Right now, millions of high school seniors are finalizing their college applications and deciding which path to take. But an increasing number of people from this generation are starting to ask if college is actually worth it. Fifteen years ago, at 18, I made what many considered a bold bet: I skipped college and moved from Naperville, Illinois, to Silicon Valley with my childhood friend, the person who’d become my startup co-founder.
At the time, I felt strongly that paying $100,000 or more for college made less sense than getting real-world experience. It was pretty unheard of, especially in a town where even today, about 90% of people from my high school go to college. Back then, I was an outlier. We had the famous examples of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropping out of college to work on their companies, but very few about people who skipped college altogether.
These days, an increasing number of Gen Zers are making the same calculation I did. A recent Indeed/Harris Poll survey found that 51% of Gen Z feel that their college degree was a waste of money, compared to 20% of Baby Boomers. In the same survey, 68% of Gen Z respondents said they could do their jobs without a degree.
