Value of Education

Saw two interesting, but quite opposite, sites/articles yesterday. (Ironically, it was while I was completely bored in class.)

The first: Economic Value of College Majors.  Bascially, it looks at how much people make for different majors, how much additional you can make with a graduate degree, and various other factors about the majors.  As the title says, college/university education adds value, and is a worthwhile investment.

Interestingly, the amount of people in my undergrad major is so few that there is very little information about it.  And even more interesting is that it states 100% of people with that major are employed.  So how come I couldn't find a job back then?  Other than that, nothing particularly interesting about my current studies/major.

And then the second: Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.  The complete opposite.  This guy, co-founder of PayPay, is paying people to drop out of the best US universities to start a business, because he thinks they'll learn even more that way.  This, of course, comes from the fact that both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were both dropouts.  The point is that university education is overrated and not as worthwhile an investment as the world believes.

For the past 7 years, I've spent about $80,000 on university.  Worth it?  I don't know.  I just know that if not for school, either directly or indirectly, my life would be very different from what it is now, and I would not be who I am now.

Is there value?  Guess it depends what you consider value.