An Ongoing Debate

“A traditional college degree, be it from a classroom or an online extension program run by an accredited university, is not all that it was once cracked up to be.

No longer can a general degree catapult a graduate into a higher class in society based on the intrinsic value of the degree itself. Likewise, the sheer number of degrees being churned out has diluted their worth to the point where they hold little more value than the high school diploma of yesteryear. Many jobs for which graduates will attempt to enter upon graduation may not even exist at the time in which they enroll.” – Taken from Technorati

A while ago, one of my homies asked me to do an article on the subject of whether college was really worth it or not. This has been an ongoing debate that has only gained fuel with the rapid devaluation of many 529 College Savings Plans, shrinking wages, and slow job markets for grads. As both a degree holder and an entrepreneur, I would have to answer both yes and no.

Yes and No

The fact of the matter is that if you hope to succeed working for somebody else, a college degree is essential. Most companies use a degree as a filter when deciding who to interview and ultimately hire. Additionally, the contacts that you get within a company during an internship could mean the difference between a smooth transition into familiar territory and an uncertain employment future. And surveys have shown that the higher your level of attainment as it relates to education, the more money you earn. Its important to know that these figures apply to employees, not entrepreneurs.

On the other hand, if your goal is to be self-employed, there is nothing that you cant learn about running a successful enterprise from bloggers and websites, or from the hundreds of thousands of books available at Amazon. You dont need college.

Dont get me wrong, Im a firm believer in the importance of knowledge and educating oneself. However, I also believe that a great many college students would do better to invest the money they pump into academic institutions, or use that money to start a small business. Time and time again we have seen proof of the fact that a college degree is not a precursor to success when it comes to being an entrepreneur:

Herbalist Djehuty Maat-Ra runs a multi-million dollar herbal company on the west coast. He built his operation from the ground up without a college degree

$ Sir Richard Branson left school when he was only 16. Ironically, his first successful business was publishing a magazine called Student

$ Of course, we all know that Bill Gates never graduated. Im sick of talking about him and hearing about him, so Im not going to make this post a Bill Gates love-fest

$ In high school, Ralph Lauren was known to sell neckties to his fellow students. In his yearbook, he stated that he wanted to be a millionaire. He studied business for two years at Baruch College but never graduated.

$ Michael Dell started a computer company called PCs Limited while attending the University of Texas at Austin. It became successful enough that Dell dropped out of school to operate it

For a detailed list of very successful college dropouts, check out the College Dropouts Hall of Fame.

If you Must Go

I don’t think that college per se is a scam. I do, however, think that the price of college is a scam. Colleges, like all consumer products, are divided by price point. There are the low end products (community colleges), the brand name middle priced products (State Colleges), and the high end luxury brands (Private Colleges and Ivy Leagues). The problem here is that students are paying for the same information at state colleges that they would get in community colleges. Even worse, the loans that are given to these students are just as bad as the sub-prime loans given out during the housing bubble and could mean financial Armageddon for these students once they graduate. Heres what Kathy Kristof of Forbes Magazine wrote on the topic in her article The Great College Hoax:

Mindy Babbitt entered Davenport University in her mid-20s to study accounting. Unable to cover the costs with her previous earnings as a cosmetologist, she took out a $35,000 student loan at 9% interest, figuring her postgraduate income would cover the cost.

Instead, the entry-level job her bachelor’s degree got her barely covered living expenses. Babbitt deferred loan repayments and was then laid off for a time. Now 41 and living in Plainwell, Mich., she is earning $41,000 a year, or about $10,000 more than the average high school graduate makes. But since she graduated, Babbitt’s student loan balance has more than doubled, to $87,000, and she despairs she’ll never pay it off.

“Unless I win the lottery or get a job paying a lot more, my student debts are going to follow me to the grave,” she says.

Considering the fact that you wont land a cushy, high-paying corner office job the day, year, or decade after you graduate coupled with the massive amounts of debt that you will leave school carrying leads me to give you the following advice: Dont shell out for State or high profile colleges. Attending a community college for two years and transferring to a four-year college or university could save you a bundle in tuition costs ($30,000 or more, according to the MSN Money article, College for Half Price). You can also save hundreds upon hundreds of dollars by CLEP-ing out of courses (the CLEP program lets you study material and then take your final exam instead of actually going through the course. If you already know Marketing, you can save a lot of time and money by just CLEP-ing and moving on).

