Don’t want to go to college? Don’t want crushing student loan debt? Afraid you 
won’t be able to get a job otherwise?
40 Alternatives to College will save you money, geet you greater experience than college would have, give you adventures along the way that you will remember forever, and grant you the satisfaction of having chosen the life you want to lead.
Kids at 18 have no idea what they want to do in life. The world is a very big place. It’s bigger than five classes a day on philosophy or chemical engineering.
Colleges have made use of the myth that you can’t get a job unless you have a college education. So young people feel a rush to get that college out of the way so they can get a job and begin their adult lives.
What you get with college?
1) You learn very little that you use in real life.
2) You are so burdened by debt that you can’t use your new-found knowledge to create real freedom and joy for yourself.
3) A young person can use their energy in many other ways than just college.
7 Alternatives to college
1. Start a business
This is the college of the streets. And when you have to eat what you kill, you learn extremely fast.
You learn how to come up with ideas that will be accepted by other people. Most kids graduate college with an atrophied idea muscle. Starting a business forces you to exercise that muscle every day.
2. Travel the world
You will meet other foreigners traveling. You will learn what poverty is. You will learn the value of how to stretch a dollar.
You will often be in situations where you need to learn how to survive despite the odds being against you.
3. Create art
Spend a year learning how to paint or how to play a musical instrument. Make a band and tour with it or write five novels. Learn to discipline yourself to create.
Creation doesn’t happen from inspiration. It happens from perspiration, discipline, and passion. Creativity doesn’t come from God. It’s a muscle that you need to learn to build.
4. Write a book
Write a novel about what you are doing instead of going to college. You’ll learn how to observe people.
Writing is a meditation on life. You’ll live each day, interpret it, and write it.
5. Want to be a lawyer?
Work as a paralegal, do it for free for a year, see what really goes on in the law firm.
Watch those lawyers working 80 hours a week, sleeping in the office. See the first year associates come in with their huge debts to pay only to find themselves in caucus rooms full of boxes with boring documents that they have to highlight for at least a year or two. See if you want that.
6. Take a job
You’ll learn how to work. You’ll learn about customer satisfaction. You’ll be forced to deal with people who are not like you (and you might not even like).
These are skills not taught in college and many people learn them to late in life.
7. Learn and master a foreign language
Include a trip at the six month mark so you will see if you are really learning it. I took French for five years in high school and college. I cannot speak to you one word of French.
The way to learn a language is to intensely study it 5-7 hours a day and then go to that country and speak.
