The short answer is – definitely not.
For the last 30 years or so, young people have been aggressively pushed onto an academic path leading to university degree and entrepreneurship has been ignored. In the 1960s, the percentage of young people going to university was five per cent. Today that figure is closer to 45 per cent, and rising fast. And the government’s target had been for 50 per cent of school leavers to go to university.
Why do we think getting a degree is so great? Because we are told that people with degrees have far better prospects. They get better jobs, better wives and husbands, adapt healthier habits and are generally more successful. Whereas people who don’t get degrees are poorer and get stuck in crummy, dead-end jobs. As a nation, we worship at the altar of higher education because we think it will enable people to become effective system users.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty much an open secret now that many degrees are useless when it comes to getting a good job, and graduates are the first to admit it. With the tuition fees rising soon, what else they are to do? Learning doesn’t just take place in the classroom or lecture room. The point is that anybody can become an entrepreneur – with or without a degree. And there is no secret in saying that you can start your business and get rich – without going to university. Whatever you are doing now, you can do it. I believe that everybody can become a successful entrepreneur.
When you feel that what you’ve got is somehow, not enough and when you ask yourself constantly: Is this it? Forget about getting a degree, if you don’t already have one. Get back to where the real action is. Get back to having a good time. Get back to where your potential matches up to the growing reality and start running a business.