Once you are in the work force, companies will sometimes reimburse you for pursuing higher education, so get hired first, then worry about that MBA (The only MBA Im interested in getting is a MASSIVE BANK ACCOUNT! But that’s just me).

So to answer the question posed by this post: Is college really worth it? The answer is ‘yes’ if you want to work in someone elses company and no, if you want to run your own. And if you must go to college, save money and time by starting out at community college, CLEP-ing subjects, and scraping up grants and scholarships to save money while avoiding student loans.

The Wrap Up

Its important that you decide which path is right for you. Being an entrepreneur is difficult to say the least. You will have to work around the clock, sacrifice time and energy, find out all the answers on your own, and learn to live on an unstable income. Sometimes, it will feel like you are flying by the seat of your pants. If all that isnt enough to dissuade you, as an entrepreneur you will statistically make less early on than your college graduated counterparts. But for all the risk involved there is massive reward, and over time you are statistically more likely to become very rich as an entrepreneur versus as an employee.

On the other hand, as an employee you enjoy a set schedule, set pay, set benefits, and a routine life. Your destiny within your company is not in your hands, however, and there is little chance you will be any more successful than the man at the desk next to you. There is nothing wrong with choosing either path as long as you know yourself.

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Alot of the people I coach get really frustrated when it comes to getting out of their financial situation and getting their hustle on. I experienced this same frustration when I started out, and came to the realization that the problem I had wasnt a lack of money, it was a lack of ideas. I had no money because I had no ideas on how to make money.

That all changed when I picked up a book called Jump Start Your Business Brain by a guy named Doug Hall. He co-hosts a live radio show on WVXU in Cincinnati, is the founder and CEO of Eureka! Ranch, which is a corporate innovation, research and training center, and helps companies build their businesses with new ideas and strategies.The book didnt give me all the answers, but it started me down the right path. I highly recommend you check it out!

Ok, so where do ideas come from? The two best sources of new ideas are (1)”information cross-pollination” and (2) exposure to different ways of doing things.

Turning Information Into Ideas

Getting ideas from information is like cross pollination. Cross pollination occurs in the animal kingdom when birds and insects carry seed from one plant to the other, fertilizing the receiving plant in the process. Vast fields of blooms are the result of these animals going from plant to plant. Coming up with fertile ideas is rarely the result of reading a single book or studying a single subject matter. You will harvest your best ideas from going from book to book and subject to subject. You are more likely to discover new ways to make money by studying biology, history, sociology, and Mediterranean cooking along with business and financial books that if you just studied books on making money.

A great example of cross-pollination is the discovery of Velcro. The inventor combined his knowledge of engineering with his study of nature and became filthy rich. I make it a point to regularly diversify my information diet by reading books on a diverse array of subjects, listening to podcasts that are informative but have nothing to do with money (like Blog Talk Radio’s Zeitgeist Movement podcast), and watching The History Channel. Read newspapers from other cities and other countries. Watch channels that you have never watched before. Diversify your knowledge intake. The result could be the million dollar idea that youve been waiting for.

Turning Exposure Into Ideas

One of the best ways to gain exposure to new and different ideas, practices, and opportunities is travel. The time I spent overseas was more than just a break from the sameness of American society; it was an opportunity for me to experience first hand how other cultures lived and thrived. I discovered solutions to problems that they had come up with. For instance, Japan’s small land mass meany they didnt have room for expansive parking lots. Their solution was to build a mechanical parking garage that could store parked vehicles in a much smaller facility. My travels in the middle east exposed me to Aquaponics, a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics that allowed Africans to grow both crops and fish in the middle of the desert. Traveling is the absolute best method of coming up with new ideas. Just look at what Ed has done with the Japanese vending machine business model. (I wish I could find a Georgia Coffee in America!)

If you cant get to Japan, try heading to any other region right here in America. The cultures in Seattle, Los Angeles, Mobile, Louisville, and Baltimore are all different from each other. If youre not from those areas, you can learn much from the way they do business and take the ideas you come up with back home to launch a new and different product or service.

