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I agree. It's hard to see the usefullness of a degree in a poor 3rd world country if you wasn't born in one. Nowadays it's possible to be an entrepeneur with somebody elses money, the internet, kickstater and the apple app-store, but all those things are unavailable in india.

In a huge 3rd world country, a degree is obviously useful. It's a gov-issued certification, a way to transfer trust from the person having the degree to the government. You don't need to trust the guy because the government says he can code. If you don't see why that's useful probably you never had 10000 applications sent to you.

The problem with degree inflation is the same as any other kind of inflation, it lowers (devaluates?) the value of the degree.

Nowadays it's possible to be an entrepeneur with somebody elses money

A good point, the argument for a college degree becomes quite a lot more compelling then as starting a company is almost right out...

The reason for emphasis on education in India is because for most families getting their children educated and a job is the least risk way to have a better life style. The author seems to conveniently forget that most Indian family cannot afford a computer, let alone one with internet. Even if their parent make it available to their children, that would have cost an arm and leg for them. The risk of not going to college and getting into business is something they cannot afford, because a failure in this case would follow them till death. The author seems to be of the view that others are narrow minded, while he himself is not able to see beyond his situation. Congrats for succeeding without a college degree, but do not go about belittling others (especially his teachers!), for they know the ground realities better. As kamaal said using the money from job to bootstrap is the best way for many youngsters from my generation at least.

I really wish I could upvote your answer more. This is the side of the discussion that most people seem to be missing.

This does not take away anything from the author, his entrepreneurship and his overall success, mind you. However, the points made by ~kamaal and everyone else in this thread are extremely valid. They represent the part of India that is not so 'shining'.

I myself fall in the same category as the author. I chose to drop out of my Masters in Physics (with an elective in Astrophysics) and went to work as a Radio Show host for a commercial radio station. It was made possible only because of an invisible fallback option that my parents provided. Without it, I would probably be working away at a 9 to 5 job writing uninspired code for some company rather than sitting at home trying my hand at programming with Python.

Wait.

Oh, shit.

This is not confined to India; this is - broadly and generally speaking - also a condition in lower class USA, particularly if the individuals aren't hustlers or have contact with people who understand money.

Source: Anecdotes and reading lots of news articles.

>> Getting a decent "education" is the easiest way to get a job

The traditional education system WAS the easiest way to get a job. Nowadays, it is the easiest way NOT to get a job.

Step 1: Download the 10 books x 4 (years) = 40 books of the average university degree. Step 2: Unless it's mathematics, it is just literature. Read it. Step 3: Sit the 10 x 4 exams at an online college.

In most developed countries, you have just managed NOT to spend 100 000 USD and NOT to waste 4 years of your life. All of this sounds useless, and it probably is equally useless, but at least it is not as time-consuming nor as expensive as the traditional alternative.

You might not learn much by going to college, but looking at it that way you might not learn it anywhere. To learn you need many things. Things like interest, ability to spend time and effort doing and learning things. This is not just restricted to college. There must be some motivation to learn. For us, learning is tied to money in a very direct sense. For students, their motivation might be curiosity.

Let me ask every one a simple question. If you believe you didn't learn much at college. Now that you are out of college why haven't you turned into a knowledge bank? If you ponder at that question long enough you will eventually realize there is nothing really wrong with college anyway.

Coming to your original point, unfortunately degrees matter in our society. Like you I believe that we must do away with that system and look at learning and the ability to perform instead.

Here in India, you can't even get a job interview if you don't have a degree. So we are stuck in this degree system, and probably will be decades to come.

you have clearly never lived in india. you absolutely need a college degree to be even considered for most decent jobs.

He didn't say you should not get a college degree, he said you can get a (legitimate) degree in less time and for much, much less money if you study by yourself and only go to an actual brick-and-mortar college to take the final tests.

Going to school or college is much more than just passing the tests. The human interaction, the relationships you form, the ideas you will be exposed to, the things you will learn to avoid... There's value in the education process that goes well beyond the final certificate.

Sure - but you can probably get similar experiences in other ways as well, again for much less money.

