Whether or not you should go to college (I never went)

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So, I get hit up all the time from people who are thinking about maybe skipping college, or maybe going to college, or are asking me whether or not it's worth it for them to go, or if it's a waste of time. So I'm going to be giving my thoughts about this now.

I am someone who did not go to college. Now, I didn't go to college for two reasons. The first reason is that I just really disliked school. I hated all the subjects; I really hated a lot about school, and I really just wanted to go and work and start a business instead. Now, the second reason is that I had such bad grades in high school that I didn't get into any colleges. My plan originally in high school was to go to college, get a degree, and then start working somewhere. But when that plan fell apart because my grades were so bad, I ended up thinking like, you know what, this is just a sign. Let me go to Real Estate instead.

So, I'm making this video from the side of someone who did not go to college. So please keep that in mind that I'm extremely biased about my thoughts because those are my only experiences. Now, I'm sure you can get the exact same counterarguments from someone who went to college, and those are probably just as valid as what I'm going to be sharing from my own experiences. So please keep that in mind; I'm making this video coming from somebody who did not go to college and who instead started working right out of high school.

And by the way, when I decided not to go to school, I heard it all. My parents were extremely disappointed. They were one of the first in their entire families to end up going to college, and for them, it was really important for their son to go to college as well. So when I didn't decide to go, I mean, that was definitely a big shock to the family, and same from all my friends. I think pretty much all of my friends ended up getting into like really cool schools and stuff like that. And when I told them, like, hey, I'm not going to be going to college, a lot of them were like, "What? What are you going to do?"

I think just the general consensus from a lot of people is that if you don't go to college, you end up being a bum or working at some minimal wage job and just become a failure. But instead, I think not going to college could be the right thing for a lot of people, just depending on their situation.

So first of all, I think it's a good thing that people are really thinking and evaluating whether or not a college degree is right for them because it's a big time commitment. It's four years of your life and a lot of money spent on something that may or may not help you out in the future or may or may not end up making you more money because of that degree.

Now, for some people, having that degree is completely worth it, especially if they want to be a doctor or a lawyer or go into education or really any field that requires a college degree. I think it goes without saying: go and get the college degree, that's what you want to do, by all means, go and get that degree. But instead, if you want to take a more entrepreneurial path or do something that doesn't require a college degree, maybe it's best to hold off on the degree and instead pursue a business.

For me personally, I felt like going for a degree was just going to hold me back four years and end up costing me a lot of money. I saw this as an extra four years of work experience I can get. By the time all my friends are graduating, I also saw this as an opportunity to have an additional four years of income coming in while all my friends were in school, not really making any sort of money. So for me, those were huge advantages to not going to college and instead beginning to work full time right out of high school.

So I mean, the big question is obviously like, do you need college? And my answer is no, you don't need college unless the business or field you want to get into requires a college degree. If what you want to do doesn't require a degree, then I think it's really important that you evaluate why you're going to college in the first place and what it is that you can get from that experience.

Now, college in and of itself really isn't any sort of indicator of how successful you're going to be. I've had friends that went to amazing schools and instead just came out with a ton of debt and are working very menial jobs, versus I know a few other people that never went to college who are some of the most successful people I've ever met. So it doesn't really correlate with a degree in terms of how much money you're going to make or how successful you're going to be.

Now, obviously, if you skip college and you just like stay home all day and just be a bum and do nothing, well, I mean, that just goes without saying, like, that's a bad choice; don't do that. But instead, if you know exactly what you want to do and it doesn't require a degree, and you can learn on your own, and you can stay self-motivated and you can teach yourself how to do those things to make money, then on the other hand, maybe it's a good idea for you not to go to college and instead pursue whatever business you want to do.

Now, on the other hand of that, if you want to go into a more traditional career and maybe be employed somewhere, especially if it's in the field of law or medicine or education, get the college degree. Because that's just a means to an end of getting to where you want to be down the line.

Now for me personally, I knew I didn't want to work for anyone else. I knew I wanted to be in direct control of how much money I make. I knew I wanted to control exactly what I do with my time and when I do it. I was also really impatient; I didn't want to wait four years and spend all this time in college just to go and do what I wanted to do anyway. Most importantly, from all of that, what I wanted to do did not require a college degree.

Now, you still need to learn; it's just in different areas than you would in college. So in real estate, for an example, you don't really need to learn world history or science, for instance, but instead, you need to learn all the homes on the market, the average price per square foot, what's selling and why they're selling for the prices that they're selling for, what's coming on the market, all the real estate contracts, how to explain those contracts, the process of escrow, all the fees associated with that.

