I wanted to go to college from around the age of ten years old or so. I read retired college textbooks just for fun as a pre-teen and teenager. I started at a community college when I was 18 with the hopes of eventually going onto a double major in music and theater at somewhere like NYU. It ended up being one of those 'life happens' type things. I dropped out and didn't go back to school until I was 23. I do have a completed associates degree in business administration and I completed all but one year of my BA in Fashion Design before I quit.
I quit because I was absolutely miserable, and it just wasn't worth it. I was older than the majority of the students, I was already running my own business that was going quite well and I was about to burn out completely. I found myself in a semester where I felt like I spent hours upon hours doing the equivalent of the busywork I was given back in the fourth grade by a teacher who wanted to shut me up. I just couldn't go back after that. I felt broken.
For me, the question about going to college depends largely on the field as well as the person. My husband has a Masters in Computer Science and yes, he has seen a spike in his income after completing it (also a back to college at a later age kind of thing). I am all for college. I will encourage my children to go to college and try it, but if they truly decide in their hearts that it is not the path for their life, I will be 100% okay with that. It was a very difficult decision for me initially because I had that college dream for so long. But, in the end I feel like I made the right decision for ME. It's another one of those personal choices. I still love to learn, but in my situation, I just wasn't reaping the benefits. Perhaps if I had taken another course of study it would have been different.
