I agree with you 100%. I am the mother of 4 boys, and although the oldest still has 4 years until he graduates h.s., I am not pushing any of them to go to college. Why? Because I have made very little money off my college education. The one job I had that paid the most and offered the most in the way of advancement was one I would have been qualified for when I turned 18 and would have been able to retire with full benefits by the time I was 38 (This year to be exact).

I challenge my children to find problems that need answers and to create business opportunies around them. Last year my then 13 and 11 year old boys created a business that was basically a handyman/lawn care business for senior citizens. No they didn't make a whole lot of money, but that wasn't the point. They learned business and people skills that will serve them well in the future. My 10 year old has his business plan for his organic vegetable farm ready and waiting for us to make the move to the acreage. Why should he go to college first if that's what he wants to do and it makes him happy?

My husband is the assistant manager at a farm retail store and most (90%) of his new hires are new college grads who can't find jobs in their fields. Imagine trying to pay back student loans, probably a car payment, insurance, and rent on $8 and hour. No thank you. I'd rather see my children do what they love whatever that may be. And if that is going to college, I sure hope they work their way through and pay cash.

1.  If everybody went out and decided to play poker for a year, almost none of them would make the kind of money you're suggesting.  It is absurd to suggest that everybody is "virtually guaranteed" to make $45-$60 an hour playing poker.  An ESPN article estimates the number of people making a living playing poker at 600 to 3000 a year in the entire USA.   http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lovinger/050111

2.  So, you could buy tapes and study languages with a tutor.  Or, you could pay for a college class - a similar cost, with more upside.  Also, most people I've met don't have a few thousand dollars just laying around a year after high school to travel the world.  But many universities offer junior year abroad.

3-8.  I agree with most of what you suggest here, but there is no reason you can't do all of these things while in college.  In fact, most people do these things in college, except probably #7.

9.  Not everybody can start a successful business.  The success rate of new businesses is less than 50%.  A failed business can put somebody into bankruptcy.  Are you advocating a society where half of us declare bankruptcy after starting a failed business, and have no college degree?

Your path to success is unique, but it is extremely exceptional.  This will not work for everybody.  In fact, it's highly unlikely to work for most people.  You have suggested spending a year playing poker as "virtually guaranteed" to make people money.  You often assume people have extra $5000 or more laying around to try things like poker as a career or traveling the world or starting a business.  

You are more likely to succeed by getting the best grades possible in high school, then going to a school where you get a really good scholarship.  Plus, the government guarantees loans for college.  They won't guarantee loans for you to gamble or travel the world.  Colleges often offer programs like a year abroad.  You get a lot from college.  Is it for everybody?  Probably not.  But I am certain that the extremely unlikely combination of playing poker, traveling the world, and starting a business gives you a monumentally lower percentage of success than going to college.

I mostly agree with you. I have finished the university,  and looking  at how useless most of the things I have learned there are, I have some regrets for the time I have wasted.

But there are two things I'd like to comment to your post, Tynan. First of all, I believe most people do not have the self discipline necessary to self educate - especially when they are 18 years old. As Arun says, higher degree studies help instill a sense of discipline, which I think most people lack naturally. For me, what you are saying might work now, when I am 28 years old. Would it have worked when I was 18? I doubt it, looking back I was completely clueless to how the world worked and what I need to do to succeed. And looking to younger people around me, I see the same lack of focus and purpose.

The second thing is - colleges have been around for hundreds of years, in some form. What you are outlining in your post has only become possible in the last 10 years or so. You say learn poker - easy to do now all by yourself, with all this information at your fingertips. Harder to do even 20 years ago, unless you ran across some mentor to school you. The same goes for learning languages. And travelling has become increasingly affordable only in the last decades also.

There will be changes in the way formal education works, but you have to give it some time. The future belongs to projects like khan academy, but it will take time to replace an age old system.

By the way, also check out Ken Robinson's talk about how education is broken. Or his talk on TED about how schools kill creativity.

I think this viewpoint is a bit sensationalist and naive, and very bad advice.  It's interesting advice for would-be entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurial success is extremely rare and requires a certain mindset and drive - as well as a hell of a lot of luck.  It's entirely geared toward developing problem-solving skills and while I agree that those skills are extremely valuable, they're also not employable on their own.  

The problem with today's universities is that their diversity has introduced an inherent lack of direction, which tends to lead to a lack of focus for students. You can take advantage of incredible opportunities in higher education, but you do have to be of the mindset that takes responsibility for your own education. In my estimation, the people who piddle away their time in university would be the same ones who would learn little to nothing from your self-guided education. At least when they exit university, they have a qualifying degree and hopefully some job experience to get their foot in the door somewhere.

