by Chuck Gaffney

Created on: June 08, 2008

Back in March of 2007, U.S. News created a headliner that I was waiting for a while to see. The topic, Is College Worth It? In it, they finally questioned the multi-thousands of dollars it takes to get a degree in a shaky and simply pathetic job market.

College many years ago was originally meant to serve as an extra curricular in life's path. It was for people who wanted to become scholarly and to help progress the movement of human knowledge, science and technology. The same holds true today with many colleges doing just that but their M.O. sure has changed. From Kindergarten to 12th Grade, kids are wired with the fantasy that in order to be successful in life, they need to know what "job" they need to get and they need to work hard for college to get that job.

Frankly, colleges today and the whole school system is nothing but a factory for cubical slaves and dynamically changing resumes. Many kids are driven into the notion that if they go through college, they will get the so-called "good-job" and make tons more money than their non-graduated class-mates. Granted many people who don't go to college usually set for low-end jobs that barely go over $30K a year while the graduates will make it to a job paying $60K-150K a year, whether that job will last in today's market is another story but lets give them the benefit of the doubt.
This looks very good for college if you only take that info into notion, which many kids are cornered into believing, hence they feel that their $60K investment for $60K a year or more is really worth it.

Lets look though at the riches people in the world; Bill Gates, Michale Dell, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, etc. They must have triple Ph D's based on what college teaches, right? Wrong! Most of the richest, most successful people in the world never went to or graduated college and not one of them has a job! The thing is the topic that is not really mentioned at all in school is being in business for yourself. Kids in school are taught that you can make it in a business but its more of a lottery chance of winning in that field, or so they say.
What about business colleges? Usually business ownership is not mentioned all too much there, too. Most of the time business majors fall into the trap of becoming business "managers" FOR a company, but never the actual OWNER of the company.

One thing you are taught in business school or just by simple common sense that doesn't require a degree, is the topic of ROI (Return On Investment). With today's

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