So you say you don't need to get an education?

[myfayt]

I think either this topic needs to be deleted, or everyones posts deleted back to the original topic starter. This has gotten out of hand.

[CalebHQ]

Well I gave my five reasons and I'm thinking of five more. I would really like to have this discussion keep going because I feel it is essential. There is some one out there debating in their mind if they think college is the answer they need to read this forum. THis should not be deleted. Just know who to read and who to ignore...

[GlobalWealth]

But in that instance the parents would have to be giving the kid that money, because there is no way I am letting my parents control the money I earn.

The thing I don't understand about investing in an s&p index or mutual fund is that sure it could have a yearly return of 10%, but as soon as the markets crash you loose that entire gain, they don't pay dividends do they? It makes more sense to me to put money in a CD at 3% a year for 40 years, than to buy stocks.. Anyways this is an area where my knowledge is weak, but I will be maxing out my SEPIRA contribution this year for tax purposes, so I will def. be picking up some books on the subject soon.

I think you are missing the point from the original post. At this point, I'm not even sure I remember it. But the post was in response to someone who said you would be financially better off if you spent the tuition money and got a degree because your lifetime earnings would be higher. My rebuttal was just to show that strickly from a financial standpoint, if you took that tuition money, invested it, and took a low paying job, you would be financially better off than the college grad. There are a million different variables to this, I was only trying to illustrate the point from a financial perspective only.

The Vanguard 500 pays dividends and you can elect to have them reinvested in shares. You would be WAY worse off if you put your money in a 3% yielding money market account as you would not even be earning greater than the rate of inflation. You would actually lose buying power every single year. If you put $10k in an account that earned 10%/yr, you would have about $67k after 10 years. If you earned 3%/yr, you would have about $18k. There will be ups and downs in the market, that is inevitable. But with an average of 10%, that would be your return. Including the crash in '08, the S&P500 returned an average annual return of 10.88%. In those 20 years, we have had 2 major market corrections, '01 and '08. Had you foresaw that and cashed out, then reinvested at or near the bottoms, you would have had a much, much larger return.

If you intend to be wealthy, you will need to learn how to manage your investments. Start learning now. You won't get it at a university. Read books by Graham, Dodd, Buffett, Lynch, Rogers, Casey (Doug Casy, not me), and several others.

[GlobalWealth]

Well I gave my five reasons and I'm thinking of five more. I would really like to have this discussion keep going because I feel it is essential. There is some one out there debating in their mind if they think college is the answer they need to read this forum. THis should not be deleted. Just know who to read and who to ignore...

Agreed. there is likely someone reading this trying to make a decision right now. Not that they should let a forum sway their decision, but it never hurts to hear from others' opinions.

there are many great reasons to get a formal education. there are also many great reasons to not get one. the choice is a personal one and should be made with great care. there is significant evidence that a formal education is not required. there is absolutely no evidence that it is required to become successful. but used properly and with the proper perspective, it can be benficial.

[Voi Network]

Actually I find instead of wasting time taking the entry test to college, then taking those classes before you actually get to take a class geared towards your career (only cause you failed parts of the test....who knew I needed to remember algerbra ) then wasting those four + years studying for your career, to then find out they are not paying as much as they were ten years ago. What has worked for me so far, is that I found a career that interests me, I took a quick certification class online, and did my own research. All I did was buy some used books and studied the heck out of my subject, and it's working out fine for me!!!