我代表放牛班俊男美女拥护韩寒范冰冰之流兼痛斥科班歪瓜裂枣之辈。

我本人放牛班都没有肄业，水平十分有限， 所以选用一篇洋人的文章，并不一定是我对洋人佩服得五体投地，而是这个洋人说得很在理，所以我就引用。由于翻译水平很低， 就不直译了，而是意思引用。

大学科班是个骗局：
今天我们不能否认大学是骗局和金融泡沫。学生现在贷款首次超过信用卡债务。我们培养了一代的契约奴才，而不是创业者发明家。44%的2009毕业生要么是待业要么干些根本不需要学位的工作。 这些浪费了4年时间，背上10万美元债务比那些不读大学的放牛班落后了5年。

很多人说：大学毕业与否造成收入水平的巨大差异。我问这些人：你在大学究竟学过统计学101没有？你们这个假象观察到处流传，但是却缺乏统计学的第一个要素： 取样的对等。 真正对等取样应该是这样的：选2000人，盲目的分1000去上大学，1000不去读大学，然后对比。这个观察取样不对等是显著的：上大学的学生很可能是更有进取心，记忆力更好，甚至可能家庭平均背景更好的一群，一开始对比就不公平。这样的人上不上大学都会收入更高。

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College is a scam — so let’s make money off it
Outside the BoxCommentary: Debt creates generation of indentured servants

May 27, 2011|James Altucher
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — We can’t deny it anymore: College is a scam and a bubble — and the reasons why appear below. But I’ll be the first to admit it’s going to take years for that bubble to burst. And while college tuitions are still skyrocketing and student-loan debt is creating a generation of indentured servants, we might as well benefit from it.

Many stocks will continue to go up from the multidecade college bubble, even as it eventually bursts.

The Washington Post Co. (US:WPO), which owns Stanley Kaplan, gets all of its earnings from the education side of its business, while Blackboard is the firepower underneath online course management. Google (US:GOOG) has all the knowledge in the world at your fingertips and also is trying to get into the online course management game. And Apple’s (US:AAPL) increasing MacBook Air sales are due to colleges buying them for their labs. Then there’d probably be a basket of the cheaper online education schools like Apollo Group (US:APOL), etc.

Student-loan debt is now greater than credit-card debt for the first time ever. After the huge debt crisis we experienced in 2008 and the financial bust in housing that ruined so many lives, you would think we would be having more of a national discussion on this — but we just aren’t.

As a result, for the first time ever, we are graduating a generation of indentured servants rather than the entrepreneurs, innovators, artists and inventors that America is known for (I have no self-interest in this — I’m obviously not shorting colleges, as that’s impossible – I just hate seeing American go down the drain.)

Forty-four percent of 2009 graduates are either unemployed or hold jobs that don’t require degrees. So, in other words, these millions of young people are five years behind their peers, and many are holding over $100,000 in debt. What a shame.

People tell me, “School teaches kids how to think.” To that I say, “Learn how to use a library.” And while we’re at it, put more computers in the library. The knowledge is out there. We don’t need to owe the banks and the government $800 billion to get knowledge.

People tell me, “There’s a huge income gap between people with a college degree and people without a college degree.” To that I say, “Did you take Statistics 101 in college?” That spurious statistic is making the rounds but fails the basic test of an accurate statistic. It has selection bias. It also ignores cause versus correlation. That’s Chapter 1 of the Statistics 101 textbook. A true test would be to take 2,000 people and separate them into two groups of 1,000. Group A is not allowed to go to college. Group B goes to college. Twenty years later, let’s see how they are doing

Obviously, this test will never get done, but the basic idea is common sense. Take people who are equally intelligent and ambitious and give them a five-year head start, with no debt. They are going to do very well, I have no doubt.

Some people say, “College teaches kids how to socially interact and network.” That’s great. But it doesn’t cost (for example) $300,000 for little kids to make friends. Join Facebook for free. And start networking on LinkedIn.

Well, what about teaching kids the classics like Plato. How does art and beauty persist generation after generation? My answer: People with passion will read. I didn’t read a book while in college. But I have read several thousand in the 22 years since. If people want knowledge, they will seek it out with a hunger like you can’t even imagine. You can’t force feed passion or knowledge.

What about if you want to be a doctor? Clearly, you need a degree. Maybe. Are you saying you want to heal people, or are you saying you want to be an M.D.? Try working for a few years cleaning people’s bedpans and learn a little about the medical industry. For anything you want to do in life, try it first rather than waste money and time learning something you ultimately never think about again.

Tuitions have gone up 10 times faster than inflation in the past 30 years and three times faster than health-care costs in the past 30 years. We need to have an active discussion on this as a society. Meanwhile, the greatest entrepreneurs, artists and inventors in history either didn’t go to college at all or dropped out (or were kicked out).

My story: I majored in computer science at a good school. I went to graduate school in computer science. I programmed every day for about six years straight. Then I went to work in the “real world.” In order to program there, they had to send me to remedial programming classes so I could learn to program as well as the rest of them at a real job.

For more on why kids shouldn’t go to college, please see my post at JamesAltucher.com.

This is all fine, you might say, but what are the alternatives? Please see post on JamesAltucher.com listing eight alternatives to college.

And yes, some of those alternatives cost a tiny bit of money — but it’s nowhere near as much as the debt incurred in going to college. And each one of my alternatives provides real-life experience that will pay massive dividends for decades to come.

A lot of people have strong opinions on this topic. I have meetings from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. all week, but I promise to be in the comments section as much as possible answering questions (if they are asked in a respectful manner).

I hope we can engage in discussion on this