And even if you cant get outside of your region physically, theres the internet. Sites like this, The Block Standard Network, Dream and Hustle, and many others are all dedicated to helping you come up with new hustles and ideas that could help you change your financial situation. There really is no excuse for limiting your exposure.

Capturing Ideas

Keep a notepad on you at all times. Keep a notepad next to your bed. Keep a notepad with you while youre in the gym. The best ideas have the tendency to pop up when you least expect them to. Dont run the risk of forgetting your million dollar idea because you didnt write it down!

ACT!

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” – Swami Vivekananda

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” – Buddha

Action is the most important thing when it comes to ideas. I have talked about this before in my post, Ideas are Useless, where I also gave you step by step instructions for capitalizing on them. Dont talk yourself out of the idea before taking action on it, but put it into action. Wear it out. Do everything in your power to make your idea work. Truly put it to the test. Invest your life savings into making it successful. If you have invested a godly amount of effort and money into making your idea successful and it still fails, only then can you call it a bad idea and move on to the next idea thats written down in your book. Re-read Swami Vivekananda’s quote above.

Diversify your knowledge, gain exposure to new ideas and cultures, capture your ideas in writing, and put the idea into action. This is one of the many formulas for success.

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If you are new to this site, one of my roles here is to inform offer consultation on the street level. I teach hustlers to maximize their earnings potential regardless of where they are in life and in business.This post is a very small example of the advice I give.

In an email from Derrick Chavis (aka “THE HUNGRY JEWELER”), one of the many people I met on Tariq Nasheed’s United Players of America Message Board, he asks:

Im getting my tax return in a couple of days..thinking on what to do with it so I can be straight this whole year. I want to invest some $$ back into my business like biz cards, maybe a website. Buy a few products to sell here and there…Plus I sell wheels & tires also as a side hustle so I need to capitalize on that too

Heres my response:
Im happy to hear that more people are starting to use their tax returns to invest in their businesses and their portfolios! To start off, you need to have some things on hand to make your business look legitimate. Business cards are a good start, and at Vistaprint , theyre free or very cheap ($14.00). You wont even notice spending such a small amount for a big return.

Setting up a website is a good idea, but only after you have tried selling on sites like eBay and Amazon to test the viability of your products online. Otherwise, think about setting up a free Wordpress site until you become proficient with eCommerce (If you aren’t already).

One of the best things that you can do in this down economy is educate yourself on ways to reach your market, and educate your market on why they should buy from you via intelligent marketing. Pick up Guerilla Marketing on the Internet: The Definitive Guide from the Father of Guerilla Marketing or Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days (I read this book 5 years ago, and I still use some of the low-cost, highly effective techniques taught).

Think about buying some adspace online at sites like Baller Status, Hip Hop DX, and Global Grind. Advertising need not be expensive; for physical material that will help you become an established brand, check out The PR Store, and think about hiring a graphic artist online that will help you design a flashy logo. Not to toot our horns or anything, but heres the Block Standard logo that exemplifies what a good logo should be:

All in all, if educate yourself and your market, operate intelligently, and continue to invest in effective advertising, you should make whatever you spend right back.

Keep Hustling!

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I’m going to open up a few free spots for anyone who would like to sponsor World Domination with Arthur Pledger in order to get your blog or business some free traffic.

What you get is a 125×125 ad ABOVE THE FOLD, FREE OF CHARGE in my sidebar. I don’t care if your blog tiny or gargantuan. I don’t care if you have 2 page views per day or 2 Million. This will give me a chance to figure out this whole sponsorship thing, while you get some free exposure.

You’ll need to provide me with the 125 x 125 banner for the ad. Depending on how well this thing works out, I will select four additional sponsors for a total of six to run, free of charge, until April. You will pretty much be approved as long as youre not a spammer or pedaling something I wouldn’t approve of (sex toys, escort services, etc).

Here’s how you do it and what I need if you’re interested

If you’re interested, please email me with the word “Sponsorship” in the subject line

• Write one paragraph for me on something you did in the last year that you’re proud of.
• Your website URL
• A description of your blog and/or business
• Why you’re interested
• Your pitch: why should it be your ad?

At the end of April, I will send you a bill for $5 to keep your banner on the site. If youre getting decent traffic, pay for the banner. If not, you can bail. No risk, no hard feelings. I will be making my banner choices in 5 days, SO HURRY UP AND ACT NOW!

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