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"The United States has the highest dropout rate of any developed country for kids who start a higher-ed program" that worked out pretty well for him.
by lukasm 12y ago
"The United States has the highest dropout rate of any developed country for kids who start a higher-ed program"
that worked out pretty well for him.
- dllthomas 12y agoYes, but he's not terribly representative of the population dropping out of college, then or now.
- rpedela 12y agoBill Gates is an outlier as are other famous college dropouts.
- noblethrasher 12y agoAlso, technically not a drop out; he's still on leave.
- scrollaway 12y agoThe funny thing about college dropouts: It's rare for a college dropout to become obscenely successful, but conversely it is also not uncommon for someone obscenely successful to be a college dropout. Or heck, it's not even that uncommon for successful people as long as we're not talking about something like lawyers (TV doesn't enter the equation, Suits.). I guess what I'm trying to say is, Bill Gates is an outlier in a heck of a lot more than education. Maybe it's time to consider that "being successful" has little to do with formal education and more to do with skills learned later in life. Which implies that being successful at a young age requires those skills to come earlier (which they are less likely to if you spend most of your time in college).
- dllthomas 12y agoPeople who are obscenely successful have clearly found something to do of tremendous value (in whatever sense they are "successful" - I'm not making a separate normative judgment). It isn't surprising that they might drop things of lesser value - and it doesn't mean those things are not still of significant value.
- rpedela 12y ago> It's rare for a college dropout to become obscenely successful, but conversely it is also not uncommon for someone obscenely successful to be a college dropout. Reference?
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago>Maybe it's time to consider that "being successful" has little to do with formal education and more to do with skills learned later in life. Maybe it's time to consider that "being successful" currently has little to do with formal education or with skills, but instead has more to do with family money.
- lutusp 12y ago> Maybe it's time to consider that "being successful" currently has little to do with formal education or with skills, but instead has more to do with family money. Consider a list of recent, spectacularly successful entrepeneurs -- Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and others. Most of them are not at all reliant on inherited wealth, often quite the contrary. I think the "family money" idea doesn't stand up to scrutiny, indeed in my experience those born to wealth don't accomplish much at all.
- eli_gottlieb 12y agoElon Musk: judging by the fact that he went to a traditional English "public school" (what Americans would call a private school, actually), his family was well-off. Went to the University of Pennsylvania. Richard Branson: born the son of a barrister and grandson of a knighted member of the High Court. Also attended an English public school. Exceptional for not attending university. Steve Jobs: son of a mechanic/carpenter (finally someone blue-collar!) and... oh no wait, an accountant who worked as a payroll clerk at one of the first Silicon Valley high-tech companies. Attended an expensive private college. Bill Gates: son of lawyers, got Microsoft's first OS contract for MS-DOS through his mother's connections to the board of IBM. Attended the University of Washington. Being merely well-off to start with is also family money.
- lutusp 12y ago> Steve Jobs: son of a mechanic/carpenter ... Sorry, no. Steve Jobs was an orphan. > Attended an expensive private college. Dropped out of Reed College. > Richard Branson: born the son of a barrister and grandson of a knighted member of the High Court. These are genetic references, not financial ones. Genetics isn't the issue under discussion. You managed to overlook the fact that none of the examples had inherited money at the time of their greatest success. Attending an exclusive school is certainly no assurance of later success, often the contrary, and can't be equated with the classic case of inheriting family money. > Being merely well-off to start with is also family money. That twists the earlier premise so far as to render it meaningless. And how can the orphan Steve Jobs be described as "well-off to start with"?
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoMaybe its because higher ed in the US isn't scarce, so not valued as highly. Not as big a deal to drop out, take a job, because there's a middle class to drop out into.
- freehunter 12y agoI hadn't finished my degree, worked in the industry (full time as a full member of a normal team, just like anyone else) for half a decade, and was still being asked by my employer and several prospective employers when I would finish my degree. They made it very clear that they didn't care that I was doing the work just like everyone else, they wanted that degree no matter what. I'd even been turned down for jobs due to the lack of the degree, not caring about the industry experience or the numerous certifications. It was the degree that mattered. This wasn't businees-side jobs, this was the tech industry, all around the country (I was willing to relocate). Being a college dropout, no matter what the reason and to a certain degree, no matter your skills, still hurts your employability in the US.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoStartups I have known haven't cared. But once we got bought (Dell) the Senior VP made it known - no degree, no promotion. Suicide - lost all those good people.
- zorrb 12y agoReally? That's nuts.
- throwawaymsft 12y agoI think we should distinguish the set of general college dropouts from people admitted to Harvard and then decided to drop out.