pure and simple. Colleges aren’t perfect but their shortcomings aren’t impossible to fix and their degrees are a mandatory requirement in applying for countless jobs. This is why taking Alutcher’s advice isn’t just risky, it’s downright irresponsible. And I’m also curious as to why he’s gotten attention from Yahoo! Finance and HuffPo in the first place considering that he offers nothing of value after passionately ridiculing higher ed…
