Does anyone regret it?

[Leherself]

No, I don't regret it. I honeschooled through high school and took my first college classes when I was seventeen. I quickly figured out a few things. One, I couldn't afford to keep going to school and I wasn't interested in going into debt. Two, I had no idea what I really wanted to study or what I wanted to do for a living. And three, I wasn't ready for college from an adulthood/responsibility perspective (academically, it was manageable, but I wasn't emotionally mature enough at 17 to self-manage and motivate).

So I went directly into working. Then I joined the military. Ultimately this has worked out well for me - I'm ten years into a government career when many of my age mates are still looking for entry level employment, and I bought my first home at 26 because I wasn't having to fight down student loan beasties and I had a solid income.

As I see it, there are a few different pieces to the "college experience." The first is educational - that can be done in a variety of ways. You don't have to attend college to read books and write papers. And especially at the lower division, I don't think there's necessarily more value in taking a survey course in a room of 150 other students, and getting graded on three tests and a paper, than there is in just skipping the hassle and taking a CLEP exam on your own. I've taken enough college classes to know that for every genius professor who really pushes your horizons outward, you take half a dozen classes with TAs that are just going through the motions - at least at most state or public schools.

The second aspect of college is the credential - and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing inherently more valuable about a state school diploma vs. say a TESU one. Ivy's are a different issue, but most colleges are not Ivy's.

Third is college-as-a-broadening experience, a place where young people are out on their own for the first time, exposed to a wider variety of people than they grew up with, etc. Especially for young students I think this is probably the most important part of college, but I think it's important to realize that even for a typical college student the best broadening experiences happen outside the classroom. Jobs, internships, foreign travel, etc. are all valuable and if anything they are even more accessible to non-students than they are to students. Broadening experiences and emotional maturity are the reasons that I wouldn't hire, say, and 18-year-old with a Bachelors - but then, I wouldn't be impressed by a 22-year-old with a bachelors if they didn't have any other work or life experience to draw from. If I was advising a young person who was planjing to test out of college, then this is where I'd want them to put in some extra effort to make themselves more marketable, and also give themselves the opportunity to grow as people. Do things that make them uncomfortable - take risks, make mistakes, have adventures - don't just stay in your parents house and work at the corner store to save money.

The number one complaint I hear about young people in the workforce is a variation on, "well, this is the first time they've ever been away from home and they aren't handling it well." In the military that's usually a fresh out of highschool 18 year old and we make it work. In my partner's career that's usually a college graduate (sometimes even someone with a Masters degree) and things generally don't work out well at all - in part because he's a civilian and they don't have the same leverage with their employees as the military does with its recruits. I remember being mind boggled after having a conversation with a 28-year-old man who told me this was the first time in his life he'd had a full time job - he'd spent the past decade going to school, most using loans, and the only jobs he'd had were part time work-study type things.

Don't be that guy. Get out more.