Peter Schiff -- Just skip college!


jts

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The objective facts speak otherwise and depend on individual outcomes that are not predictable.

First, in terms of innovation, innovators (and early adopters) profit more, but fail more. Those who follow the mainstream profit less, but more consistently. Those who wait fail hardly ever and profit very little, but with no risk. (This is absolute fact from objective and statistically valid studies of innovators.) This means that even if college education is falling away as important, you are better off getting a college education now, while you wait to see the trend actually develop.

Second many states require a four-year degree from an accredited institution before you can be licensed. In Michigan, I had a physics instructor with a master's in physics and a master's in mathematics, who moved back to Indiana because Michigan would not let him take the professional engineer's licensing examination. What does your state require for your profession? Is another state more open? More restricted, but more profitable?

Third, Peter Schiff is a talking head, not a 26-year old starting out on a professional career.

Fourth, it has long been known that those who go to work right away leap-frog their peers who go to college. However, after ten years, those with univesity education surpass those who started early... and several factors are in play. First, managers hire in their own image. After 10 or 15 years of high performance without a university degree, you will be evaluated by those who hold one. More subtly, university education is not just four years in a void: college and graduate school teach things that may be intangible, intractable, or even ineffable.

Point: my field is criminology. We know for a fact that police officers with 2-year and 4-year degrees both write more traffic tickets and at the same time have fewer problems with the public than those who do not. But, no university (or college) program actually teaches how to write a traffic ticket. Something else is engaged. Anthropology, sociology, logic, science, mathematics... all of it makes an officer more effective and we are not sure how. I submit that the same applies to any occupational field.

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