First off: 4 year graduation rates are stupid. There's no other way to put it, they're a stupid measurement and one colleges should stop paying so much attentio

First off: 4 year graduation rates are stupid. There's no other way to put it, they're a stupid measurement and one colleges should stop paying so much attention to. At my school, they've made a huge push to try and get everyone out the doors within 4 years, to the point they have informed academic advisors that they should be advising students to cut corners and "just graduate". While it may be a worthwhile standard for a private university, where a large majority either doesn't work or works a very small number of hours for "spending money", at a public university, with many students paying their own way through college, its a bad measurement. Its better for everyone for a student to take 6 years to graduate and walk out the doors with half the debt of someone who graduates in 4 years (or less). As far as college/vocational schools, if it is possible, you should go to college. However, don't study what you want to go into, study something tangentally related to it (unless you are going into highly focused field, like engineering or a medical degree, and even then try and get as far away from what you want to as possible while still being on track). Going to a school I was "undermatched" for, and going into the computer science program, I was bored out of my mind, and just wasn't getting much out of it. After switching to statistics, I've found my classes much more enjoyable, and have vastly increased my understanding of both statistics and computer science. While it may not hold true for everyone, I've found that working in something tangentially related to what I wanted to do (Computer "stuff", originally), I learned a massive amount about both the field I wanted to work in, and in the field I was studying. While it may not help me get a job, I learned quite a bit more than I would have otherwise, which is why I went to college in the first place.