Exactly. I won't say that I was a fantastic student at any point in my school career. For that matter, I pretty much scraped through High School on my test scores, right up until the time that I notice that I was making what I thought was good money and dropped out. It wasn't until years later that I realized my education was lacking and took steps to remedy it. I was 23 when I got my GED, and almost 30 when I took my first college course. Since then, I've tried to maintain a schedule of taking at least one course a semester, whether it's a credit course or an elective through the local community college.

Throughout history, there are stories of entrepreneurs that made a fortune without an education. While these are inspiring, they also make me wonder how much more successful they could have been if they had been formally educated.

With online marketing, I don't figure it's a must.

I don't think college is necessary, but the more educated you are in the field you're working in should make you more qualified and successful. I'm a college graduate, but I believe in continuing my education...I never quit learning. I study a variety of topics. I love learning.

I think people in this day and age are looking more into studying directly for the field you're entering into. For some that may just require attending a vocational-technical school.

Apprenticeship-type training that allows you hands-on training of skills is still one of the best ways to learn, I believe... it'd be good if our society offered more of these types of opportunities.

True, because if you've been exposed to some type of accounting, even if it's just basic business accounting, you'll realize just how important it is to your business. You'll also get an idea of whether you should do it yourself or outsource that part of your business.

I can do the basics, like add and subtract to come up with my profit/loss, but the rest of it? We have an accountant. :-)

Oh, absolutely! Even IM without an education compared to someone who only took just one semester at community college "may" be more successful!

Book Keeping is my biggest demon, I hate it, and get backed every year.

Got to find a better CPA.

Statistically, college graduates earn far more than high school graduates even when tuition costs are taken into account. There are also intangibles for higher education such as more business networking options through alumni and professional organizations in one's chosen course of study as well as access to business opportunities in stratified socio-economic circles. Although mitigating circumstances can offset some earnings discrepancies, within statistical deviation limits it can be said income expands as formal education increases.

You know, I felt the same way several years ago, but with age comes wisdom and I now have absolutely no regrets in at least getting my associate degree.

And actually, you can go for maybe 18 months and simply get a certification in your field of interest and it will help!

The question though is who are you learning from? Most likely the best lessons are coming from those who are educated both formal and in the real world.

Everyone just wants to be the guy/gal that bucked the system and made it big. You know how it is .

You're completely right, but I've noticed in countless forum discussions about education, that many Warriors seem to look at education only in terms of its earning potential, and then not even to acknowledge the overwhelming overall income disparities between college graduates and others. In other words, you're right, but long experience here has taught me - in a strange, almost-educational process of its own - that you probably won't change anyone's mind. I never can, anyway ...

True, but consider that they are constantly pushing the legal limits of what they do. The FTC and state attorneys general are constantly looking at them.

Every success story comes at a cost be it years spent on education, investment risk, trial and error or in the big MMO gurus case, a legal risk. If you remove the life sacrifice of formal education, that has to be made up for in another way.

So, no, a formal education isn't always necessary.... but you will pay in some other way.

Exactly, and this brings up a point that I think a lot of the "forget college, get money" people miss. Now, if you're going to college and muddling through required classes to get a degree you will be wasting your time and money. The people who think of college like that though either never went themselves or don't have an entrepreneur's mindset (and will fail in business anyways).

College isn't high school: you don't just "show up" to get a piece of paper. You pick a field that you want to master (in this case business, accounting, whatever), and you put in extra effort to master it. There are resources at school that can't be matched in the outside world. On top of that, you have a protection here that you cannot have "going out and just doing it". College is pretty much your last chance to make mistakes with few consequences, and I'm not just talking about drinking and sleeping with "questionable" girls.

People that say students should skip this crucial stage of development for whatever reason can probably be directly attributed to causing a lot of the messes that the world is in today. Lack of education leads to a lot of stupid s***.

This is very, very true. At 53 yrs. old I went back to our local community college to get a certificate in Web Design. I "thought" at the time that's what I wanted to do. (I'm one of those kids that still hasn't learned what she wants to be when she grows up :p)

Well, I made it through one term, then halfway through the second - and too late to drop! - I landed in the hospital with the flu! (I'm still paying off the tuition!)

