Get that degree.

I’m concerned, you guys.  I’ve been following a few popular business and life coaches.  I think they’re dope and really helpful in a lot of ways.  Few things fire me up more than listening to a great podcast with coffee as I plan my day.  But I’m noticing a potentially dangerous subtext in a lot of their messages.  A lot of coaches – even ones that I love – try to convince you that as a young person college is a waste of time.  That to be successful as an entrepreneur you should dive in headlong and scrap it out.  Hustle!  That formal education is an expensive burden that trains you to think like a lemming and not like the empowered, swashbuckling entrepreneur you were meant to be.  And these are coaches and speakers that I follow and enjoy.  But on this point, they are dead wrong.  And they are cheating you.

A college education is for everyone.  And as a society we need to find a way to ensure everyone can access it.  College is a time for focused learning about the world and an opportunity to discover some of the bigger (and more interesting) problems that the world needs you to fix.  Absolutely supplement your formal education with entrepreneurship and other meaningful activities.  But get that learning if you can because it will make you a better version of yourself.

If you do it right, a college education will also give you access to the things you need to launch your business.  A network of investors, mentors, colleagues and friends (many of whom will buy your product and treat you to pizza during your lean years grinding it out!).  And so incredibly importantly, having years of college and a degree under your belt signals to the world that you can grind long term towards a tangible goal and achieve it.  It shows your ability to dedicate your life to something, to execute, to manage your time and resources.  It demonstrates your self confidence and organization and your ability to commit to something that won’t make you an overnight success and despite it having zero potential for a huge financial windfall at exit.  It shows you can do something because you care, because it helps to elevate society and not because it will get you on Forbes 30 under 30.  And it shows that you can be guided and be successful in a world that, like it or not, is highly structured and hierarchical.  When you put that degree on your resume, this is what you are communicating to the world.  And these are exactly the things that investors, business partners and other key stakeholders in your entrepreneurial journey want to see.  Because recall, most of these partners are investing in you, not your app or your product.  And a college degree gives you instant credibility.

By way of small example, I attended a startup event recently where a couple of amazing kids with a dope idea were looking for an investment of $5K, in exchange for which they were offering up pieces of their company, bit by bit.  Neither of the kids is in college.  When I asked why they were willing to give up their company for such a small amount, they said that was the only way they could raise any cash.  No bank would speak with them, and their network of friends and family wasn’t developed enough to tap for the type of free money that launches so many businesses.  A few days earlier, my banker casually offered me a substantial line of credit on excellent terms for pre-launch activities on my very pre-revenue business.  Without me asking.  And a manufacturing partner, after being given some information on my background, offered me a discount and expedited processing.  And I have no doubt that if I reached out to my close friends they would be able to put together seed money for me, and because of the years we spent together in the trenches in school they would trust me with it.  And I would do the same for them.  I tell you this not to brag – there is still a long road ahead of me and tremendous grinding (and I am certainly open if anyone wants to send me more money because I will definitely need it) – but to illustrate that the road to entrepreneurial success may be made a little less gravelly and a little shorter by the credibility and network a college (and graduate) degree gives you. (I gave those kids some money, by the way.)

To repeat, a college education is for everyone.  Everyone can benefit from extra years of education, training and support, and the safe space for thought exploration that should come with it.  That’s why I love moves being made in the higher education to make college more affordable by eliminating the shackles of student debt and to make it more accessible through technology.  I also appreciate much overdue attention to the psychology of learning and the attempt to diversify teaching styles because we don’t all learn the same.  Those of us who were blessed to attend college owe it to future generations to keep moving the needle in this direction and to quite literally pay it forward.

If you are blessed to have the choice between going and not, go.  Don’t get cheated out of one of the best investments in your future.