ORIGINAL: mattnew
way to encourage a kid not to be educated....
More importantly than anything else.. college teaches you how to think and problem solve, or at least the good ones do. It doesn't really matter the degree when your going for your bachelors... granted don't go to Harvard for a liberal arts degree... you'll end up owing more than you'll ever make... but a bachelors of science from a good state school can be turned into almost any career imaginable.... and you'll start after a 4 year degree higher than 67k. Its an invaluable experience... not to mention there are sorority girls :-)
I graduated of my last degree one week before my older son. The oldest is now a senior engineer, the middle one runs finances on one of our biggest car dealers in the area (finance and real estate mayors), the youngest one graduated this year, he is a teacher. A degree is no guarantee in life. You know what the guarantee is: attitude, hard work, and ambition.
Ask yourself: What is better, to have no education like lot of others and look for a job, or to be an accountant and look for a job? Or an engineer (odiously you would never be an engineer), this is just an example.
As a company owner for over 2 decades, I can telly you do not need a college education to get a good job. Plumbers make good money too, and we all need them. I know a business mayor that has a landscape company. And you know what? He is better trained than some guy with a lawnmower starting from the bottom. I know a friend of my son with a chemistry engineering degree that owns a company that does home improvements. An education takes no room at all, you take it with you, has many applications, and opens doors.
But, it takes effort, and that brings us back to attitude, hard work and ambition.
In closing, now that I think of it, most successful people I know have a college education. And they love what they do.
Good luck to you! There is a real world out here, the sooner you figure it out better it will be for you. Just think that education will make you more valuable for a potential employer.
Gerry