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The argument you seem to be making is this: 1. The point of attending university is to teach yourself how to makes lots of money. 2. Of the people I know, the

The argument you seem to be making is this: 1. The point of attending university is to teach yourself how to makes lots of money. 2. Of the people I know, the wealthiest are those who didn't attend university. 3. Hence, attending university is a waste of time. I myself disagree with 1 and 2. Many people would argue that the role of the university is not vocational training, but rather to provide students with a reasonable summary of human knowledge, to learn for the sake of learning. Even if going to university didn't make any impact on my future earning capacity, I myself would still attend. On the second issue, your anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. If you're going to make a decision about whether or not to attend university, you make a judgement based on empirical evidence. I myself could easily list self-made men who have graduated from elite universities: Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, Steve Ballmer, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Jim Rogers, Ronald Perelman, Carl Icahn, Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos. I have no idea if going to university will make you more or less likely to become incredibly wealthy, the answers I suspect lie in an academic journal somewhere. Also, you also seem to be implying that people should only be interested in making huge amounts of money. That it's a bad thing to become a doctor or a lawyer because it places a ceiling on how much money you can make. Most people would rather do a job the enjoy and make a decent amount of money rather than doing a job they hate and making enormous amounts of money. Many people aren't interested in business or management, they'd rather spend their time doing engineering, academic research, writing, journalism, music, law, medicine, whatever.

lionhearted 17y ago
> Also, you also seem to be implying that people should only be interested in making huge amounts of money. That it's a bad thing to become a doctor or a lawyer because it places a ceiling on how much money you can make. I ought to be more eloquent - though I've been under the impression that a lot of people do become doctors and lawyers for the mix of prestige and money. Many lawyers love the law - but many go in because it is a high paying field. Yet, there are better paths to wealth than law. That's why I wanted people to come and discuss - there's young readers here, they ought to consider that if they'd like to be wealthy, university may not be the best path. > Most people would rather do a job the enjoy and make a decent amount of money rather than doing a job they hate and making enormous amounts of money. This is such a false dichotomy. You can have both - really. You can find an intersection of doing something you enjoy and making enormous amounts of money. It's such a brutally bad false dichotomy - choose between hatred/enormous money or enjoyable/decent money, and a lot of people are poorer or lead less enjoyable lives because they don't fight it. It's a societal cliche, but it is false. That's worth pondering.
- jstevens85 17y ago
  I think you're right that most people could probably find something that they enjoy and can make a lot of money from. What I should've said is this: Many people have to choose between a job they really enjoy with a good salary, and a job they wouldn't enjoy as much but with a bigger salary. Consider a Maths Phd whose ideal job is to work as an academic in the field of algebraic geometry. The salary for this sort of job is decent, but not enormous. If he wanted to make an enormous amount of money, he could find related work, like working at a hedge fund or starting an engineering firm. Although he would enjoy doing that sort of work, he wouldn't enjoy it as much as working as an academic. So he has to decide between a job he really enjoys with a good salary, and a job he wouldn't enjoy as much but with a huge salary.

lionhearted 17y ago

> Also, you also seem to be implying that people should only be interested in making huge amounts of money. That it's a bad thing to become a doctor or a lawyer because it places a ceiling on how much money you can make. I ought to be more eloquent - though I've been under the impression that a lot of people do become doctors and lawyers for the mix of prestige and money. Many lawyers love the law - but many go in because it is a high paying field. Yet, there are better paths to wealth than law. That's why I wanted people to come and discuss - there's young readers here, they ought to consider that if they'd like to be wealthy, university may not be the best path. > Most people would rather do a job the enjoy and make a decent amount of money rather than doing a job they hate and making enormous amounts of money. This is such a false dichotomy. You can have both - really. You can find an intersection of doing something you enjoy and making enormous amounts of money. It's such a brutally bad false dichotomy - choose between hatred/enormous money or enjoyable/decent money, and a lot of people are poorer or lead less enjoyable lives because they don't fight it. It's a societal cliche, but it is false. That's worth pondering.

jstevens85 17y ago
I think you're right that most people could probably find something that they enjoy and can make a lot of money from. What I should've said is this: Many people have to choose between a job they really enjoy with a good salary, and a job they wouldn't enjoy as much but with a bigger salary. Consider a Maths Phd whose ideal job is to work as an academic in the field of algebraic geometry. The salary for this sort of job is decent, but not enormous. If he wanted to make an enormous amount of money, he could find related work, like working at a hedge fund or starting an engineering firm. Although he would enjoy doing that sort of work, he wouldn't enjoy it as much as working as an academic. So he has to decide between a job he really enjoys with a good salary, and a job he wouldn't enjoy as much but with a huge salary.