Why are Educated Entrepreneurs Slamming Education?
…it is about choices
In the last ten years, it has become a fad to slam higher education. According to some very successful people who have diplomas from universities, going to college is a waste of time.
In their worlds, everything is learnable on your own and you do not need to spend thousands of dollars on education.
Before I continue, yes I think education is overpriced. Yes, I think most of their priorities and subjects are not a perfect fit for the current world.
BUT there is no better plan B!!! No one has completely redesigned a system that will produce exceptional graduates OR highly educated graduates.
First of all, let us be real. The purpose of school is to provide an educated workforce to the country. It is intended to educate the person, hopefully in something of their interest, so that they will obtain employment and provide for their families.
These entrepreneurs who happen to be successful think that everyone should be an entrepreneur and never work for anyone else. BUT they themselves have employees.
The fallacy that these no-school people are spreading is that a person can just simply learn a single skill and that will carry them for the rest of their life. They see no value in an education that provides a wide introduction in a field. Notice that in the figure picking up a skill takes only a couple of hours. There is no skill that you can pick up in two hours that will net you equivalent of a college degree salary over a lifetime.
I do believe that a person, if willing AND able, can self-educate and learn a new skill. BUT let us break apart these two.
First of all the person has to be willing. As we all know saying you will do something is very different from doing it. School forces one to be at a particular place to learn a particular lesson or skill. In my humble opinion, most people are weak when it comes to the “willingness” part.
Now we move on to the self-educate part. In my experience as an educator, even fewer than the number that is willing is the number of people able to start an online course and finish it. That requires not only desire BUT discipline to stay with something even when you have no one that can explain it to you. The willingness to struggle before it becomes clear.
As an educator since 1993, I am sad to report that this ability and willingness to accept the struggle has deteriorated over time. We have become an instantaneous gratification nation. You want people to keep their focus for 45–60 hours on a difficult subject that could benefit them potentially. Good luck with that.
I hope that people realize that the advantage the US has had over the rest of the world is the higher education system. This is why many nations send their best to study in our system. They can clearly see the benefits of our system.
To me these false claims by skip the education crowd are evil. Provide a better path before you slam the one that got you to success. They easily dismiss the process that enabled them to think. It is not a perfect system and it should be improved BUT not gotten rid of. That would guarantee that the world catches up and surpasses us even faster than it is happening now.
I believe that a lot of these “no-school” people dislike the group of people teaching at university level. They believe them to be too liberal and that their political leaning has created this “safe space” anti-conservative college culture.
There is some truth to that BUT most of these folks are experts in their fields. They should be made to teach and not allowed to brainwash their points of view. A university is the place where there should be exchange of ideas. If everyone thinks the same then there is no thinking happening.
SO it a catch 22. The system is not perfect BUT it is the best we and the world has at the moment. It can always be improved but do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
My four cents…
