Before going to college I did not know in what ways I would benefit from it. I could not have made a prudent decision based on my lack of knowledge.

I took some classics and literature courses through Extension when I was about 35. It was a good experience, but it was not for a degree. It would have been tough at that point in life to start college while working full time. People do it, but they have to have a lot of drive, and be well organized. Plus, it takes longer. Double plus, it's no longer really cheap.

Where college is a bad idea is the situation of people taking out loans to attend college (whatever college), for poorly motivated reasons, and then not finishing. They don't have a diploma, they have new debt, and no greater likelihood of a better life. — Bitter Crank

I agree with this, but this has less to do with the sometimes negatives of college specifically and more to do with the most often negatives of failure generally. That is, investing and failing is rarely a good thing, and I would only dissuade a potential student from attempting college if I thought their best efforts would be unsuccessful. One hopes that the admissions office is able to decipher the wheat from the chaff.

Is it perhaps possible to effectively educate yourself online and find a community of educated persons there? — TheHedoMinimalist

The IQ of an average uni student is probably only like one standard deviation above the IQ of the workforce. Instead, you are more likely to meet some pretentious intellectual wannabe in uni who fails to recognize his ignorance. — TheHedoMinimalist

Do you think you won't run into a hoard of pretentious intellectual wannabe's on line? Guess again!

Yes, It is possible to educate one's self (autodidact) but it is quite difficult. One has to have a lot of drive, patience, persistence, and access to a good set of resources -- at least a good library and on-line access. One of the services that college provides is a 4 year guided trip through the process.

In addition to that, it helps enormously if one is part of a community that cares that you are trying to become a learnéd person. If all the people around you do not give a rat's ass what you are doing, then the task is even more difficult. It helps to have ready access to people who are interested in what you are learning.

Is it perhaps possible to effectively educate yourself online and find a community of educated persons there? — TheHedoMinimalist

Anything is possible, but it would take someone somewhat exceptional to study with the same rigor without supervision, imposed deadlines, required curriculum, and critical evaluation and grading.

One hopes that the admissions office is able to decipher the wheat from the chaff. — Hanover

Yes, one would hope. Vaguely interested students had best start at a low cost community college to find out if they can, and want to do college work. If they take a few courses, spend little, and do poorly -- no great loss to anyone.

But sometimes students misapprehend their readiness and ability, dive in and fail. There's nothing wrong with trying and failing, as long as one doesn't draw the wrong conclusions, like "I'm too stupid to do anything." And as long as one wasn't coaxed into borrowing money up front.

TheHedoMinimalist is entertaining the recurrent dream of the self-made man. Maybe 1/2 of 1% of the population (too generous an estimate?) are really able to pull off the job of autodidaction. That's 1,500,000 potential self-educated Americans. Does it seem like there are a million and a half Americans grinding away at collegiate level self education?

I wish, but wishes are fishes. slippery and hard to catch by hand.

One hopes that the admissions office is able to decipher the wheat from the chaff. — Hanover

But, do colleges benefit from deciphering the wheat from the chaff?

I took some classics and literature courses through Extension when I was about 35. It was a good experience, but it was not for a degree. It would have been tough at that point in life to start college while working full time. People do it, but they have to have a lot of drive, and be well organized. Plus, it takes longer. Double plus, it's no longer really cheap. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, it's not necessarily easy to do, especially if someone has to work at the same time--if they have to support family for example, and as I said, it's not a good idea necessarily if one is going to go into a lot of debt (so one might need to stick to state schools in one's state of residency, go to community college first, etc.), but if one can do it, I think it's definitely worth doing, and it's worth getting it over with early if one can.

At that, I did my degrees spread out over almost a 20-year period, but I had career opportunities I didn't want to pass up. But I still wanted to finish school, too, partially because I didn't know how long those career opportunities would last. So I did school when I could, when I had or could make free time, etc.

One of the services that college provides is a 4 year guided trip through the process. — Bitter Crank

Would it perhaps be better to choose what you study instead of having to be compelled to study the material of the guided trip? Wouldn’t it be more fun to ditch the guide and carve your own educational path?

In addition to that, it helps enormously if one is part of a community that cares that you are trying to become a learnéd person. If all the people around you do not give a rat's ass what you are doing, then the task is even more difficult. It helps to have ready access to people who are interested in what you are learning. — Bitter Crank

Well, that depends on your upbringing. My family would disapprove of me getting a philosophy degree due to concerns about debt and few future job prospects but they are perfectly happy about me wanting to educate myself.

