By Marley Hinrichs

The secret to success in your career is to ignore “middle-class myths and limitations,” according to business influencer Grant Cardone. Despite Cardone’s own bachelor’s degree, this means forgoing a formal education in favor of getting straight into your field—no need to sit in a classroom when you could get onto the fast track to success with entrepreneurship.

Why wouldn’t we all accept the words of Cardone? Besides the irony of him having an accounting degree, he’s a seven-time bestselling author in the business genre and an investor with a portfolio worth $5 billion. If he says that he didn’t need his degree to get where he is, who am I to say otherwise? 

This creates a dilemma: Would dropping out of college make me more successful? The evidence suggests that sticking with it is a worthwhile investment that provides opportunities I wouldn’t have access to otherwise. If you want to be more like Cardone, you should probably see through that accounting degree like he did.

According to Pew Research Center, conditions have improved for workers without college degrees:  fewer are living in poverty due to their lack of degree, and they’re making more money on average. In that case, why bother giving years of your life and thousands of dollars to an arguably outdated institution?

What the numbers also tell us is that this has not closed the gap between those with degrees 

and those without. The Association of Public and Land Grant Universities tells us that the average American could have an $24,000 increase in salary on average. Personally, that type of earnings increase incentivizes my continuing to struggle through discussion posts.

The value of a degree in the workplace doesn’t just come from your income. National surveys tell us that the vast majority of employers are looking for hands-on experience in collaborative working environments, where workers are pushed to problem-solve using teamwork. Although you could spend the time a degree requires getting this experience, college may open doors that you won’t have opened otherwise.

In college you have more opportunities to be exposed to new things than ever before. The University of Georgia, for example, has over 700 registered student organizations, ranging from religion and other cultural factors, niche interests, and prospective career paths; all of which need students to lead them, providing the desired professional skills to add to your resume  

There’s even a variety of work opportunities—internships, externships, field studies— that are designed exclusively for college students. It’s clear that established organizations still want to invest in the next generation of educated professionals; that’s why these programs are designed to be given to and built around students in order to mold them into optimal employees, whom they often hire out of graduation. 

As a student, I spend a lot of time attending and working for my classes, and waiting tables to make ends meet. My most valuable experience, however, is from being president of a club and working in an internship. Both of these opportunities are worth the cost, as they have provided me with real applications of what I learn in school, and a sense of responsibility that my grades can’t give me.

It is true that none of these benefits change the fact that college is an expensive experience. Although fewer students are taking out loans for education, average student debt has increased roughly six percent in the last decade, with the average college student taking out $29,000 in student loans, according to U.S. News. It’s tempting to quit once that debt begins piling up.

In the Pew survey, 76% of Americans said that a college degree was not worthwhile in the modern day, 47% saying it would be worth it without going into debt. An important piece of context, however, is that people with degrees were 32% more likely to say that a degree is worthwhile than those without.

Is it possible that debt is a concept that scares people from pursuing higher education, when in reality an education can provide you with the leverage to overcome such financial burdens? When you run the numbers, those extra figures to your salary make the return on investment significant.

Money and careers aside, college is a fresh start for many, which provides more opportunity to broaden your horizons and find yourself than any other time in your life. You, alongside your peers, have a unique opportunity to develop independence while challenging your beliefs and developing your worldview. 

When you weigh all of that against the cost, the benefits seem priceless. If you’re in school, you already know you’re capable of succeeding, and the person you can come out as will make the investment in your education worthwhile.