Saturday, January 31, 2009

College Education-Worth It Or Not?

Almost everyone says that a Bachelor degree is a must in order to survive in the society. They are probably right. You need to present your degree and certificates during job interview. Without a degree, you should never think about getting a high paying job.

Want to become a doctor? Please study medicine course at a college for at least five years. Make sure the University is prestigious and recognized by the government. If your dream is to become a doctor, please go ahead. Doctor is such a noble job and I always respect doctors. However, never become a doctor just because you want to earn a lot of money.

Studying at college can be very expensive. For instance, the degree program I am doing now at HELP University College costs me more than RM13,500 every year, excluding living expenses. First two years I will be studying in Malaysia. If I were to transfer to Australia in the final year, I would really have to pay a lot of money. Even that one year in Australia could cost a lot more than entire three year program in Malaysia. Let's say I really transfer to the University of Queensland in the third year, the entire cost of studying, including living and miscellaneous expenses for the three years would be about RM160-200K!



Money money money! Imagine what I could do with the RM160,000 cash if I did not study in the University.

1. Start a small business with RM160,000 cash capital.
I can become a boss immediately after secondary school! If I really manage the business well, I might be generating good income in the near future. So why go to work when you can become your own boss?

2. Find friends who share the same idea and start a partnership with them.
Let's say I find 10 friends who also agree with my opinion, we all can pool our RM160K each into a partnership. So it would be a total cash capital of RM1.6 Million. We can even float our company to become a public listed company.

3. Invest in stock or foreign exchange.
I am not proficient in this area. But I think RM160K is already a very good start-up fund for investment.

If money is not an objection, probably you will not bother what I mentioned above. So let's talk about time! The duration of a degree program is at least three years. Note, I have not counted the duration for foundation or pre-University program.

So what could I do in the three years if I chose not to study at University?

1. Find a job and work very hard.
I could find a job and work very hard. Within these three years, I would gain working experience as well as promotion. After the three years, my salary will most probably surpass what a fresh graduate can get. Of course there will be a salary limitation for you if you do not have a degree.

2. Start a business.
Business needs not only money, but also time. Otherwise, why would Bill Gates drop out from Harvard and focus on his Microsoft? There is of course risk involved in starting a business. No venture, no gain.

Want to become the second Bill Gates? No way, because Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook has already been recognized as the second Bill Gates. I always hope I can do what they did. Just drop out from college and start a high potential Internet business.

So is a college education worthy? It depends. There are so many factors to consider. If you do not have any financial problem, you should study and get a degree. However, do not just study blindly without knowing your goal in life. We should be clear with what we want to achieve in our life. */
Posted by Su Sheng Loong at Saturday, January 31, 2009
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8 comments:

  1. Nice post

    My uncle always say "I dont have a degree and yet I'm a manager after years of hard work"

    hahaha.. for his children, he also dont believe in studying long and in prestigious uni, he just tell them quick quick finish study, get a degree then come out work, study no important.. haha... dats y he dun let them go STPM (2 yrs), go those foundation course, less than 1 year, then go study Rahman (courses there all shorter).. no need straight A, just pass enough liao..

    haha... so it really depends on wat u want lor..
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  2. Indeed. It really depends on what you want. Different people would have different opinions for this issue. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the current formal education is never sufficient. There are so many important things, such as how to build relationship with people, not being taught at schools.
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  3. well, this topic is interesting. i always have confusion about this.

    even lately i almost re-join the distance study program by USM (i joined before but for some reasons i quit after 2 years) then i decided not to.

    to me, its either you want to work with people with professional job and security. then you should go on with the studies. you can save and choose the right method to invest coz by save all your salary won't make you rich.

    or...

    you don't go for further study and start a biz. but biz is always a risk and people who are afraid or risk and falling is the worst, should not involve in biz. you can go up and go down easily, but with experience that you will gain as time goes by, you will learn a lot of thing in biz. biz can make you rich if you are doing good... but risky.

    some of my friends love risk and keep doing biz and some prefer to work in the office and jump from 1 company to the other base on the salary offered.

    you know better what you want to do :)
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  4. An employee can never be at least financially free. He or she may earn very high salary. However, when he or she stops working, so does the income. That's why Robert T. Kiyosaki emphasizes so much on the importance of becoming an entrepreneur and investor in the Rich Dad series.

    As you said, a college education is only useful if you opt for a professional job and job security. The bad news is that there is no security at all when you are an employee. I will write something about it in the upcoming post.
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  5. i agree with you sheng loong about the security unless you manage to get yourself a place in government sector.

    some of my friends who work as lecturer in USM asking me about biz too, whether there is opportunity for them to start one or join me. everybody knows that employee can't really give you a good life, doesn't matter how much you earn :)
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  6. Faisal, the sad truth is that you cannot have real security even if you are working in government sector. Imagine if one day you fall sick or have an accident although I really hope it will never happen to you. You might not be able to go work for a long period and do you think the government would still continue paying you every month? Perhaps the government will compensate you some money initially but most probably it won't last long. It's active income after all, get paid only when you work.

    Many people are seeking for business opportunity. So am I. I am really keen on building multiple stream of passive income.
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  7. Hey, it has been ages since we last seen each other! I've always been thinking of starting my own business, but lacking of opportunity and fund. Haha! Maybe we can cooperate in the future. LOL! Regarding stock exchange, I've burnt my fingers. Hmm...
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  8. Hi ley,

    No problem. We can actually meet up to discuss about it. It's so exciting to talk about a business partnership. Hehe.

    Lately the stock exchange market seems to be quite risky due to the economic tsunami. Without much funds and tips from internal company we can hardly make a fortune from stock exchange. I hope it doesn't hurt you much. Good luck!
    ReplyDelete

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