I’m also still a little puzzled on this business that requires only time, no monetary investment. At the risk of sounding like a sarcastic jerk, what do you have in mind? If there is a business I can start without risking any money that will provide me with a guaranteed reasonable income, let me know!

“The first universities with formally established guilds in Europe were the University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), the University of Oxford (1167), the University of Palencia (1208), the University of Cambridge (1209), …” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University)

This was before Newton, before da Vinci, before calculus, and before electricity. No complex modern system existed. So before a university degree existed, engineers worked on basic irrigation canals, building construction, catapults, and other simple machines (they might not have been overly simple. I mean the Lever, Wheel and axle, Pulley, Inclined plane, Wedge, and Screw). The extent of the knowledge before the degree existed is currently taught in secondary school physics classrooms. To work with today’s tools, or even to understand how they work, is near impossible without formal instruction.

“Most of your post seems to be idealistic without any thought of HOW you will accomplish your recommendations.
For example: “Start a business and don’t worry if it fails.”

How, exactly, would someone do that? What investor would give their money to someone without any qualifications or experience?” – These days a business can be started with zero investment…with the exception of time. When I say don’t worry if it fails, I’m talking about learning from that experience being more important than the actual success of the business.

“So you’re telling me that you want your professionals, such as engineers and doctors, to be self-taught? I am a 4th year Mechanical Engineer undergrad, and I can personally guarantee that no one can teach themselves all the tools needed to be successful in ANY engineering field. There is a reason books are supplemental materials. You can look at a page of complete gibberish for months, yet it can be transformed into profound understanding in a single class with a good professor. If someone went to a university and can HONESTLY say that they got no useful skills out of it, they simply did not apply themselves or went to a bad university.” – Let me ask you a very important question Perkster, the degree you are currently doing, before it existed, what did engineers do?

Most of your post seems to be idealistic without any thought of HOW you will accomplish your recommendations.
For example: “Start a business and don’t worry if it fails.”

How, exactly, would someone do that? What investor would give their money to someone without any qualifications or experience?

There are few REAL jobs that you don’t need some form of apprenticeship or higher learning to be good at. And if you go and spend your £35,000 on a degree that doesn’t interest you, you deserve to have wasted the money!

Thank you for your kind words and yes, I have to say, you’ve grasped exactly the concept that I’ve been talking about. There are more ways to skin a cat. We don’t all have to pursue the same route and university is not the only route open to us all.

Even if you had ten degrees, does it really mean you are going to be any more happier or successful than a person who hasn’t?

There are many graduates out there that have spent their years working hard for a degree but are still flipping burgers in Macdonalds years later. In an opposite point, there are people who have barely scraped a GCSE who are multi – millionaires or billionaires.

Ok you have a degree or two, so what? That means your clever does it, surely making a business or becoming financially independant without a qualification requires a better brain than those people who gain a degree and end up working for a set salary in a field they only half enjoy.

You could easily learn as much as you would from a degree from reading a couple of hundred books from the shelves of your library. I certainately feel I have learn’t more from reading books and the internet than any college course has taught me.

I think foundation degrees are probably a good route as you can gain both theory and practical skills, but as Amit says, If you only have a piece of paper and three years of reading and listening in class, then there is someone else who has worked in a specific environment for three years than surely the person who has had the practical experience would be more likely to gain opportunities.

Also like Amit says, Maybe a degree is something most of us would like, maybe even a degree for interest and not just career related, there is nothing stopping us going for that at a later age or even over a part time evening basis. I have a auntie who gained her nursing degree in her 40s.

I think Amit is just stating that we don’t all have to follow the same traditional socially conditioned route that the government, society and our families expect of us because their is definately more than one way to skin a cat. We are much more choices these days on how to go about doing things, and we should take advantage of those if it could benefit it us for the better.

Also alot of people use University as just a way to party everyday for three years, so really are they serious about study and bettering themselves. Also the high tution fees are offputting, if a degree was so valuable for everyone then everyone who got one would be successful and not in debt for many years.

I think like Amit said, sometimes life skills and life experience is more important. You might earn a degree, get a great paid career but just spend everything you earn. So like Amit said financial and money skills can be an important aspects to peoples lifes.

Money is success because it gives you so many more options with what to do with your life and even other peoples lifes. Even thoughs that are filthy rich, many of those people give back to the community or people in need.