Anyway, back at home and on the days I was able to sit up long enough, I hit YouTube. And proceeded to learn everything I would have learned not only in that semester but in the next two terms as well - for free!!

But I'm still glad I went! I did learn something from the little bit of time I went. I got the very starter basics of programs I wouldn't have wanted to try in the first place. My Adobe Design Premium CS4 went onto my tuition bill so I didn't have to pay for that up front out of pocket. And I proved to myself that even at my age with my disabilities, I could still cut it with the young kids (I was the oldest in ALL of my classes!)

Oh, and I decided I did not want to go into Web Design for a living. ROFL

All I know is that these days a college education is what a high school diploma used to be. So, anyone who is younger let's say 18 to 30ish who steps up and say's they have never taken a college course is like someone telling me that they lack a lot of the basics.

I know loads of people who went to university and didn't get the amazing job they were led to believe they were going to get.

THAT is the key phrase, right there. No matter what type of education, one should never want to stop learning!

Exactly. I have an Assoc. Degree from a culmination of a private university, a community college and finally a business school. And I don't regret any of it. But then, I never graduated high school in the traditional sense and wearing that cap and gown for a ceremony was very important to me, even though I was 35 when that finally happened.

I've also spent the last 19 years constantly self-learning - ebooks, books, a couple of non-credit courses, etc.

I think one of the problem areas with high schools and colleges/universities today, at least when I was going, is that they don't put enough focus on business ownership and entrepreneurship in any way, shape or form. It's all "get a Job" focused. Doing your Resume, getting an interview, follow up letters, job applications, getting along in the workplace ...

How about outsourcing? Communications? Marketing for the small business? No, at least here in the US in the colleges I went to, you didn't have any of that. You have to teach yourself these things.

So IMHO, if you already know by the time you graduate HS that you are NOT going to be employed by anyone else but yourself, I think self-education is going to be a lot more important than formal education.

The Internet has so many resources, including free resources, that you can teach yourself the equivalent of a Specialized Degree; i.e., like at the school I went to. Granted you won't get that accredited piece of paper but when was the last time a customer on the list of an IM person was asked for their CV?

This argument is made a lot and it's biggest flaw is not factoring in that we are not all equal.

Some people have a high level of intelligence, natural business sense and all the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Those are the people within the success group who preach that college is a waste of time for everyone.

But then you look at the guy who is just kind of average and views "business" as a place you go to work 8 hours a day to do as little as possible without getting fired. That's the guy who is in desperate need of the structure of a formal education. How many newbies showing up here crying poor fall into this category? I would imagine a good amount, and they have zero chance of making things work online just as they can't get anything decent going for themselves offline either.

I can almost gurantee you that those lectures Claude went to were given by those who were formally educated.

I can't even believe I made it through and graduated. I must have spent more on beer than on tuition. It was on one of those drunken nights that I found IM and never even used my degree.
If the next google update leaves me without an income, then I have something to fall back on.

I agree about the text books, but how many are actually going to open text books?

I'm pushing to get as much education as possible. I'm only 23 but I already see that having a stimulated mind that is well balanced allows you to see the open opportunities in any market. Lack of stimulation and you're stuck in old ideas. It gets hard to innovate or even just to adapt.

So yes, I believe it is of great importance to get a formal education to better open your mind. Shoot, I am basically a full time IMer yet my degree is in Philosophy. Both seeing the forest for the trees and analyzing the crap out of one sentence to find deeper meaning has definitely opened me to innovate in my business than had I just did IM with nothing else.

I think formal education can put you in a box.

-Look at the number of guys in marketing, business, finance who never went to college or never even got a masters (which some might think of as a requirement). It's a loooong list.

Claude Hopkins
Jay Abraham
Richard Branson
Gates, etc.

I think the problem with formal education is what they teach is "safe" (not necessarily effective). In finance, there's all these precepts that they teach....about modern porfolio theory, rate of return, analyzing cash flow, etc. The real world isn't as neat as many academic theories. This is what a lot of successful people exploit. I.e. Claude Hopkins going door to door learning how to sell.

