Quite the contrary. If you have the luxury of going to college, it’s a very good thing to do! It’s an excellent way to refine and expand one’s knowledge. If you can afford it and tough it out, then yes, absolutely do it. College is a fantastic way of establishing a social network that can propel you places.
What I am saying is don’t disregard those who do not have the luxury of college. Even with financial aid and all the help in the world, some people cannot do college, either for financial, physical, social, or mental/emotional reasons, or maybe their college is thousands of miles away and they cannot afford that kind of move, I don’t know. I had to drop out of college because I couldn’t afford it on my own even with financial aid; I literally would not have been able to live in a room and afford even fucking food. I had to choose between living in an abusive situation and continuing to go to college, or dropping out and escaping that situation, and living on my own. Staying and going to college with depression and an anxiety disorder on top of PTSD would have quite literally killed me; I would have ended up pizza on the pavement. So I chose to save my life. Trust me. I know college is hard. And the people who put in the hard work and effort and time and sweat and tears, that’s absolutely something that deserves recognition.
But consider: Arin Hansen, Egoraptor, of the Game Grumps, dropped out of high school. He got a GED, but he has no college degree. He spent years, teaching himself how to animate, looking up tutorials, doing studies at home, to get the education that was not available to him. He taught himself how to do those animations. But there are people who would say that because he does not have a degree, that his work is not as good as theirs or not as valid as someone who can’t animate half as well, but has a degree. There were doorways closed to him in many areas because he could not get a college degree.
And that is one example. There are so many incredibly talented artists and animators in tumblrpon who have never had formal training, have no degrees.
College is a luxury. It’s a luxury that can beat your face in and knife you in the kidney and legitimately not everyone makes it through for a myriad of reasons, right up to and including death. I’m not saying don’t be proud of a degree if you put in the blood and tears to earn that. You survived getting knifed in the kidney. I mean… I’d consider that pretty noteworthy? Not everyone survives getting knifed in the kidney???
What I am saying is don’t forget the people who don’t have the luxury. Don’t forget the people who, no matter how well they perfect their craft, no matter how much of their blood and tears and soul they put into it, they will never be able to attend college, and forever they will have doors closed to them for reasons outside of their control. Because they were born in certain situations or things came upon them.
What I am saying is work is work. And someone may not have receipt of that work in the form of a diploma, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do the work. And that doesn’t mean they are less valid than those who do have that receipt of work.