But, do colleges benefit from deciphering the wheat from the chaff? — TheHedoMinimalist

An applicant should look at the credentials of the school when applying to be sure they're getting what they seek. I'm not suggesting you should go to any college just to go, but you should be sure they'll provide a reasonable education.

But of course colleges benefit from being competitive.

Anything is possible, but it would take someone somewhat exceptional to study with the same rigor without supervision, imposed deadlines, required curriculum, and critical evaluation and grading. — Hanover

It’s true that it’s easier to motivate yourself in college because you are making a sacrifice to attend. Free education is never going to be as effective as education that can put you in massive debt. The same goes with other things like therapy. Free therapy is also not as effective as paid therapy because the patient isn’t as motivated to take it seriously. But, is it perhaps better to learn how to motivate yourself over time? It takes practice and perseverance, but I think it’s an incredibly useful skill to have.

TheHedoMinimalist is entertaining the recurrent dream of the self-made man. Maybe 1/2 of 1% of the population (too generous an estimate?) are really able to pull off the job of autodidaction. That's 1,500,000 potential self-educated Americans. Does it seem like there are a million and a half Americans grinding away at collegiate level self education? — Bitter Crank

Are there a lot of intelligent and hardworking people today that choose not to go to college? Could this perhaps contribute to the rarity of the self-made man? Were there not more self-made people in the past before college education was common?

Perhaps having to pay adds some motivation, but as I noted in my other posts, it's the instruction that's most beneficial. Students on scholarship, who have parents pay, or attend in countries with free education do just as well as those footing their own tab.

And no, it's not better to do it yourself for most people. Most people would just end up less educated.

But of course colleges benefit from being competitive. — Hanover

That’s a good point. But, can some of the competitive incentives they provide be dangerous? For example, I have a friend who decided to go to an expensive university because she was given a full scholarship as long as she maintained her GPA. Within 2 semesters, she lost the scholarship because she failed to realize how difficult the school actually was. She decided to remain at the school and pay the full tuition with no scholarship because she wanted to continue her program without transferring. I actually told her back in high school that I thought she would lose the scholarship so it was a real “told ya so” moment for me. She also turned down a free scholarship at a community college which I took advantage of. Although, even I didn’t benefit from my associates degree in Information Technology, to be honest. At least I didn’t pay very much money though(I didn’t even buy textbooks half the time). Overall, I’m concerned about scholarships being used as bait for over-optimistic young people.

Students on scholarship, who have parents pay, or attend in countries with free education do just as well as those footing their own tab. — Hanover

Yes, but that’s because there are consequences to not doing well. If you have bad grades, you might lose your scholarships or your parents might stop paying for your tuition. Whereas, there are no consequences to refusing to self-educate. People are usually more motivated by loss than by gain.

Quite a few colleges offer students the option of designing their majors. One could, for instance, combine creative writing, physics, chemistry, and art to prepare for a career in science fiction and sci fi film direction. Better educated writers would avoid sci fi errors like "the spider had 6 legs" or "thorax" when they meant human "larynx". Yes I have seen those errors just recently.

My family would disapprove of me getting a philosophy degree due to concerns about debt and few future job prospects — TheHedoMinimalist

That's why you need a community -- not just your family. My family would have been of limited utility as a support group. My parents were in favor of education but were not themselves educated beyond high school (they were born on farms in 1906 and 1907). By the time I got to college they were in their 60s and glad to see the last of their children finally out of the house.

Well, if you are borrowing money, you should be worried about debt and job prospects majoring in philosophy. English lit, sociology, philosophy, biology, etc. are all perfectly fine liberal arts majors as long as you don't tie your job search strictly to your major. A BA in sociology won't qualify you for many jobs in 'sociology'. But the same degree in sociology proves you have certain basic skills and interests that a corporation or government agency might want -- persistence, broad literacy, ability to meet deadlines (papers due next week), interests, and so on. Philosophy does the same thing. So does English lit and biology.

Whereas, there are no consequences to refusing to self-educate. People are usually more motivated by loss than by gain. — TheHedoMinimalist

Yes there are costs to refusing to self-educate. Look, all education is self-education. You are the one that has to pay attention in lectures, read the text book, go the library and do research, write the paper, and so forth. The teacher is educating you only in an indirect way.

If you don't somehow educate yourself in something you will be what is known in the field as "stupid".