You also need to learn how to sell yourself and sell your services and be able to effectively communicate that to other people coherently. And that's a really difficult thing to do. It's also just a really great life skill to learn how to be relatable to other people. Now, a lot of this is something you could just kind of learn as you go along and then figure it out along the way. And if you don't know something, you could just ask other people that might know or just look it up on Google.

I can't tell you how much I've learned just by a quick Google search. It's like honestly everything you need to know. Chances are it's already on YouTube, it's already on Google, or you can just ask somebody and they'll have an answer for you. And of course, with all of this, you just continue to learn. There's never a point where you just like stop learning. There's always going to be something that's changing; there's always going to be something else that you can learn and something else that you can take in and just improve your skill and improve your business.

Now, of course, there are some downsides in not getting a college degree. The first one that I see is that if you decide to go a more traditional career path, employers may look down on you for not having a four-year college degree. Now, some employers don't care; some employers like the work experience, but some employers won't even look at you if you don't have a degree, and that's a big possibility of happening. So just keep in mind, if you don't go to college, that's a risk that you're taking that employers may judge you and look down on you for not having a degree.

Now, the second issue I see from not going to college is the social aspect of it, or the lack thereof. Now, this is something that I've had personal experience with because when I was 18 years old, all of my friends went off to college, and I was pretty much the only one that didn't go. It was very difficult to make friends. All my friends that went to school, I mean, we still kept in touch, but it just wasn't the same when they've gone to school and they have all these like experiences together, and I'm just like kind of missing out, and I'm at work and doing my own thing.

It becomes very hard to relate to other people your own age because you're so focused on work and you're just not immersed in it. It's a lot harder to meet friends when you're not in school. It was actually like pretty much near impossible. I mean, like when you're like 18, 19 years old, and you're working full-time, and everyone you're working with is like 35, 40 years old or older, it's very hard to meet people your own age.

And just by hanging out with everyone that much older, you tend to grow up a lot quicker. And then when you see your friends, there's like some weird distance between like you're acting like some 35-year-old, and all your friends are acting like really immature. It's really difficult to make friends, and it's something you have to spend a lot of time developing and working on if you want to have any sort of social group.

So for me, as an example, it was very difficult and very lonely for me the first few years because I had very few friends, and I pretty much just worked all the time. So that, for me, is something I definitely missed out on is the social aspect of going to college. Now, I can't really comment on that because I don't know like how amazing it is, or maybe it's not that; like I have no clue. But whatever it is, good or bad, I totally missed out on that.

Now, I don't think like not going to college was like a regret of mine because I actually look back at that and like I'm so glad I never went, but I do sometimes think of what it would be like to have that like social interaction with all these people my own age and just the development of that because I spent a lot of time making friends my own age, and it took like a few years to be able to cultivate that.

So just keep that in mind that is one of the downsides of not going to school. So in the end, whether or not you go to college is a big decision, and it's just a highly personal choice. Chances are if you want to go your own path, be an entrepreneur, and start your own business, and your self-discipline to learn this on your own as you go and find your own answers, then yes, maybe college is not the right choice for you.

But if you want the stability and the cushion of just having a degree to fall back on in case [ __ ] ever hits the fan or something happens and you need to go maybe a more traditional career path with some more stability, then maybe it's worth it for you to go and get a college degree, and that could very well be beneficial for you. There also might be family or societal pressures to go to college that you should definitely consider.

Now this is definitely a topic that should not be taken lightly, and it's a highly personal choice. I'm making this video purely from the standpoint of someone who decided not to go to college and who ended up doing really well in real estate. I'm sure there are just as many people out there that don't go to college that just nothing works out for them; they had no backup plan, they don't do well, and they fail miserably, and they end up going back to school later. Or maybe they just never go back to school, and they just, nothing works out for them.

So please keep in mind that there is some survivorship bias in this video and that I did not go to school and it still turned out pretty good. There are some other people out there that don't go to school that don't turn out as well, and there are plenty of other people that don't go to college and are just as successful, if not more successful.

So please keep that in mind; it's a highly personal decision and there are a lot of factors to take into consideration. So with that said, thank you so much for watching. I really hope this video was helpful. Feel free to click subscribe if you want to see more of these videos and stay up to date with everything I'm posting. Click that subscribe button!

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