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It was a hard decision for me too. I changed my mind several times in favor of and against spending the time and money to complete a degree. What’s making the decision difficult for you?

I’m sorry – I won’t make the decision for you – but detailing my own experience may help you better consider your own options. The first thing you need to do is to make a long term decision about what your career goal is. College may or may not be a necessary step in achieving that goal, so you must determine direction first and then see if college is an appropriate step on that path or not.

Where Do You Want to Go?

In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice finds herself unsure of which path to take. She asks the Cheshire Cat, sitting in a nearby tree:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where," said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

You can apply Alice's predicament to your decision about college. Determine the end first, then you can consider the steps you must take to get there. The simplest formula I can recommend is to find people who are doing what you want to do. Ask them if they have degrees or what route they took to get the jobs they now have. Do what they did.

What's Your Risk Tolerance?

The trends indicate that average salaries for people with college degrees are higher than those with less education. But perhaps you are exceptional – above average? Some of the people I know who are doing the best financially never started or completed a college degree. It's a gamble to go to college. It's a gamble not to attend college. A few articles posted in the Wall Street Journal Online demonstrate this irony. One article (dated 6/22/09) described a program to make a Jack Welch-sponsored MBA available online, and another one (dated 7/14/09) points out how many people with MBA's from international universities are often overlooked. It doesn't make your decision any easier.

Are you looking for lots of money? Security? Adventure? No employment offers all of these things unless you're looking for an elite special operative agent contracted to work for a superpower government. Last I checked, none of these positions were listed on a leading job search site. Another interesting article on csmonitor.com titled, "College is Not a Must" suggests that the importance of a bachelor's degree has been "wildly oversold."

Why I Chose College

I knew I enjoyed helping people learn and that road seemed to lead to teaching. I wanted to make more money than teachers generally do, however, and the world of corporate training seemed glamorous and lucrative. (I know better now.) A few people in high levels of corporate training and development told me I'd definitely need a degree or a decade+ of relevant experience to get into that career. I wasn't patient enough to accrue the experience, so I chose to earn a college degree (two, actually). Now I'm where I thought I wanted to be, making a good (not incredible) income.

I don't know what I'd be doing or how much I'd earn if I hadn't returned to school. That's just the route I've taken. There are plenty of people who've taken other routes and have done much better, or much worse.

What route are you going to take? What are some of your concerns about spending the time and money it takes for a degree? Who are some of the successful people you know who have or haven't earned a degree? How many people do you know who are employed in areas that have nothing to do with their college degrees?

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