The College Scam

[nykorn]

I agree that not everyone needs college and that college in general is often a scam. Even if it's free, it took you 4 years or so to get some degree you can't use as it didn't open up job opportunities for you. For example, I majored in a language, the degree was sold to me as if I would be able to get a translation job or whatever - after you graduate, your language skills are still nowhere near good enough to get a translation job (as the learning materials are terrible and not based on real-life language usage), and translation jobs are disappearing anyways.

Also, the contents of a lot of classes could be condensed down into just a few days or a week (like Sophia), or could be learned much faster if the courses only re-organized when you learn what, and introduced the most modern concepts in learning psychology. I am fully convinced my 4 years of a language degree could have been condensed into 1 year if they had been smarter about the curriculum.

What requires a college degree in some countries, can be gotten with a license obtained through an exam (no formal schooling required) in other countries, or high school graduation plus a few continuing education courses not issued by a university. As an example, "immigration lawyer" and "public school teacher" are two such jobs. My mom makes $40 an hour in the US, no college education, she just had to take a 2 week course to get a license, and she had to have a driver's license.

I see where the comments about oversaturation are coming from. I come from a country where education is completely free including university. Long story short, there are no jobs unless you either start your own business, or get experience abroad before coming back to your country. The jobs that are there (including babysitting!) require official licenses or degrees, and in many cases (such as public school teaching) the licensure takes years longer than the same license in the US, Asia or several other countries. In contrast, when I moved to the US, I quickly noticed almost no one has a college degree, and it is much easier to find work in general for any type of job, including cashiering and warehouse work which I could not find in my home country.

It is now easier than ever to make your own business and earn a living with no education, or only self-taught stuff. You can get rich off Amazon dropshipping, Youtube, Patreon, OnlyFans, or Coursera content, self-publishing children's books, music making, you can get into direct contact with a Chinese factory to make your unique product to sell, without any kind of business degree or without "really" designing the product yourself. I met a high school student a couple years ago, who had an Amazon business earning him $1000 a week! He chose to not go to college, and by the time he graduated high school he had enough money to buy himself a property and rent out an office. Of course, he was able to do this because his parents gave him the first $1000 or so for his business and he read business advice books day and night.

However, I am one of the people who NEED degrees, because I want to work abroad and they don't give just anyone work visas. If you're in certain fields, you can side-step the need for a degree by getting years of work experience, but luck hasn't favored me in that department (see above about a lack of jobs in my country...)