10 Reasons Why College Is A Waste Of Time
The higher education system only makes sense for very narrow, highly specialized skill sets that a small part of the economy requires. Modern society has become a degreeocracy.
Peer Pressure
You are among other students, so you feel the pressure to be like the other students or to do better than other students in certain ways to impress someone. You conform to the other students in the class because you are afraid of being an outcast. You are afraid to question ideas or do things that will prevent you from being accepted by your fellow students.
Fitting In
College encourages you to fit in because your classmates and professors will ostracize you if you don't fit in. You will not be accepted to events or parties with your classmates if you are a weird kid. You experience pressure to try to be the cool kid or to join the cool kids’ group for social standing among your students. You want to fit in because you have been taught that it is terrible to be an outcast. When you seek the approval of your classmates, it is a form of external validation.
Fitting in with others and going along with the crowd is overrated. Internal validation is more important than external validation.
Group Think
College teaches you group think. A professor only teaches you from what is in their textbook (which they may have written and you had to buy for the class). You want to go along with the other students in your class. You would like the approval of the group. You want your classmates and professors to approve of you.
College teaches you to regurgitate the same information to please a professor. This is no different from repeating the same thing seen on mainstream media or an “authority figure” telling you to believe, which you may repeat without thinking.
Textbook Companies Will Never Say Anything Controversial
The companies who write the textbook you must read in your classes will likely never say anything that goes against the grain. There are five leading college textbook companies in the United States: Pearson Education, Scholastic, McGraw-Hill Education, Cengage Learning, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. These five textbook companies don’t have other competition because the government has regulated to the benefit of the companies what can and cannot be considered a “publisher” in higher education.
The government eliminates competitors from entering the marketplace to benefit these five publishers. That is called an oligopoly, where only a limited number of competitors are in a market sector. Monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies most often exist because the government has regulated away competitors from entering the marketplace because it has become too expensive to enter due to laws and regulations. You can see oligopolies in other areas of America’s economy. Health insurance companies are another example of an oligopoly in the United States economy.
Business Insider writes, “These companies do everything they can to keep their books expensive and prevent students from renting older versions.” Due to the regulations and lack of competition, this likely discourages textbook companies from presenting opposing views. These five textbook companies are responsible for influencing generations of students who go through the higher education system.
For example, you will likely never hear an opposing view against Germ Theory in higher education or medical schools.
“History is written by the victors.” - Winston Churchill
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
The education system would not allow things that go against it because it would not be in the interest of the academics, textbook authors, universities, and the administration. If the higher education system were truly about teaching you different ideas, they would allow opposing points of view, disagreements, and arguments to be presented in the textbooks you must read to pass a stupid quiz or test to please your professor.
Learn From Professors
Professors are the last people you want to learn from. Professors think that because they have a Ph.D., are tenured at a university, and write papers for academic journals. They are the best things to walk the earth. It’s the opposite. Professors are the most boring people. They were only good at passing tests. Professors were superb at telling their professors what they wanted to hear on those tests to get high marks.
Academics contribute the least to society. That is why you don’t want to learn from academics. Professors only will tell you to read some books in college. They will then go over the concepts you need to know to pass your exams. Professors don’t teach you hard skills. The only reason professors have a job is that they never left the world of academia.
The reality is that most professors probably wouldn’t make it in the private sector, hence why they are teaching students at a university. That is a red flag that professors are not the people you want to learn from.
Waste Time Partying
Our culture portrays college, and some parents legitimatize partying in college. While having a good time in life is good, always partying, drinking, and hooking up with people does not encourage a healthy culture. It also does not instill good values in the next generation. You can spend your time how you want and do what you want. That is fine, but that is different from what has become culturally acceptable for students to behave in college.
This is why we now have terms like hoe phase, which applies to men and women. Our culture approves and encourages this behavior.
Go Into Debt
The best thing that you can do is to avoid getting into debt. Unfortunately, the higher education system legitimizes debt through false promises to students. The educational industrial complex says that if you pay your tuition and get your degree from us, you will make more money than if you didn’t attend college.
According to the Education Data Initiative, below are the average amount that students borrowed in 2022:
The average federal student loan is $37,667.
In one year, 31.8% of students borrow money to pay for college.
The average student borrows more than $30,000 to attend school.
Going into debt is the worst financial decision anyone can make. Going into debt for an overpriced worthless piece of paper for a degree that does not benefit you is foolish. You are stupid if you do this. Hopefully, you will learn the hard way if you decide to go this route.
Don’t Learn Any Hard Skills
Most of what college teaches are soft skills and book knowledge, not hard skills. Hard skills are what you must learn for an employer to hire you. Soft skills are excellent, but you don’t need them to complete a job successfully. Colleges overemphasize soft skills with group work.
Classes misrepresent what is required for a job by having students practice in hypothetical labs that the university controls. Hint: these labs are different from the real thing.
Hard skills are the skills that employers care about: plumbing, woodworking, sales, coding, data management, website design, fixing a car, or running a profitable business. College does not teach you those skills. At least not enough students are going to college to learn STEM because it is difficult. Those are the skills employers care about, not basket weaving or gender studies. It would help if you knew those jobs on the job.
One exception
The only reason higher education may make sense is for highly specialized career paths that come with specific certifications and narrow skill sets. These are often the STEM, medical, and legal fields. Pretty much everything else is a giant waste of time and money. With everything continuing to move online, this can be redone in a more decentralized way that could do away with the current centralized structure of the higher education system.
Teaches Student To Be Dependent
Colleges teach students to depend upon “experts” and respect “authorities.” Universities teach students to respect “experts” who spent too many years living in the fantasy world of academia instead of in the real practical world of life. People in their late teens and twenties should not be taught to respect “experts” or “authorities.” They should be encouraged to question authorities. Young people should be encouraged to disobey. Young people need to learn to think for themselves instead of regurgitating answers to please a professor.
The higher education system is one reason we are where we are today as a society. People have become afraid of responsibility because they didn’t have to practice self-responsibility in college. They would rather be dependent. They only had to go to class. Pass a test. Suck up to a professor. Now they likely continue to suck up to politicians, public health “experts,” and hosts on the mainstream media who have consistently been wrong.
Stop sucking up to professors, or anyone for that matter. Disobey! Question authority!
Delay Making Money
Ultimately, you are delaying making money because you believe the marketing that colleges tell you that you will make more money with a college degree compared to without a degree. The Education Data Initiative writes, “Considering student loan interest and loss of income, the ultimate cost of a bachelor’s degree can exceed $500,000.”
You want to make money as soon as possible. There are lots of creative ways to make money today with the Internet. You don’t need a college degree for that. You don’t need an overpriced piece of paper to do most things.
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Views expressed in this article are the author's opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment, financial, or legal advice. Consult with a financial or legal professional before making an investment or legal decision. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). It is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
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