Is college the only path ahead?

Hello, you guys. Today, we will talk about something that I believe is very important and that may lead you to reconsider your choices, your options when it comes to life after you graduate high school. Typically, when thinking about life after high school, many people will think that college is the only way. Parents typically force their children to get into good colleges so that they can have a good life in the future. However, is it the only option, though?

College is a very safe option because it can give you a degree in some certain areas, it is not the only path that you can take. Many people nowadays have chosen not to attend college at all because colleges can bring a lot of disadvantages. The biggest of all is that colleges have a very high tuition fee, especially if you are attending private colleges, especially in America where the tuition fee can rise to over $200,000 for 4 years. Additionally, many people have a lot of ambitions; they want to do a lot of stuff. However, by being stuck at a college for 4 years straight, where you have to spend all those years studying, many of these ambitions cannot be done.

Therefore, today, I would love to share some insights about some other options, some other paths that you can consider, because these paths can also bring certain advantages, certain benefits to you too. I hope that through this, you can realize that college is not the only option, and that if you are not interested in attending college in the future after graduating high school, then you can have other options as well.

One of the options that you can take is to attend community colleges or vocational schools. These institutions tend to be much cheaper in comparison to private colleges, and also, you can finish these degrees, these institutions, in typically two years. Additionally, when you come to these community colleges or vocational schools, instead of being stuck with academic work and books and notes, you will have more experience when it comes to working, so you may be able to be used to the workforce, the workplace, earlier on. A lot of the graduates of community colleges and vocational schools are getting a job pretty easily because they have had prior knowledge with the skills that they are doing before, therefore, they can easily get adapted to the workplace, so they won't get very overwhelmed.

Another option that you can take, but this option is definitely more risky, which is to open your own startup. I know that many people have different ideas, and they have a lot of ambitions, for example, they want to be rich, they want to sell stuff and get billions of dollars in revenue. Therefore, you can opt to open a startup instead of going to school, as you know when you go to college, you have to stay at school for 4 years or even more, therefore, it may limit your ability to open the startup. Many examples have also proven this, for example, Mark Zuckerberg. He didn't graduate from Harvard because he wanted to pursue his application, which is Facebook, and now, he is very, very successful. As you can see, if you choose this option and other business people's options, you don't necessarily have to attend college in order to be successful. However, a downside from this option is that if you fail, then it can really cost a lot, because first of all, when your business fails, you typically get into debt, so you have to pay for it. Secondly, because you have spent a lot of your time doing the business, you may not be able to take it back. And finally, when you don't have a college education, you don't have a high level, which means that you want to be able to apply for many companies later on if you decide to join them.

Now, what should you consider when thinking about either joining a college or not? Something that is very important is the price tag. Are you willing to accept a price tag of $200,000 in order to get an education? Additionally, think about your goal from attending higher education, AKA, going to college. If what you want is to get into professional work, if you want to attend higher learning in order to dig deeply in some certain subjects, for example, physics or math or literature or linguistics, then college may be a suitable option for you. Otherwise, if you want to attend jobs without degrees, then probably education in college may not be suitable for you. And finally, are you willing to take risks? There are many people who open startups like Mark Zuckerberg, but only a few of them succeed. I know that the idea of getting billions of dollars by opening a company and not attending may seem pretty interesting. However, only a few succeed, so you really have to put your effort and your blood, your tears, and your brain into the startup if you really want to succeed.