Yes, you can always think up some way to get the same benefit, but the point is that for most people, going to college is a good way to get a well-rounded education that involves being exposed to a range of ideas and people. Can a dedicated person figure out a cheaper alternative? Possibly, but that's beside the point.

In most developed countries, you have just managed NOT to spend 100 000 USD

In most developed countries, college is much cheaper than that (to the student). I paid $1400/year to attend a respected university.

If you get thousands of job applicants, then it's appropriate to throw 90% CV's out in the first filter by a cursory browsing of the CV. If you don't have a degree, then in such a situation you won't even get an opportunity to be interviewed.

Tuition for online colleges is still expensive. University of Phoenix charges tuition of $12k - 15k per year. Strayer and DeVry charge even more. If you want to go to an accredited online school, it can be more flexible, but I don't think it's orders of magnitude cheaper.

> For a lower middle class person such a failure means, the end of life. Full Stop! Because the debts will drown you till you reach your grave.

Debts? Does India not have limited-liability corporations? In rational countries, when your business idea fails, you just throw away the company and start another.

VC's have been around in India since early 90's, may be late 80's.

But businesses are still stuck in the concept of loans. Its like you take a loan to buy your home(Or if I'm right its called mortgage in the US). Businesses pretty much run on loans. So things get super risky, when you factor in failure. Because lenders are expecting principle amount + interests in returns, and you have to often give some thing as a guarantee(for eg: a house, or a plot) which remains with the lender till you return the amount.

I think the trends are changing now. I heard a senior VC talk at a start up conference here in Bangalore. One of the main reasons why entrepreneurship never took off in India was because people had to deal with what-after-failure scenarios, and then it ends there. If the venture is too risky there is hardly any point trying.

You are correct, "mortgage" is the colloquial term used in the USA to refer to home loans.

The lower middle class person's venture alluded to in the parent comment is most definitely not going to be anything remotely resembling an LLC. These ventures are more like "Autorickshaw Driving" or "neighborhood grocery shack" than "Instagram for dogs". The business is probably not registered anywhere and the loan is obtained at usurious rates from the neighborhood money lender who has the leverage of muscle-power or contacts to make you pay up. Of course this varies depending on where in the urban/rural lower-middleclass spectrum the entrepreneur falls under, but you get the point.

Though what you are saying is true. I've found the same even with regards to tech start ups.

The situation is no way close to that in the US. In fact even to get anything close to an angel investment you need at least an IIT or an IIM degree. Ask this to anyone trying to bootstrap. Alumni connections are very important, if not that you at least need to be some how networked to a VC. I've had personal experiences with all these.

The best bet for any Indian entrepreneur is either raising money from family(If they are rich enough to fund you) or really bootstrap it as a side project and grow it out.

Either way being an entrepreneur is not for the faint hearted in India. If you are bootstrapping in your side, you will likely work 19 hrs a day and face failure after failure with nearly everyone around finding reasons to make you and your decisions look stupid. At the same time you see guys not even 1/100th the worth climbing the corporate ladder and taking obscene salaries back home just because they happen to be good politicians.

It just all boils down to one word, Persistence. Keep trying. Its not about winning or losing, you just have to show up every day and put up a fight. Eventually you will make it.

> If you are bootstrapping in your side, you will likely work 19 hrs a day and face failure after failure with nearly everyone around finding reasons to make you and your decisions look stupid.

Great point. This is actually not constrained to India but propagate through most of Asia, including the generally rich Singapore. Seems like a favorite "past-time" to watch people fail. It's a society that lives by the saying "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

Which is why Silicon Valley is such an attractive place to pursue a startup. The support system is there and there are little social stigma attached to failure.

Failing after putting in all the long hours and weekends is not something that is easy to stomach alone. Failing and having everyone around you rub it in is brutal.

You're thinking about it from a very structured, Western viewpoint. Not every business is funded by a loan from the bank. Some businesses are funded by the owner's hard work, savings, and maybe a side job. If that business fails, the owner may wind up out of a lot of their savings and in debt simply due to basic life necessities.

India has practically no social security as well. Your definition of "Rational" does not come into play.