In most places throughout the world, you need to go to college or university if you want to become wealthy. You definitely need some sort of training.
The problem is that spending four years or more learning to do whatever it is you want to do can cost a small fortune. It many cases, it costs a large fortune. In the United States, a four-year degree at one of the better schools can cost over $200,000. If your parents aren’t wealthy, you’ll end up graduating with a lot of debt. Even if they are wealthy, they may not pay for you to go to university.
Here are nine examples of people who might be regretting a degree.
1. The Person Who Wants To Be the Carefree Animal In The Field
Graduating from a university with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt must be rough. I feel really bad for doctors, in particular. By the time they’re all finished learning what they need to learn to do their job, they can often owe more than $300,000 in the United States. Furthermore, not all doctors make a fortune every year. In the beginning, they often don’t make very much at all—considering the cost of their degrees. It must be very frustrating when they experience a patient who has researched his or her symptoms on the internet—which I do all of the time before I go to the doctor. If I could write my own prescriptions and order my own tests, I would. I guess the only thing I wouldn’t do is perform surgery on myself. That seems like it would get tricky and sort of painful.
The adorable dog in this image really does seem carefree. As long as I was in a loving home, I would love to be a dog. You’re not plagued by the thoughts that haunt human beings; you don’t have to think about the deeper things. You don’t worry about money, and you pretty much know that you’ll be getting a meal at the beginning and end of every day. Dogs have a great life if they are in the right family.
My current dog has a great life. He gets to go for walks every day—unless the weather is bad—and gets rewarded afterwards. He gets treats for doing his business! How great is that? The rest of the time, when he’s not bothering me to play with him, he just lays about on whatever comfortable surface he chooses. What bothers me, though, is how sad he looks. He’s just one of those dogs that looks sad most of the time. What does he have to be sad about?
2. The Cards
The student debt situation in the United States really is sort of insane. I was very fortunate in a sense; I went to a good university, but it was also in the state where I lived, so the costs were reasonable. Still, even though I worked part-time throughout my “college career”, I graduated with a fair amount of debt. I got a scholarship and my parents chipped in, but I still couldn’t get out of there debt-free.
Looking back, there are things I might have done differently in regard to earning a degree. When you are seventeen, though, you don’t make the best decisions.
3. The Textbooks and the Television
The textbooks and other “course materials” were what really killed me in college financially. It was years ago, but the books cost me several hundreds of dollars per semester. I always dreaded the beginning of a semester. If I hadn’t had a credit card, I don’t think I would have been able to afford them. I worked, sure, but I also went to school full-time and had a car—which I needed to get to my classes.
Even though I had a car, though, I couldn’t park near the buildings at which my classes were held. I had to park over a mile away and either walk or take a smelly, awful bus that only came around every half-hour or so. I spent a lot of time waiting for that bus in the cold and the rain.
In regard to this picture, I would be surprised if all of these books only cost $1000. I would have guessed closer to $2,000. It is remarkable just how much a crappy book can cost a student—even if you buy them used, which I always tried to do.
That’s not a bad looking television; I bet it cost a lot less than the books did. It also doesn’t look very secure. I hope no one knocks that stack of books over.
4. The Guy Who Wants His Mind Changed
I see where this guy is coming from. Honestly, looking back, there’s not a single job I have ever had that I couldn’t have done without getting a degree from my university.
I wouldn’t have been hired at those jobs, but I could have easily done them. I worked at a college once in admissions, and they actually made me pay $25 to get a copy of my university records for the “privilege” of working for them—as proof that I graduated from an institution of higher learning. It was really obnoxious. You would have thought they would have shelled out the 25 bucks, but they most certainly did not.
The thing is that I could have easily done that job without four years of studying and amassing a pretty sizable debt. I probably could have learned all that I needed to know in two years. I took some ridiculous classes during my time at University that were totally unnecessary. For example, I minored in a foreign language. I haven’t spoken that language, really, in years. I took a course on how to make masks. What was the point of that? I made a couple of neat masks, and I probably still have them somewhere, but that was a completely stupid waste of my time. I haven’t made a mask since. I wouldn’t know how to at this point, and I don’t really know why I would want to make one even if I remembered.
