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Comment by egor83 | Hacker News Reader

> Finish your education. It's the basis for your future.

Not sure about this one.

Sure, good education helps a lot, but not all education is good, and sometimes (and it's probably especially true for startups) you will learn much more by just going into a field.

The most famous example of a successful dropout is Bill Gates, and I believe we have a few dropout here at HN as well.

> And if you think it's not, why on Earth are you paying so much for it?

Education is so expensive because lots of people want to get a degree, and high demand means high prices.

High prices do not mean that something is really necessary or useful for you - think of diamonds.

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Some education is expensive because you are paying for the name and possibly for the contacts that you might make there. If you go to a big name Ivy League school expecting to learn from prominent professors, you are likely to be disappointed. Many of the big names at the big schools are taking off one year in three in sabbaticals, and when they are there they're focusing their attention on their own research first and their graduate students second.

There are a lot of good schools that focus on actually providing their students with a good education, and their costs are substantially less. There are a couple of books that provide information about good schools beyond the Ivy League:

1. Looking Beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That's Right for You

2. Harvard Schmarvard: Getting Beyond the Ivy League to the College That is Best for You

An added bonus: the money you save by not going to an Ivy League school can help fund your first startup.

What's often left out is the other side of the picture.

Yes, Bill Gates dropped out, but what about the unknown others who dropped out and are not successful?

I agree with kolinko up above, education is important, but you can also use that time to work on your own projects. Whether those projects go anywhere or not, you'll still have the experience from workong on them.

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