I firmly believe that obtaining a bachelor's degree is essential for achieving long-term career success - it provides people with the critical thinking and analytical skills that are essential in today's rapidly changing job market.

Some of the smartest people I've worked with were self-taught.

Good article. agree.

It was the mid-2010s and "college dropout" was the mark of an up-and-coming genius. Headlines were questioning the need for degrees at all and billionaire Peter Thiel was awarding high school graduates $100,000 not to attend college and become entrepreneurs instead. "Not long ago, dropping out of school to start a company was considered risky," wrote the Wall Street Journal. "For this generation, it is a badge of honor, evidence of ambition and focus."

The success rate of these fellows was pretty low, and $100k is too small when one considers the costs of creating a start-up: coders/staff, office space, advertising (really big one), etc. The math does not work out. You are better off staying in school, getting a good job, and then saving up and maybe doing the start-up later after having already gained some connections and building a team.

Also, these overhyped college alternatives, such as crypto, YouTube/podcasts, social media marketing, selling on Etsy, Shopify, Amazon, etc. keep coming up way short. Too much competition, markets get saturated too fast. I remember how much hype there was about NFTs a year ago, and a lot of them are now worthless or down 90% or more. Or Gamestop and AMC stock in 2021, which people had hoped to retire from.