Author: Mike Colagrossi / Source: Big Think
- Sensational news stories and anecdotes about people like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates would have you believe that quitting school is the answer.
- Many of these dropouts were already attending elite universities and either had incredible family connections or other professional backing.
- College dropouts make up a slim minority of the world’s richest and most powerful.
More often than not, a successful college dropout is the exception and not the rule. The majority of America’s roughly 34 million college dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, in debt, defaulting on their loans, and impoverished.
The star-studded casts of the billionaire’s boys club, touting the likes of Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, are exceptional and the rarest of cases. These men were going to get to these places with or without college.
The college dropout myth has a sliver of truth to it: Individuals with outlier intelligence, wild imaginations, determination, and an exceptional work ethic are most likely going to become successful. But this still doesn’t accurately paint the full picture.
Many of these drop-out innovators and businessmen had these skills before college. They knew how to learn and self-educate themselves. Some of them started their own businesses in their teen years and knew how to manage their time and finances. Many also benefited from a highly connected network of family and friends.
Majority of college dropouts unemployed
Archives New Zealand via Flickr
Unemployed workers
Let’s look at someone like Bill Gates. Here’s just a snippet of his early life. Gates was enrolled at a private preparatory school when he was 13. During the eighth grade, he was able to spend time and learn how to program on a General Electric computer. He wrote his first program at this time. This was during the 1960s when the general public, for the most part, was oblivious to computing technologies.
His father was also a partner in the Preston Gates & Ellis law firm, and his mother was on the board of directors for both First Interstate BancSystem…
The post Why the college dropout myth can hurt your prospects appeared first on FeedBox.