Everyone cannot be the next Bill Gates.  The greater majority of people will be working within the system and must work within the system in order for the occasional Bill Gates to exist. When the 50% of people who follow your advice have to go out seeking a job to pay back their failed business debts and support a family, I hope they have something better than poker, travel experience, blogging and home-brewed skills to offer a a potential employer.

I went to school in Canada, where education is heavily subsidized. Even at $5k a year for a top-50 worldwide university education, I don't think it was really worth it, especially since I'm interested in entrepreneurship. If anything, university probably taught me some bad work habits that took me some time to get rid of. 

If you're interested in being an entrepreneur, you want to learn to hustle, learn a skill/trade/industry, learn to delegate and learn to sell. If you can do that, you can make money. 

Sadly, most American Universities have lowered their educational standards a lot in the past few decades, and have raised their tuitions at the same time. This means the value proposition of a degree has gone down dramatically. 

I agree with most of what you say, but there is one problem..... like it or not, there are still quite a few career paths that are completely closed without a college degree. Even in that, to reinforce your post, it doesn't really matter what the degree is IN - just that you have one. I'm a lead developer for a Fortune 500 company, and happen to really enjoy my job. But if you want one just like it, and you don't have a BS or BA, don't even bother applying. You may have been developing in multiple languages for the last 20 years, but that doesn't matter.

So.  I am a decent poker player.  Where can I go to start testing my skill and build up to playing for $85K?  Casinos?  Online?  I am serious.  I would love to dedicate some time to become a professional.  

Hmmm...while I DO think you make valid points, I definitely think you are the exception rather than the rule Tynan.  For example, I feel pretty confident in saying that MOST people who decide to go to college are far more ambitious than those who don't.  Yes, this is a major generalization, but if we were to compare your success, knowledge, ambition etc to the "typical" college dropout, I think we would find that you are an outlier.

You are right that school is totally inflexible, but I think most people are undisciplined and need rigidity in order to actually extract value from school.  I have two degrees, one of which I don't use at all (engineering) and the other of which I probably didn't really need in hindsight (MBA), BUT I'm still glad I have them.  I not only learned a lot academically, but college actually instilled a sense of discipline that I never had before (I breezed through high school).

So, while I think you make great points, I also think that most people don't have the type of laser focus and discipline that you do.  And for those people, the investment in school makes more sense.  

Most times I completely agree with you, Tynan, but this time, I must raise a couple of objections. First, regarding the expense of school, the average earning power of college graduates over a lifetime is so superior to the average earning power on non-graduates over a lifetime that the expense is one of the best investments one can make. Recently, there was an a podcast over at Freakonomics about that very point. Here's a link to the transcript: http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/07/30/freakonomics-goes-to-college-part-1-full-transcript/

It is often remarked how many people with college degrees cannot find work, but a closer look shows that when college grads cannot find work, the situation is even worse for non-college grads.

Third, without a college degree, no one takes you seriously. Now, before anyone gets mad... Of course there are exceptions, but they are few. But a cold-bloodedly sociological look will show that opinion generally holds.

Finally, I do not think there is a serious educator in the US who does not think our college (and K-12) system is not seriously flawed. It is not geared to handle really bright, creative people, and like you (Tynan, and me, to tell the truth), we tend to drop out and do our own thing.

I did that too. In my resume, I say that my life reads like a Jack Kerouac novel.

So though I disagree with your initial statements, I like where you went, and I do agree. There are ways of achieving an education superior to the one you get in college. Even so, for the intense student, determined to maximize his or her experience, college will be a gorgeous time of life. When I returned to school as an adult, I did so to get myself a "proper gentleman's education." That was my quip, but it belied the fact that I was serious. I learned Latin and Greek. I am now getting ready to publish my first novel. Before college, I was not equipped to do that. I am now. It was a life transforming time. I stepped up and out of the working class box and started to become a serious professional.

So there is another objective look. The argument can go the other way. Like I said, usually I think you're pretty ....ing brilliant, Tynan, but there is more to this one than meets the eye. :)

Last, I bought myself a Sony NEX 5N. It was your recommendation that swung my decision. Awesome camera! 

I have a masters in education and I could not agree more. Our schools, including and, perhaps especially higher ed, have pitifully low expectations. We are doing an excellent job of churning out spectacularly mediocre, docile thinkers. I think I got away with reading a total of 3 good works of fiction in 6 years of college. How can that be?

I think I would enjoy poker, but being a musician has taught me to make important decisions quickly and with deadly accuracy just as well as anything I can imagine.  The pay may not measure up to poker however.

 In college, no one was talking about healthy eating or opening their own business either. It was all pizza, burgers and finding a good paying 9-5. Once I removed myself from the stultifying contstaints of school, work and negative people, my world was open and began to make good choices for myself. My time means something now and I guard it like a rabid animal.