There's quotes in Claude Hopkins book (my life in advertising), about learning more from the common man, the man selling things on the street....vs formal, book education.

-I don't think you get breakthroughs in a classroom. Everything is "safe" or conservative. Or the standard way of doing something. Also, I think successful people can do one thing exceedingly well. You don't really need "everything" in a standard classroom.

Also, I think there's something to be said for common sense. It alone has value in the business world (and in life). You can make things too complicated and lose touch with reality (i.e. the economic crisis). How many businesses lose touch with reality? It's a lot.

The 50k you mention is usually borrowed money for a lot of working class kids, which from a risk/reward perspective makes it an extremely silly thing to do.

risk - many thousands of $ of debt
only guaranteed reward - piece of paper with something printed on it.

Its just part of the dogma of most modern societies that 'education is always good', so most people accept it without scrutinising it properly. If 'education' was replaced with 'gaining marketable skills' then I would be more inclined to agree with it.

Why would upper/middle class people want working class people to become one of them when they would have to go to the trouble of replacing their working class? Most modern societies NEED working class people or theres no middle/upper class. I think they are happy for working class people to get a university education just as long as they will spend the rest of their life in debt and make them even poorer than they would have been if they hadn't have gone to university. Its a win-win situation for them, in my opinion.

I think its better if you actually dive into the school thing and find out for yourself.

I had a prof who taught me retail from a book. His selection of the book was excellent. How did I know? because I started studying business at the age of 15.
Oh, let me tell you about the prof teaching the course lolol. Have you ever heard of hersheys? well he dated the daughter. Have you ever heard of Mergers and Acquisitions? This prof was responsible for the start of that.

My point is you normally wouldn't get that hands on type of training in the Real World and this school wasn't even an Ivy College.

Another course I took delt with the future of business. The prof. was in advertising and marketing at one point. Anyway, this course covered Affiliate Marketing and Multi Level Marketing this was back in the early to mid 90s.

Again I say you normally don't get that type of start and training in the Real World.

The problem here is that people are lazy and rather wallow in their own self pitty. So, what if one guru comes out of 1 million. That means that 1 million are low achievers to middle of the road and never get the guru status. So, my point this time is that you are better off getting as much education as you can, rather it be formal or otherwise. Just make sure you pick the right teachers.

I agree completely with this. I'd hate to get a formal education in "marketing". I don't even think of "marketing" as "formal education" (though I acknowledge that in some places it just about can be, these days, with "degrees" available in "business studies" and even specifically in "marketing"). Not my idea of "education" at all.

Any way you put it whether it be in the classroom or the WF one still has to gain that experience. Look at your WF failures the ones who ignore the basics of IM, sitting around for years before they build a list, or get their hands dirty. Yet I'm sure they have heard it over and over again.

Fact is, in this day and age, you can't afford to not have a degree in my opinion, the only problem is whilst it opens many other doors, these doors are to the world system, which is get a degree and get a job and so on, and as we may all know, you can only earn so much with this system.

In most cases, these type of graduates never think of doing their own thing, and where they do, it will be some conventional way of doing it, which I just find way time consuming and risky.

I say this because I have got good graduate friends who are stuck in the rut race and when we reason, they are never interested in looking at the opportunities online business avails and boy, only if they new what they could achieve with the knowledge and skills the have acquired. They actually shun online Internet marketing as a business, which is a real shame.

I have so much to say on this but I am just going to cut it shot, however, I think it's highly important to guide your children in their careers and to make sure they get it, because they often don't, you know youngsters, they got their own ideas too.

Bottom-line is, like Jim Rohn said, "Formal education will make you a living, and personal development will make you a fortune"

A combination of the two can be explosive. Can you imagine what these young graduates would do if they had the knowledge one can acquire through personal development and the online marketing world?

I think they need this stuff badly because there are too many of them and there is no work for all of them, the sooner they realise this the earlier we can alleviate the job crisis problem IMHO.

Sadly, it's a question of choice and perception I suppose!