Notes from my talk on how to quit college. It's not for everyone, but it might be for you. This presentation presents good reasons to quit and useful tips on how to take responsibility for your own education, even if you choose to stay for the degree.

1. HOW TO QUIT
COLLEGE
BY BOB PRITCHETT
and get away with it!

2. EDUCATION IS THE
BEST INVESTMENT
There is no better investment of your time and resources
than education
• Better jobs
• More rewarding work
• Higher income
• Intellectual stimulation and engagement
• Understanding
For centuries college was the best place for a great
education

3. COLLEGES OWNED
EDUCATION
Just 20 years ago, you could learn at home from:
• Parents
• Books
• Magazines
• Television (nothing worthwhile)
• Encyclopedia Britannica
Learning more involved a trip to a library, bookstore, or
school
Learning a lot required going to college
• Colleges defined „a good education‟
• Academia cherishes its role as definer of „educated‟

4. COLLEGES ARE
GUILDS FOR ACADEMICS
Guilds control the practice of a craft or trade
Guilds protect their members‟ income
Guilds attempt to build monopolies of practice
Guilds seek government protection from competition
Guilds raise prices and stifle freedom of trade/practice
Fun facts:
• Guilds were criticized by both Adam Smith and Karl Marx
• Colleges still fetishize the trappings of medieval guilds, right
down to the special clothing, rituals, and stone meeting halls

5. COLLEGE GOT
IDOLIZED
Politicians and others observed
• College graduates are more successful than non-graduates
• Not many people are college graduates
People confused correlation and causation
• To be fair, it happens a lot
If more people go to college, more people will be successful!
• Yes, for some reasonable values of „more‟
• When „more‟ is a very large number, not so much
We started subsidizing college
• It was expensive, but good for people, so we decided to help

6. COLLEGES ATE
THE SUBSIDY
Rent-seeking is manipulating economic conditions instead of
creating new value
• You get more of what you subsidize
• Producers (in this case, colleges) soak up the subsidy
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324688404578541372861440606-
lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html
Subsidized customers (students) are less cost-conscious
Colleges added stuff to capture larger available-spend
• Better facilities
• More staff
• More overhead

7. COLLEGE IS NOW A
BAD INVESTMENT
College doesn‟t deliver the value it once did
• It is both less exclusive and more expensive
A college diploma is no longer the signal it once was
The price has been rising at 2.5 times the rate of inflation
• “Since 1985, the overall consumer price index has risen 115%
while the college education inflation rate has risen nearly
500%.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland/2012/03/24/college-costs-are-soaring/
The subsidy was intended to increase access
• It did, but since it wasn‟t limited to consumers without
access, it increased available resources to consumers with
access, leading to an increase in the overall cost.

8. COLLEGE IS FOUR MORE
YEARS OF HIGH SCHOOL
It has been dumbed down to accommodate more people
Employers have caught on and are adjusting job
requirements appropriately
A master‟s degree is the new college diploma
• Four years is a long time to invest in more high school
• Another year or two after college is a large investment of
tuition and highly-valuable time

9. EDUCATION IS THE
BEST INVESTMENT
Education ≠ College
(it was, but now it is not)

10. EDUCATION IS
FREELY AVAILABLE
You carry a device in your pocket that gives you instant
access to the sum of human knowledge and which lets you
communicate directly with almost every intellectually or
economically engaged person on earth.
• This is unprecedented in the course of human history
• This is not a modern twist on an ancient idea
Ubiquitous Internet access is an
amazing, spectacular, disruptive, transforming change in the
human condition.
• This changes everything
• Especially education

11. CHANGE ALWAYS HAS
ENEMIES
Change empowers some and strips others of power
Most people are slow to understand their new empowerment
People being stripped of power see it faster and fight back
Colleges have had power and status for 800+ years
• Colleges are allowed to certify competence in most fields
• Colleges are respected authorities on matters of policy
• Colleges are where much research and new learning live
• Colleges are praised by preachers, politicians and parents
Colleges aren‟t going to give up power without a fight

