Spiderman
Senior Member
- Oct 2, 2013
- 2,039
- 55
- 48
As usual, those who never got near a college dismiss it as a waste
How much money did your liberal arts degree earn you?
If you took all the money, tuition, books,fees etc, spent on a degree in literature, history or whatever and put that money to work for you by starting a business, investing etc would you have more money now or less?
And I've been near colleges. Like I said most of my tenants are either attending college or have some degree or one sort or another. I make more than all of them. So I obviously put my money to better use than they did.
I didn't get a liberal arts degree, I got an engineering degree and it earned me well over a million dollars
Funny how you didn't see that I said degrees in technical and hard scientific pursuits had merit. I specifically said liberal arts degrees were worthless
But I appreciate those with a liberal arts degree. I admire people who write well, who have good critical thinking skills, who can put things in historical perspective. Overall, they make interesting people to talk to. I have to admit, most of the engineers I work with have a bit of geek in them
You don't need a liberal arts degree to write well or have good critical thinking skills.
I agree that college is horribly overpriced but I do not think that it is a waste of time. For every college grad you point out who works in Starbucks, I can point out ten High School grads who will never leave the trailer park
Yes you can open your own business and succeed without a college education. But most businesses fail. Unless you have a family backing you, you have very little margin for error. To sell "open your own business" as an alternative to education is an invitation to failure
Opportunities to educate yourself exist outside of college. Even outside of high school for that matter.
I bought a rental property so I learned everything I could about commercial mortgages, taxes and all the laws regarding rental properties and taught myself how to do basic repairs, plumbing, electrical, carpentry etc because I couldn't afford to pay someone to do it for me.
I taught myself how to repair and maintain my vehicles because I had to
If you need to learn something then learn it on your own or pay to take a class but be pragmatic about it. Wasting time and money learning things that will not give you a return on what you spend is a poor plan.
Family is unnecessary for success. And you can use the chance of failure as an excuse but it's not a failure that is the problem it's believing that one failure is the end that is the problem.