The simple fact of the matter is that, depending on what you want to do with your life, a degree from an expensive school may not be worth the debt. If you have rich parents, though, you should go to whatever school you want and major in whatever you want.
5. The Dark Comment on the Wall
It is very sad that someone wrote this—even if it was just a very dark joke.
That’s how a lot of people—at least in the United States—feel about the cost of a degree from a good college or university. Parents certainly worry about sending their kids to college from basically the day they are born. I have neighbors who have a three-year-old girl. I’m not really a “kid person”, but I like this one. She is very well-behaved for her age and sometimes draws me pictures and gives me stickers. Anyway, her dad is a pretty brilliant chemist with an advanced degree, and even he is worried about paying for his kid’s college. She won’t be going for fifteen years, and he’s already freaking out! She’s a pretty bright child, though, so hopefully she’ll get scholarships.
I can’t imagine what it’ll cost to go to a really good university in fifteen years; I am guessing that it’ll cost about $400,000.
6. The Guy With the Beard and the Valid Point
That is a lot of debt in one room. That is true. There are a couple of things about this image that really stand out.
First of all, that guy has an intense beard situation going on. I like it. I wish I could grow a beard like that. I can grow a pretty decent one, but it eventually just gets too scratchy and I have to shave.
Second of all, no one in that room looks particularly happy. There’s that one guy that looks kind of happy, but he doesn’t look exceptionally happy. You would think that, upon receiving a degree, you would be thrilled. Then again, they’re probably all thinking about the debt and the fact the job market sucks.
They could all look like they do because they are bored. I only went to my graduation ceremony because my mom made me. It was probably one of the most boring days of my life. I say that only because I barely remember it. If it had been a fun day, I would remember it. I remember the ceremony lasted about an hour longer than I wanted it to, and I remember I had to wear a tie, and I remember having to pee the entire time. Frankly, the entire experience sucked. Also, I believe I had to pay money to the school for that stupid ceremony—which I definitely didn’t want to go to. I would have rather stayed home and played video games.
7. The Dog That Ate the Degree
Well, I can’t relate to a dog eating my diploma exactly, but I can relate to having a destructive dog. He would probably eat my diploma if it weren’t hanging on the wall. He once ate a dollar bill, which I found weird. I considered figuring out why he did what he did by tasting a dollar bill, but then I realized that dollar bill had probably been touched by thousands of people. I got grossed out thinking about it.
I really wish my dog would stop being so destructive. In the two years I have had him, he has destroyed a video game controller, a pair of shoes that I really liked, two t-shirts, and my carpet. When he was a puppy, he would just pee wherever he wanted. I took him out, but he still just peed at his pleasure regardless of where he was. He will still do so if he is mad at me.
Could you imagine having your dog eat your diploma, though? That must be difficult to forgive. How do you get past that one? Can you get another copy of your diploma? I don’t know. If you can, however, I am sure it costs a small fortune. Everything about going to college costs a small fortune.
8. The Financial Plan
This one isn’t necessarily related to a university degree. There are a lot of people who don’t want to work and also don’t have much money in their bank accounts.
Like billions of other people, I often dream of winning the lottery. I wouldn’t tell anyone. I might actually continue working, as I enjoy what I do, but I wouldn’t tell any of my friends. I’d keep my current car, and I guess I would keep my current dog. I’d just enjoy the fact that I never needed to worry about money ever again.
It would be my luck, though, that I would win the lottery and die four days later due to some stupid accident.
9. The Murderer
Unless you have rich relatives or you somehow managed to be smart enough to write code for a very successful app, you can probably relate to being so poor that you wouldn’t mind getting murdered in your sleep. It would less painful than dealing with the credit card companies.
Frankly, it isn’t a bad way to go—all things considered. It sounds better than leukemia or lung cancer. It would be quick!
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