12. IN DEFENSE OF
COLLEGE
A community of learning
• Offers education that is personal, interactive, communal
A time apart for learning
• A respite from the hectic world of doing and making, where
young minds have the time and space to study and think
without the daily demands of making a living
A unique place dense with great minds
• Access to experts and scholars who, by virtue of tenure and
disposition, are unusually available to teach and mentor

13. ANOTHER
PERSPECTIVE
A community of learning
• Massive classes taught by grad students
A time apart for learning
• Not if you have to work, or like to party
A unique place dense with great minds
• Great(er) minds are more accessible than ever before

14. THE BEST DEFENSE
OF COLLEGE
“Nobody is going to hire you / trust you / believe in you if you
don‟t have a college degree.”
• Everybody (who lives a good life, makes good money, is
smart and useful and acceptable in society) does it
• It is a necessary minimum for getting ahead in society
• It is just one of those things you have to do
“You have got to have credentials.”

15. CREDENTIALISM
It is true – lots of people value credentials over competence
• This is a real problem if you don‟t have a college degree
• This is a bad sign for society as a whole
• This is an opportunity for those who value competence
Credentialism is a luxury of a rich society where
status, appearances, and politics can be esteemed over
competence
• “The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a
humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy
because it is an exalted activity will have neither good
plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its
theories will hold water.” – John W. Gardner

16. STUDENT DEBT IS A
MORAL ISSUE
Students sacrifice four of their most productive, energetic
years to an inefficient educational system that graduates
many of them alone into the world with tens of thousands in
debt and poor prospects for employment.
• Starting your adult life already in debt is foolish
• Do the math on a lecture hour
• Would you pay that much to attend any lecture on any
subject?
• Would you pay that much for a concert?
• Would you pay that much for a massage while eating
chocolate?
• Education has great value, but is not necessarily worth debt
• Especially when education is now free

17. EMPLOYERS ARE
OVER COLLEGE
Job ads require more education than ever before
• That‟s because employers have realized how little value a
bachelor‟s degree represents
• With lots of college graduates unemployed, why not require a
degree for jobs that previously didn‟t?
• Why not require a master‟s for jobs that required a
bachelor‟s?
In reality, employers seek competence
• The degree is better than nothing
• “Or equivalent experience” is code for “we don‟t really care
about your degree if you can do the job well”
• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-
a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow

18. QUIT COLLEGE NOW
If you know how to use the Internet
If you can learn on your own
If you have a good job offer in your field

19. QUIT, DON’T SKIP!
Having gotten in and attended is nearly as good a signal to
employers and others as having graduated
It is a relatively cheap way to get most of the credential value
It minimizes social stigma and complicated explanations
• You can still say “Back in college…”
• You have the shared experience
Explanations are easy
• “I didn‟t want to go further into debt.”
• “I was learning more on my own.”
• “I got an amazing job offer.”
Just use the word „attended‟ in place of „graduated‟

20. GET AWAY WITH IT
There is a small social stigma to dropping out of college
• This is going away, and will likely be completely gone before
you are midway through your career
• More importantly, employers stop caring about college once
you have experience with another employer
• Questions at interviews for your first job will be about your
education
• Questions at interviews for following jobs will be about your
previous job
You need a strategy to get away with having quit college

21. DON’T APOLOGIZE
Breaking out of the mold is a step forward
• You can explain, but shouldn‟t apologize
• “I just wasn‟t seeing the value.”
• “It wasn‟t worth going into debt for.”
• “I already knew what I needed to succeed in my field.”
• “I found I was learning more on my own.”
Not finishing college can be a form of countersignaling
• “I wouldn‟t take a degree if they gave it to me.”
• Works well if you‟re smart
• Works even better as you are more successful
• Puts you in an exclusive club: too cool for school

22. ACTUALLY EDUCATE
YOURSELF
Quitting college is not about
quitting education
Quitting college is about taking responsibility
for your own education

