The basic bachelor’s degree is still a good deal. It has inefficiencies and many students find the experience bland and underwhelming rather than the horizon-expanding intellectual feast of teenage imagination, but it does enough for you to be worth the price.
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Completing undergrad requires a combo of traits which people want, and legibly proving you have them is good. Move halfway around the world and it’s likely that none of your work history will mean much to anyone, but everyone can understand “I graduated from x with a degree in y”
Firms who are hiring or strangers considering friendship are often more concerned about avoiding a bad match than finding an exceptional one. A random graduate might not be amazing but they have met a minimum standard and signalling this is valuable
Strangers and strange institutions are nicer to graduates. If bad stuff happens (business goes bankrupt, family breakup etc) and you need to go do something, anything, quickly, help and a job will come easier as a grad. Just puts some breeze behind you, lowers downside risk
Bureaucratic discretion will often favour graduates. Many countries take grad status into account when issuing visas or other policies and will often bend towards graduates even if the rules are neutral. Risk pricing (insurance, credit etc) will be cheaper for you
Yes a degree is expensive but it’s also a pretty robust asset. It can’t be taxed or lost in bankruptcy- once you have it you have it
People say that the more it becomes the norm to go to undergrad, the less value a degree has. It might no longer signal that you’re exceptional, but the negative signal of not being a graduate gets stronger as more talent goes to college, and it’s worth avoiding this
What seem like trivial differences in attitude or quirks of personality at 20 will have giant compounded effects on life quality at 35 and beyond. Undergrad probably steers you to having a more productive mindset, bigger luck surface area and better habits. That’s worth a lot
If your family is privileged, you’ll likely get less benefit from undergrad because you’ll already have absorbed a lot of these things by osmosis growing up. But the cost of going will be a smaller % of your NW so probs still worth it
Imo a lot of energy that goes into figuring out radical alternatives to college should probably go into (a) making college better, even if the institution doesn’t want it and you’re doing it from outside, and (b) prioritising and finding efficiencies for students
If you find college boring and feel boxed-in you can go online, visit other colleges and conferences or think tank events etc to find smart people to supplement your experience. All easier when you’re in college! Summers, weekends, internships, networks are all up for grabs
If you really can’t stand college it’s better to hack your way to grad status than drop out and take the alt path in most cases. If you don’t like your campus or course of study, switch. No one will care later and it’s worth it if it means graduating vs not
If you balk at the cost then there are cheaper ways to do it- study in a low cost country with lower tuition fees (some countries even offer scholarships to overseas students). Studying in a foreign country is very valuable on the job market if you do it somewhere energetic
If you really really can’t stand undergrad and you’re bored, unfulfilled and want to just go do anything else then the remaining strat is probably to pursue independent study for a while and then grab a masters degree. Minimum cost in time and money but you do have to be smart
Finally, you typically go to college when you’re 18-19. It’s really hard to find more productive uses of your time at that age and while it’s a fun intellectual exercise among grads to think about alternatives, none really stack up
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