[mkbrody]

I'm sure I still would have had plenty of hurdles even with a degree, and I don't mean to discount that starting a career is hard for anyone, but the matter at stake here is whether it's optimal for smart, young people to go to college or skip it/drop out.

My personal experience is full of rejection, stress, and closed doors (I still can't go to grad school to get a higher paying job such as an MBA or Law Degree in my 30's, and finishing my bachelors has a huge opportunity cost).

Compare that to liberal arts students at Ivy League colleges who a few years ago were getting handed $100 bills to attend a 1 hour on-campus recruitment session with the hedge fund Bridgewater. That path for capable people seems much better to me than what I had to go through.

If you're a smart, talented young person, I advocate studying hard and going to a top college rather than dropping out. You might just end up becoming a billionaire and paying people to skip college as part of a personal experiment :)

[nostrademons]

I think that even the hedge fund stories have more to them than meets the eye for a casual observer. I have a classmate who works at Bridgewater, and has since graduation (well, graduation plus the six months of unemployment it took to find a job). He got there by e-mailing everybody in the Amherst alumni directory who worked in finance and asking if they'd give him a job, and an alum at Bridgewater was the only person who responded affirmatively. Now, he ultimately got the job through the alumni network, which is a tool that wouldn't be available to someone who didn't go to school - but his path was still full of rejection, stress, and closed doors.

I suspect that college does help skew peoples reactions toward you favorably, but that the ability to hustle ultimately matters more to your long-term success. Then the question is whether having that lifetime skew effect is worth the $100K+ and 4 years of opportunity cost. My personal feeling is that it probably is if a.) you get into an Ivy League or "brand name" college or b.) you come from a lower-class background and your parents don't have a network or much cultural capital. But for most middle-class kids going to a second-tier college, the opportunities it opens up are mediocre, and you are far better off putting the $100K+ and 4 years to work distinguishing yourself in some other way.