Quite a few colleges offer students the option of designing their majors. One could, for instance, combine creative writing, physics, chemistry, and art to prepare for a career in science fiction and sci fi film direction. Better educated writers would avoid sci fi errors like "the spider had 6 legs" or "thorax" when they meant human "larynx". Yes I have seen those errors just recently. — Bitter Crank

Well, there seems to be one of 2 ways that these “design your major” programs work. The first way is one that simply allows you to select which classes you would like to take. This doesn’t really give you full freedom to choose what you study. This is because the material you can study is limited by the class selection at your institution and the material selected for each course by the professor and the school as “the most important stuff for you to know”. Whereas, you have a much greater selection of study material online that would allow you to customize your education completely. For example, if you want to study philosophy you can read any article from any philosophy encyclopedia you want. You can also read the source material for the encyclopedias which you can download for free about half the time(of course, you can also choose to buy the resources you need from the authors at a small price.). You can buy or download for free any philosophy ebook that you want to read as well. You can check out any philosophy lecture series on YouTube recorded in actual classrooms often in elite universities. You can also listen to interviews with important thinkers on YouTube(although, it’s kinda hard to find an interview that is highly educational). I personally find it helpful because it makes it easier for you to specialize in what you think is most important knowledge to understand and learn. For example, I’m interested in studying the philosophy of personal decision-making which is a subject matter that very few philosophers study and write about. I don’t think I could find a single good course on this topic in any university. It’s actually even hard to find a lot of helpful material online about this topic. I usually try to focus on studying psychology, personal finance, persuasion skills, value theory, and do research on various important life decisions. Unfortunately, these are just not things they teach you in school. There are some schools that would allow you to completely customize your degree. For example, I once heard of guy who got a degree in stand-up comedy and became a professional stand-up comedian. Of course, he wasn’t actually taking any courses at the institution that awarded him the degree. He earned the degree by writing some essays and then giving an hour long stand-up performance. Basically, he paid an institution to give him a piece of paper which says he’s qualified to do stand-up comedy(even though the institution itself is not qualified to access that). Basically, if you truly want to have educational freedom, then doing your learning online definitely has a huge advantage I think.

For example, I’m interested in studying the philosophy of personal decision-making which is a subject matter that very few philosophers study and write about. I don’t think I could find a single good course on this topic in any university. It’s actually even hard to find a lot of helpful material online about this topic. I usually try to focus on studying psychology, personal finance, persuasion skills, value theory, and do research on various important life decisions. Unfortunately, these are just not things they teach you in school. — TheHedoMinimalist

Whether you pursue education within an institution or pursue it outside of the same, it is mostly a practical matter. Do you need a recognized degree? Can you afford college? Will you be admitted? Do you have the personal characteristics required to do well in college (and at the same time, do well outside of college)?

If you do not need what a college offers, and you can get what you want and or need elsewhere, then fine. But I don't know what your situation is; how old you are, how knowledgeable you are, what your history and long-range plans are.

Researchers do study personal decision making, from various angles. Take risk, for example. Whether you are risk averse or risk tolerant will affect the kind of decisions you will make, and to some extent, how you will make them. Risk averse people are likely to be cautious about how they make decisions (gathering safe, reliable information for example) as well as which decisions they make. Risk tolerant people may also gather reliable information, but treat it different than a risk averse person. People are not always consistent from thing to think. An individual may be risk averse about money, but be risk tolerant when it comes to sex.

I think you are probably correct that no single field of research (wherever it is done--on campus or off campus) treats "personal decision making" as its territory. Too bad, because that is where most of us make our worst mistakes.

One of the most important personal decisions is, "What do I want to accomplish in life?" I have sometimes asked college students to think about the next 5, 10, or 15 years. What do I want my life to be like in 10 years? What kind of home will I live in? Do I picture myself being married, partnered, single, with children, no children, how employed? How much money (in today's dollars) do I think I will need to live, and so on. Paint as detailed picture of your planned future as you can, then working backward from the future, "What do I have to do to make that possible?"

Oh, yeah... one other thing: A lot of decision making we do is not made consciously, so it is quite often difficult or impossible to know WHY we decided x, y, or z, and sometimes it is difficult to know WHAT our decision actually was.

