Do
You Need A College Degree?
The
World Wide
Web has emerged as the greatest library
of all time, bringing a wealth of information
to the fingertips of people around the world.
In the meantime, conventional wisdom stated
that education was the gateway to the good
life. This reality has prompted academic
institutions to scramble and offer their
curriculum online. As a result, people are
asking whether formal education is a prerequisite
to the good life after all.
The
Technological Revolution further accelerated
what was started by the Industrial Revolution,
migrating popular jobs from production and
manufacturing to services and other so-called
knowledge-based industries. With the advent
of the World Wide Web, deregulated markets
and the subsequent emergence of the global
village, the skills required to excel and
dominate in society have evolved. Today,
these forces are urging many to ask whether
institutionalizing oneself in a classroom
and completing a degree is really a prerequisite
to the good life. After all, Bill Gates
dropped out of school, as did Michael Dell.
Ted Turner had a different plan altogether.
This book will look at these and other models
of success and try to explain why some make
it big while others stumble.
Moreover,
completing a regular diploma is at times
a lengthier process than taking dreams from
concept to reality in the business world.
Such rags to riches stories were traditionally
confined to Americans. But the reality of
the global marketplace has allowed entrepreneurs
from Beijing to Buenos Aires to control
their destiny and strike it rich.
Experience
has emerged as one of the most coveted assets.
As a result, shelving education and opting
to commercialize products so that they may
move off shelves seems like an attractive
alternative instead. On the other hand,
it is because the seeds of great business
models have been planted in the classroom
that the need to attend business school
has accelerated. Which side of the argument
is right?
Companies
have long hired the cream of the crop. Some
have looked beyond the traditional MBA and
tapped into the fields of Social Sciences
and Liberal Arts to fill their ranks in
a hot economy. Fueled by investment, excess
and conspicuous consumption, the sky seemed
to be the limit. But then almost overnight
the economy went into a tailspin: the dot
com sector lost $1 trillion in market value;
the telecommunications industry evaporated
$2.5 trillion in market value, laying off
half a million employees in the process
. Then the attacks of 9/11 shook our foundation.
With the economy about to recover, Enron
went bankrupt and Arthur Andersen was decimated.
Then Worldcom announced that its numbers
were cooked. As hundreds of thousands took
another hit, it was clear that the rosy
picture of the previous decade was replaced
with the grim reality of the 21st century.
More than ever, survival was uncertain.
Suddenly,
education's place in society changed.
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