23. FIND MENTORS
Identify and recruit smart, educated people
People will give you time when you are young
• Successful people like to give back to young people
• If you ask good questions and listen you‟ll be invited back
Get the mentors now, while you‟re young
• In a few years these people won‟t respond
• They‟re afraid of wasting time with salespeople
• Don‟t ask them to be mentors
• It sounds like too much work
• Ask to meet for specific advice
• Send possible questions in advance

24. READ
Read widely
Read in your field
• The syllabi for all the classes you didn‟t take are online
• The syllabi for the better versions of those classes at the
better schools are online
• Use these syllabi as reading guides
Read outside your field
• College isn‟t a vocational school; there is value in a broad
liberal arts education
• Use published curriculum and read across the disciplines

25. WATCH
The best colleges in the world are putting much of their
curriculum online for free
• You can get all the best of what colleges offer while fast-
forwarding through the overhead
Millions of people are teaching each other through web video
Businesses provide free video training for their tools
• These videos often teach the discipline as well as the tool

26. DO AND WRITE
Get an internship in your field
• Smart employers won‟t care you aren‟t enrolled anymore
Do your own projects in the field you are studying
• Write up your experience as a blog post
• Writing about doing helps you understand
Write book reviews for your reading
• Post them to your blog or a book review site
• Writing about your reading helps you learn and retain
Tweet what you learn as you learn
• Condensing things to tweets is helpful for learning

27. TEACH
If you really want to learn something,
teach it to someone else
You can teach at a school, write tutorials on the web, or just
show someone how to do something you learned.

28. CONNECT
Writers (of books, blogs, magazines, etc.) are starved for
attention and feedback from their audience
• Comment on blogs
• Email the author of every (non-fiction) book you read
• Send compliments
• Ask questions
• Write to the authors of articles
• Email academics questions about their journal articles
• Join the conversation
• Participate in web forums that have developed communities
• Engage other writers in your blogging

29. SEEK ALTERNATE
CREDENTIALS
It helps to have something people can refer to when they
don‟t have time to really check you out
Many people lack the confidence to judge your competence
• In your field
• In their own
Find or make credentials that demonstrate competence
• Publish something in your field
• Maintain a blog
• Win an award
• Start a business or organization
• Speak at a conference
• Establish yourself as an expert in something – anything

30. BE HIGHLY VISIBLE
People get more comfortable with people they see more often
Visibility is important to establishing alternate credentials
• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is filled out completely
• Build online identities on sites specific to your field
• Get to know the community in your field
• Attend meet-ups and conferences
• Take experts to lunch or coffee
• Participate in online discussions

31. GOOD REASONS TO
FINISH COLLEGE
You are not good at learning on your own
You lack confidence in your ability or willingness to learn
without accountability
You don‟t know what you want to do
You are highly motivated by your GPA and transcript
You can afford it without incurring debt
You want to join the academic guild
You absolutely must have the credential to pursue your
intended occupation

32. CREDENTIALISM’S
SECRET WEAPON
Occupational licensing is the guild in the workplace
Doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. need special education
• Some competency testing remains, but few „professions‟ allow
participation without credentials from approved institutions
More than 500 occupations require licensing in some state
• Doctor, Lawyer, Undertaker, Falconer, Ferret breeder, etc.
• http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/OccupationalLicensing.html
You may have no choice but college in these professions
• Follow the tips on doing it for less money, in less time

33. IF YOU STAY
Maximize your investment
• Read ahead of your classes
• Test out of every course you can
• Get to know your professors
Minimize your spending
• Take core classes at community colleges where classes cost
less and transfer to your school
• Avoid switching majors late in the game, delaying graduation

34. WANT MORE?
Follow me on Twitter @BobPritchett
Read my blog
Join my mailing list at http://firesomeonetoday.com
• I‟ll mail you when I write more
Read my book
• 5 stars at Amazon.com
• Free chapters and summaries online
http://about.me/bobpritchett