I think you are probably correct that no single field of research (wherever it is done--on campus or off campus) treats "personal decision making" as its territory. Too bad, because that is where most of us make our worst mistakes. — Bitter Crank

I agree, it would be nice if there was a greater focus on the topic in high school at least. In high school, they taught me about cellular reproduction and Punnet Squares for 3 years in Middle School Science and High School Biology and they taught me the 3 types of irony, and how to draw a plot pyramid for like 6 years straight in English class. Yet, they never bothered to teach me about what to consider before marrying someone or what to consider before having children or deciding to buy a house.

Oh, yeah... one other thing: A lot of decision making we do is not made consciously, so it is quite often difficult or impossible to know WHY you decided x, y, or z, and sometimes it is difficult to know what your decision actually was. — Bitter Crank

I agree and I’ve read some research on that. This is why it is important to actually be aware of your cognitive biases so that you can be at least a little bit more in the driver’s seat of your own life.

Maybe study neurology? Westerners don't believe in Fate anymore but a lot of stuff goes on between our ears that we have no knowledge of nor control over that we might as well believe in Fate -- up to a point, anyway.

Maybe study neurology? Westerners don't believe in Fate anymore but a lot of stuff goes on between our ears that we have no knowledge of nor control over that we might as well believe in Fate -- up to a point, anyway. — Bitter Crank

Well, I have studied neuroscience actually (I’m assuming you probably meant neuroscience rather than neurology in your comment because neurology is about treating brain and spinal cord injuries while neuroscience is about studying the functions of the brain.). How would believing in fate impact your decision making in a positive manner?

Researchers do study personal decision making, from various angles. Take risk, for example. Whether you are risk averse or risk tolerant will affect the kind of decisions you will make, and to some extent, how you will make them. Risk averse people are likely to be cautious about how they make decisions (gathering safe, reliable information for example) as well as which decisions they make. Risk tolerant people may also gather reliable information, but treat it different than a risk averse person. People are not always consistent from thing to think. An individual may be risk averse about money, but be risk tolerant when it comes to sex. — Bitter Crank

I’m definitely belong to the risk adverse camp for the most part. This is because of the Law of Diminishing Utility which is recognized by most economists under a slightly different name(Although, I’m not sure to what extent we can call this a scientific law, it’s mostly an intuitive observation about utility.). The Law of Diminishing Utility basically states that we gain less utility with each additional unit or level of improvement of a utility-giving substance. For example, the difference in utility between having an income of $50,000 and having an income of $30,000 is greater than the difference in utility of having an income of $70,000 and $50,000. This is because the extra money in the former difference is more essential in fulfilling needs and important wants rather than trivial wants like having a fancy car. If you have a choice between a guaranteed $50,000 income and a second choice where your income will either be $30,000 or $70,000 which will be determined by a coin flip, then it’s better to choose the first option because of the Law of Diminishing Utility(I know real decisions are more complicated than that but I think it’s helpful to have these models in mind). This law also applies to other things like the attractiveness of your sexual partner for example. The difference in utility between having an average looking partner and an ugly one is greater than the difference of utility between an attractive partner and an average looking one.

Yes, neuroscience. Slip of the fingers.

Believing in Fate wouldn't help, as far as I can tell. I was aiming at the idea that there are forces (like the way our brains work) that we do not have control of. What we can do is recognize that urges, wishes, desires... are affecting our thinking (often in non-obvious ways) and that we [or what we think are our consciously deciding minds] are not entirely in charge.

The upshot is to exercise caution and reflect on decisions for awhile (if at all possible) before we put them into action. This is, of course, easier said than done.

Here's a simple example: hunger (low blood sugar) and fatigue can creep up on us without our noticing. Both can affect our thinking and decision making. An event that is viewed as a threat before lunch might well be viewed as irrelevant after lunch--and we won't necessarily be aware that eating lunch altered our mental functioning, slightly.

How about this: People would rather be the highest paid person in a group at $50,000 a year. then making $50,000 more ($100,000 a year) and be the lowest paid person in the group.

What's significant about that is that it isn't only the amount of wage that is paid, but the status one has in the distribution of wages in a group. That sort of thing can affect decision making in an unrecognized way. It's a sort of "better to reign in hell than be a servant in heaven".

Here's a simple example: hunger (low blood sugar) and fatigue can creep up on us without our noticing. Both can affect our thinking and decision making. An event that is viewed as a threat before lunch might well be viewed as irrelevant after lunch--and we won't necessarily be aware that eating lunch altered our mental functioning, slightly. — Bitter Crank

Yep, I think it would be wise to have a law that says that a judge and jury must have a meal tray with any food they want provided within reason and be allowed to eat during any hearing where they might be required to make a decision.