All of that to set up the next question. Do you need to pay for your education? I'm a PhD student and my wife will graduate with her's next week, so you might think of my bias a certain way. But, with all of the technology, information, and access these days you have to stop and think about what a degree buys you. Seth Godin wrote an interesting article recently that discusses this very topic. He titled his article, Buying An Education or Buying a Brand?
When someone asks me what I remember about the college experience, the typical reply is that I remember 3 or 4 classes. That's it! Out of four years and approximately 120 credit hours there were 3 or 4 lessons/topics that the professors covered that I actually use in life and work. Now, you could argue that there are things I use because I learned it and simply don't remember the day and time, but when you ask other students/graduates the same question you tend to get similar answers. So again I ask, do you need to pay for your education?
When prestigious universities like MIT, Stanford, and Yale openly put courses on the internet so anyone with a computer and Internet access can attend, why pay a few hundred thousands dollars for the piece of paper they give you upon graduation? Because you also have to consider the fact that there are so many success stories that revolve around people who either drop out of school (as in college most of the time) or never attend. Do Bill Gates and Mark Zukerburg ring a bell? They're two rare, but compelling examples.
We place so much emphasis on education that learning often falls behind. As a former middle school teacher I've seen the lengths parents will go to get their child accepted into the 'right school.' Learning in the academic sense isn't as important as a score on a test, positions/offices held in an organization, or sports participated in. Students know to 'pad their resume' before the 6th grade.
The point here is that learning is important. As Dave Ramsey will often say, "I don't care where you learned it, as long as you learn it." Dan Miller teachers people how to create functional resume's instead of chronological ones in an effort to highlight the knowledge, skills, and abilities of people instead of a list of embellished accomplishments. There are so many resources out there that offer great information, and all you have to do is look.
Do we need to pay for an education? Take a look at some of these resources and find out for yourself:
-Khan Academy
-iTunes U
-TED
-Podcasting
-Blog Search
-YouTube
-TeacherTube
-PLN's
-Libraries
-Open Culture
-Project Gutenburg
-Audiobooks
-Open University
