Notice how the advocates of college are not selling the education you get from it and the skills so much as trying to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt in you? This actually works as a filter- those who think for themselves will not fall for this and will end up leading companies and being very successful. Those who are highly influenced and controlled by the opinions of others, however, will worry about this, and will go to college because its the "right thing to do" and will live long careers at safe companies getting their annual bump, thinking they're doing a lot better than those irresponsible people who dropped out. They'll spend their lives sucking down the daily humiliation of dealing with an idiot boss, because once you've got 5, 10 years with a company, why throw away your pension over working for an idiot? They'll be people who work for others.

So the real question is-- are you someone who is going to make something of yourself? Or are you going to want the safety of working for other people, where the outcome of your life was determined by someone else?

Sure its scary. Notice all the FUD being put forward here. I can tell you the reality s this-- a few years of work experience and nobody cares whether you went to college or not. Employers know that college is not the same as experience and is far less valuable.

IF you listen to others, they are always going to advise the mainstream "safe" route. This is why they don't achieve real success in life.

I've seen this often:

-- The mainstream choice is college, but you lose 4 years of career experience and instead of making money you spend it. The financial outcome is negative, but most people do it anyway.

-- Most people put their money in index funds or mutual funds and make mediocre returns because they believe they can't beat the market (but spend $50 on books) and 5 hours a year on it, and you can far beat the market. (The idea that it is even hard is silly-- but most people are convinced of it and so they tell other people that they can't' do it, or point to studies that show that, in aggregate, the result of people investing in the market is market returns (minus commissions) which conclude that they underperform the market. Well, of course, you're taking the actual market (the people in aggregate) comparing it to the market and then subtracting commissions, how can that not underperform?)

-- They buy houses in a bubble and then blame the banks when their mortgage is underwater. (I knew there would be a bubble in 2001, because of an article on mises.org ... because of economics.) "But you never lose money buying a house".

-- They live their lives in their house, limiting themselves to employers within a reasonable commute...when they could be traveling the world, and visiting a dozen countries a year. I'm doing that, and running a startup and our cost of living is less than the average household income in the USA. Yet for american to travel they think they have to run up a credit card debt that takes them a decade to pay off.

This is the real question- are you going to make something of yourself, or are you going to accept what life gives you if you just doing what everyone else does?

Would you rather be a self made failure than a coasting weak "success"?