The Most Successful People Explain Why a College Degree is USELESS

[sanantone]

Prior to taking my academic sabbatical, I was making well above $100K annually without a degree of any kind. In fact, the only reason I can afford to take the time off to be able to focus on my education now, despite living in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the world, is because I was able to save up enough to not need to worry about working for a while.

The point being, a degree doesn't always matter. Career success is all about having the right combination of ambition, drive, and skills. It also helps to have a good network, though that is a weakness for me since I always felt it was a waste of time to go to networking events or much effort into building connections.

Of course, there are also hiring managers and business owners who will not even consider hiring people without a degree no matter how good they may be, so that is where having the degree comes in handy; it gets you in the door, you still have to prove yourself once you walk through.

When you're in IT, it's possible to make six figures without a degree even though that's becoming increasingly difficult. However, there aren't enough jobs for everyone to go into IT. 

I always discount six figure incomes in areas with a high cost of living. $100k in Los Angeles is the equivalent of $68k in Austin, and Austin has one of the higher costs of living in Texas.