Then, I don't need a high school diploma

Recently, it seems that there has been a subtle increase in articles, and discussions, on the need for college degrees, certifications, or any other form of continued education. In this feature, the focus will be primarily on the college degree aspect of these discussions. In most of the discussions, the popular conclusion to these debates appears to be that many favor experience over an institutional education. The trendy consensus being that a non-degreed, experienced employee will perform at a higher level than a degreed employee in more instances that not. Is this true? Can this way of thinking prove to be detrimental in the future?

Today, we are seeing an increasing number of individuals who have become successful without ever receiving a degree. In receiving this success, they have obtained a platform that has allowed them to share their accomplishments. One common theme many share is the fact that they have reached this stage without a degree. While positive and inspirational, most of them state what is increasingly becoming the norm. "A degree is not necessary. I made it without one". "Experience is far better than a degree." Or, "that degree doesn't mean anything; it's just a piece of paper".

Superficially speaking, it may appear that the non-degreed, experienced employee is a better performer than the degreed individual. But, the question should be raised, "Do they have the same amount of experience?" Also, one could ask, "Is the degreed individual new in this area of question?" Is it possible that over the exact same period of time allotted the non-degreed employee, the degreed person will make far greater advancements than the non-degreed individual, relatively speaking? Let's imagine that two individuals started at the same time, one with a degree and one without a degree. Both are willing to learn what is needed, they put in the same amount of work, and they are under the exact same day to day circumstances; who would perform at a higher rate and demonstrated the most significant advancements?

Next, let's view this topic from a totally different perspective and ask the following question. What about the person who says, "I don't need a high school diploma for this job"? Surely, someone is thinking, "...that is totally out of context and unrelated." Yet, they have just as valid of a claim at stating this as the person who says that a college degree is not needed, or useless. In many cases, a student's senior year in high school is spent taking simple, meaningless classes, unless they are planning to go to college. So, why not start programming as a teenager, drop out of high school as a junior, and get a job at a major corporation as a software developer, web developer, or database administrator, project manager, etc. After all, experience is the best teacher, and as many put it, they'll take an experienced person over one with a degree, in many cases.

So, hire the teenage dropout at the office and let them learn through experience, just as you would without, or with, the degree. They are capable of learning from their mistakes along the way, too. Wait! Let's not stop there. How about just dropping out of high school after your sophomore year; after all, some high school is better than none, right? It is not a secret that many high school students think that they know everything that they need to know at that point anyway, and they feel that high school is a waste of their time. Surely, you've heard of people succeeding without a high school diploma. People like the following: Andrew Jackson the 7th US President, Jimmy Dean a self-made multimillionaire, and Ray Charles. What happens when they start vocalizing their success stories? What will be said when they begin promoting that a high school diploma is not needed to do a specific job? Do they not have a valid argument, just as those who have a high diploma but don't have a college degree?

There is always an exception to the rule. We will always find the case of the individual(s) who have obtained success without any continued education, like Bill Gates. Yet, this fact should not drive the idea that a college degree is not needed. Nor, should it imply that a degree makes a person less marketable than a person who has x-years in experience. The person without the degree may not see a need for it, but in most cases, a person cannot miss what they never had. So, it is easy for them to think that it is not needed because they never had it, when in reality it is needed. They were just fortunate, or smart enough, to make it without the degree. There will always be the exception to the rule, and in these instances, those individuals are the exceptions. It may appear that lately more people than not have succeeded without a degree, but only because the population sample of those without degrees is greater than in previous years. In spite of this, we cannot confuse the exception to the rule with the rule. This is a dangerous way of thinking that can only lead to lower standards in an already declining society, educationally speaking.

This article was not written to glorify one idea over the other. Both circumstances can co-exist in society and industrial environments. Nevertheless, we must become more aware of the harm that we are doing to our future society from an educational view point. We, as a society, are digressing without knowing it because we no longer have the higher standards to gauge ourselves against. The rest of the world doesn't seem to think that a college degree is not needed. They continue to produce individuals with multiple degrees for the industries of today. Furthermore, they leap at opportunities to study and receive degrees from American universities. Why do they do this, if college degrees are not needed?