40 Alternatives to College

For the past week  I have been helping James compile, edit, design the cover, and come up with the alternatives for his new book. I agree with the stand, I think that kids at 18 facing enormous debts to pay for degrees that are not really useful at all in the real world is a shame and I welcome the conversation that James started in 2006. It aligns itself with the yogi principle of efficiency and using resources in an intelligent way.  He is donating all proceeds from the already low priced book to the cause. Here is his post:

I wrote a book

40 Alternatives To College And it’s almost all original material as opposed to a rehash of my various posts on higher education. So please help me save lives. Students think they will have fun, think they will be independent, think they will get a job that will make their lives better.  So they go to college. They do this because they think their lives will miss something if they don’t.  They will miss all sorts of valuable discourse, intellectual elevation, socializing unheard of before in their high school years, and ultimately the American dream of job, spouse, house, white picket fence, grow old, get a gold watch, die. They have been brainwashed into thinking they will be worthless without college. How sad for them. How sad for their parents.

But they are wrong. They are only 18. They are babies. How can they know with such surety that this is THE ONLY way they can achieve their goals? Maybe there are better ways. Maybe there are 40 better ways. Or more! I don’t want you to think I strung together blog posts. I didn’t. I present my reasons very clearly why kids should not go to college. I do this after receiving thousands of hate mails on this topic and knowing what people's touch points are. And I separately go over why parents should not sent their kids to college. I go over the true costs of what college costs, including the opportunity cost. I answer the questions people have been constantly asking me like, “Won’t they get a better job?” Or “You went to college so how can you tell people not to?” Would someone also say that to a murderer?

Dropped out of High School to pursue
his acting dream

And finally, I borrow from my post “8 Alternatives to College”, expand those eight and wrote 32 more to come up with “40 Alternatives to College”. I do this with all sincerity. I priced the book as little as I could (99 cents) and it’s even free for Amazon Prime members. Any meager money I make on this will be donated to whatever foundation I can find that can keep people from going to college. Nothing in my career has anything to do with this. It did not help me in any way to spend 100s of hours getting this book ready and available to you and your children. I am shamed by the indentured servitude that our 22 years olds find themselves in when they graduate. Student loan debt just topped a trillion dollars for the first time. I am ashamed by an America that let this happen. I describe in the book the groups who benefit from that trillion dollars. They don’t care about 18 year olds. They care about their own egos. They care about money. Can you get a job at Goldman Sachs if you don’t go to college? Or even Google? Probably not. But there’s at least 40 alternatives and probably thousands more. And, after trying these alternatives you now have the grace and intelligence (and knowledge that you are comfortable with the massive debt load you will be taking on) then please go.

This 18 year old ran for mayor in
his own town

But I wish my father had sat me down and told me when I was 18 that I had choices in life. That life wasn’t one monochrome ladder from birth to death. He spent his last two years of life immobile on a hospital bed. College doesn’t prepare you for the suffering. And it’s very stressful along the way. It's time to start now to live every moment to the fullest, every moment as if time itself were your canvas and your actions were the colors, the brush, the brilliant ideas. When you’re 18 you have the  chance to explore the world, to explore all of your interests, to explore yourself. You also have the chance to make a lot of money while your peers go into their debts. I've personally invested in companies started by 18 year olds who were making thousands of dollars in profits A DAY.

This young man made 1.2 million
instead of going to college

This is the only time I’ve asked someone (the readers of this post) to help me sell a book. There’s nothing wrong at all with making money but I will make no money on this book and I have no fake agenda  except two:           

I want to help 18 year olds see they have enormous choices in life. Choices that can be fun, creative, vastly increase their intelligence and health in ways college couldn’t, vastly increase their ability to socialize, to network, to be happy in ways that college couldn’t. -         

I keep thinking about me being 18. The decisions I made. The decisions I rejected. Nobody sat me down and told me I had a choice. And even then, when college was much cheaper, I would’ve done any of these choices in a heartbeat if I had known they were acceptable in society.

Amanda Hocking skipped college and
made millions self-publishing vampire novels

To succeed, go the other way. Don’t go the same way the herds are going. The herds are walking off a cliff, graduating with more debt than they can pay back in their lives. Trapping themselves in a world of horror and stress. Please see the alternatives that I’ve picked out. One of them even involves taking college courses but much cheaper. One involves running for office. One involves hiking the Appalachian Trail. One of them involves mastering an art and expanding your creativity in ways you would not have time for if you also had 50 other requirements. 

Altogether, there’s forty alternatives. It’s 99 cents to save you (the student and the parent) from a lifetime of debt and stress. And even for adults who have degrees – heck, these alternatives are for you also. If I did one of these alternatives for a full year, and switch, for each of the last 40 years of my life I’d die a happy man. Know that the world does not need growth only invented by people with college degrees. In fact, the reverse is starting to happen. Innovation is being crushed out of the young indentured servants who are graduating. And creativity, new opportunities, new beginnings, are being initiated by those who constantly seek their choices and their alternatives. And not only will they benefit, but all the people with degrees will benefit, and all the humans who ride piggyback on top of innovation will benefit, and when I enjoy seeing what happens, I will benefit. Let’s all benefit together. 

--------- Follow me on Twitter 

 P.S. many people will say: not every 18 yr old can become a successful entrepreneur, actor, writer, etc. That's ok. But every 18 year old can try. Every 18 year old can learn from the experience. Every 18 year can learn what it's like to do what they want to do instead of what everyone else has programmed them to do. P.S. 2 for more details on how and why to self publish check out my post on the topic. And finally

BUY THE BOOK