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Same question to you: will you advise your children to go to college? If not, what will you guide them towards?
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will definitely, strong, advise against -- lol. But there's some time and maybe there's a structure/intellectual shift by then.
Still, I'd rather give them the amount saved for college and let them decide wth to do (travel, start a business, buy/keep the bitcoin, go to college).

Wasting money is a valuable lesson, too

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wasting money is a valuable lesson, too
Yes, but in my case it didn't sink in for ten or fifteen years.
let them decide wth to do (travel, start a business, buy/keep the bitcoin, go to college).
I'm not quite at the stage where kids are going off to college, but a lot of people around me are, and I'm being frequently reminded that "let them decide" requires a proactive approach that lays a lot of groundwork.
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True true, need to have raised them well
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I'm going to encourage and help my daughter pursue her interests. If college is the best avenue for that, I'll help her navigate that (lord knows I've spent enough time in college to offer some advice). If there are plausible non-college paths, I'll help her down those.
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plausible non-college paths
These are what I'm most interested in for my children.
Outside of credentialed fields, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to imagine what several years at a university could provide that the internet, ai, and actually trying to do the thing they want to do can not.
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Social networks
Guided projects
Probably two things that college is still good for at least
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I wonder how long it will hold an edge on either of those points, though.
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Even for credentialed fields, depending on what you actually want to do, the credential might not be necessary.
For instance, I don't need a PhD in economics to run ~econ and write or talk about the subject. I probably could have gotten here faster by reading more, writing more and finding outlets to pay for my work. The problem is that I didn't really know where I was trying to get and college sort of let me follow a vague path forward.
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Ah, here we get to the ineffable value of a college degree. I would also include as a benefit the network you develop in college.
How to help our kids build these things without college? I need to seriously put some thought into the practicalities of this.
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Yeah, I don't know.
There's also a lot of amenity value in college, at least for some of us. I enjoyed pretty much the entire time I was there, although when I was done I was ready to really be done.
I still have at least a decade before this becomes a real concern and I imagine the landscape will be very different by then.
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