10 Reasons You Shouldn't Enroll in College Right Now

Is it even a question?

Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Once upon a time, going to college was a clear-cut choice. A haven for the academic elite and the perpetually drunk (also the perpetually drunk academic elite) to find enlightenment, universities represented the collective ambition of students everywhere.

Nowadays, deciding to go to college is a more complicated decision. Or, rather, it's still easy, but we're all in denial about the sad truth. Just look at the facts. With graduates across the country racking up insurmountable debt, students battling rising tuition costs, and value of degrees plunging at the pace of an aging Trump's IQ, it's easy to see why now's not the best time to enroll.

For those of you still on the fence, here's a breakdown: 10 Reasons You Shouldn't Enroll in College Right Now.

10. You Can Invest that Money Instead

So your parents have been throwing giant heaps of money into a college fund ever since you were born, and now you're free to attend the institution of your dreams. Kudos to them. Mom and dad did their job, now it's time to do yours—disappointing them. Take that money and put it to good use. Convince your ultra-naive folks to write you a fat check for the start-up of your dreams. Novelty t-shirts? Witty posters? Tons of drugs and alcohol? If you can sell the investors on it, it's yours.

9. Four Uninterrupted Years of You-Time

College isn't just a financial burden, it's also a waste of time. A single presidential term or two R. Kelly lawsuits, at the very least. Think of all you could do with four whole years of uninterrupted you-time. You could start a business. You could travel the world. You could end up homeless and destitute, a squatter foraging for leftover french fries in local dumpsters. No risk, no reward, they always say.

8. You Can Choose Your Own Career Path

For many, college is an express ticket to working the menial desk job of their dreams. Maybe your lawyer friend comes to mind. Or your insurance salesman friend. Or your accountant. Looking in from the outside, one might wonder what could possibly motivate someone to live out their glory years as a corporate schmuck in a crowded office. We don't have the answer.

But we do know this: your lack of a degree could be a blessing in disguise. Wanna try your hand at plumbing? Go ahead. Wanna fix cars? Be our guest. Wanna spend nights prowling the local streets as a bonafide hitman for hire? Uh, the point is, embrace your whims. Don't let a pesky degree (or lack thereof) hold you back.

7. You Might Not Finish

College is expensive for everybody, but it's a financial black hole for students who never graduate. Think about it. You throw thousands of dollars per year into this money pit hoping for a grand payoff down the line. It's called a return on investment, but you'll never learn this type of fancy college speak if you flunk out three semesters (and $15,000) in. Think about what you could have done with all that money. You could have a bought one of these.

For the half of you who don't graduate within the first six years of attending a four-year institution, this immense buyer's remorse will be the harsh reality. Gear up for a world of regret.

6. Debt

Soaring tuition's and a tumultuous job market led college seniors to graduate with an average of nearly $27,000 in student loan debt in 2011. And unemployment only left those students' bank accounts lying dormant, according to an October CNN report. That's a lethal combination. Net gain: zero.

The reward for eventually finding a job, if you ever do? Being afforded the opportunity to spend years of your life reimbursing the man. Net loss: one future.

5. Liver Preservation

For some, college does more harm than good. It's easy to spot them: on Sunday night, they're blackout drunk on the floor of a friend's apartment, dried vomit spattered all over their chins (and the carpet, why the carpet?), mumbling incoherently in some language spoken nowhere on Earth.

All the 'freedom' college offers is a jail sentence for some. If you're one of them, perhaps you should take on some real responsibility out of high school, something that will divert your imminent downfall. Either way, better to not waste your time with the whole education thing.

4. Declining Degree Value

Let's face it: a four-year college degree is worth about as much nowadays as one of those computer-generated certificates you used to make as a kid. Maybe less, and they don't even have the cool word art on them.

For everyone who's proud of their hard-earned psych degree, there's someone else who's letting theirs collect dust in Mom's basement, and rightfully so. It's likely even the dust bunnies are judgin' hard. "A psych degree? Exactly how drunk were you when you received this?" they'll ask, in some sort of dust-borne dialect. A Daily Caller report from February laid out the grim prospects for college grads, calling the college degree "the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job." Maybe you're willing to take your chances?

3. You Can Get a Headstart on Life

Regardless of whether you step onto it with a piece of paper telling your employer you graduated college, the career ladder will present a hurdle at some point in life. Why not get a head start above your peers by working straight out of high school?

Compared to your college friends—who will likely be drowning in debt by freshman year, and thus poorer than someone who has no money at all—you'll be swimming in dough. Hood rich, at the very least. No harm in working a menial job (read: beep, beep, can I interest you in our new preferred credit card?) and making bank for four years. The key is knowing when to get out. Even then, staying with a company for an extended period could pay dividends down the line.

2. Alternative Education

In the age of the Internet, the formal four-year education of yesteryear has become increasingly irrelevant, not including those people who study because they genuinely enjoy attaining knowledge. We know it's hard to believe, but these people exist. Open your eyes and your small minds, maybe pop into a bookstore sometime and maybe you'll happen upon one of them.

Heck, we'd all be lying if we said we didn't learn most of what know today because of Wikipedia. Pair that with Khan Academy, WolframAlpha and free online courses from sites like Coursera, and it's no question why some professors are beginning to fear for their job security.

1. Rising Tuition

Tuition hikes are affecting schools across the country nowadays, according to a CNN report from October 2012. The sticker price to attend a public school in these harsh economic times? Try a modest, mid-sized sedan: $22,261. Per year.

This being the case, it's easy to see why students are resorting to such extreme means to foot the tuition bill. Just a couple years ago, a student at Hunter College was discovered using a "sugar daddy" to cover $15,000 in unpaid fees. Certainly one way to secure financial aid. Also, potentially, something else beginning with "A-I-D." There's got to be a better way.