This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more information.
I am not a fan of the higher education business model. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the American public. First, in order to get its flagship credential—the vaunted bachelor’s degree—you have to spend two-thirds of your time studying material that has nothing to do with your major. Second, it’s entirely possible to get a bachelor’s degree and still have no skills that any employer values.
But here’s the rub. The bachelor degree is a scam with benefits. In order to be employed in certain professions, take certain licensing exams, or attend graduate school, you need a bachelor’s degree. And, sadly, because so many employers now use a bachelor’s degree as a screening device, you very often need a bachelor’s degree just to get an interview with a potential employer. So until there’s a more sane way of certifying that people have certain skills and knowledge, I can’t in good conscience advise a young person to forego a bachelor’s degree. Foregoing a bachelor’s degree will limit a young person’s opportunities.
Bottom line: A bachelor’s degree is a worthwhile pursuit, but only if you pursue it mindfully. Pursue a bachelor’s degree willy-nilly and the college-industrial complex will savage your wallet with all sorts of avoidable costs. So if you’re a young person, your job is to make it through the college scam with the least amount of financial pain as possible. Here are two ways to accomplish that.
Avoid Student Loan Debt Like the Plague
Way back in 2015, I wrote a post on the degree requirements for a computer major at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It turns out, of the forty courses required for a bachelor’s degree, only sixteen pertained to computers. This means that twenty-four courses were utterly superfluous. Now a question. If paying cash for twenty-four superfluous courses is a waste of money, what is paying for twenty-four superfluous courses with debt? A super waste of money. Instead of paying x for knowledge you don’t need and won’t remember, you wind up paying 2x or 3x.
Using debt to pay for a bachelor’s degree only compounds the college scam. So if you value your wallet and your dignity, avoid student loan debt at all costs. Here’s how to pull that off.
- Go to a local college, preferably one that is operated by the state.
- Live with your parents. Free room and board is a great college hack.
- Get at least a part-time job.
- Cash-flow tuition, fees, and books with your income and any help your parents are able to provide. If you can’t afford to go college full-time with this financing plan, go part-time.
- Eff the college experience. You don’t need to live in a dorm hundreds of miles away from home in order to attend a college football game, perform the walk of shame, or get blotto.
Don’t Assume a Bachelor’s Degree Equals Skills that Anyone Is Willing to Pay For
I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in public administration. This equates to 19 years of formal education if you include kindergarten. And you know what all those years of lectures, required readings, and studying got me, besides two pieces of paper? Absolutely nothing. When I began my journalism studies, I was a construction inspector for a rinky-dink municipality. When I received my MPA some eight years later, I was still a construction inspector for a rinky-dink municipality. Now, granted, I didn’t receive my degrees from Ivy League schools. Long Island University and Baruch College don’t have the same cachet as Columbia and Harvard. But the fact remains, I still had no worthwhile skills from an employer’s perspective. Oh, sure, I could construct a perfectly competent sentence. And if you wanted to discuss the impact of James Q. Wilson’s Broken Windows Theory on crime abatement, I was your man. But if you needed someone to audit a company’s books, design a house, or set up a computer network, you’d have to look elsewhere.
Caveat emptor, groovy freedomist. Never assume that a bachelor’s degree is going to provide you with concrete skills (i.e., skills some employer wants and is willing to pay handsomely for).
So how do you leave college with concrete skills? For starters, don’t study a hobby-related major such as sociology, gender studies, journalism, or history. No one’s going to pay you a middle-class salary just because you know the intersectionality of income inequality and third-wave African-American lesbianism. Go to college and study a trade-related major—nursing, accounting, computers, engineering, etc. But even here you have to be careful. There’s no guarantee that the ivory tower’s understanding of concrete skills is synonymous with the real world’s understanding of concrete skills. In order to leave college with concrete skills, you have to do two things. You have to discover what concrete skills are valued by the real-life practitioners of your dream job or profession, and then you have to learn those concrete skills. Here’s an example of what I mean.
Suppose for a moment that you decide to major in computers or business in college and you have a fascination with data. You want to be a data analyst one day. Go to Google and enter the following:
10 things every data analyst should know
Next, go through the results and click on a handful of links that have “data analyst” in the title. Then make note of the concrete skills described. You should see a pattern. Here, for instance, are the first five links I came across with “data analyst” in the title.
8 Key Skills Needed To Work As A Data Analyst
5 Essential Skills Every Big Data Analyst Should Have
Ultimate Skills Checklist For Your First Data Analyst Job
Tips For Becoming A Data Analyst
3 Paths To Your First Data Analyst Job
And here are the concrete skills described. The concrete skills that came up at least twice are highlighted in red.
| Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 | Link 5 (The Starting from Zero Path) |
| Learn a scripting language and a statistical language | Learn a programming language such as Python | Learn Python and R | Be curious | Learn Python or R |
| Learn Adobe and Google Analytics | Learn quantitative skills such as multivariate calculus and linear algebra | Learn descriptive and inferential statistics | Think of everything as a dependent or independent variable | Learn descriptive and inferential statistics |
| Learn campaign management | Learn Excel and SQL | Learn multivariate calculus and linear algebra | Understand the difference between continuous and discrete variables | Learn multivariate calculus and linear algebra |
| Learn data visualization software | Understand the business your analyzing | Understand the basics of machine learning | Be a team player | Understand machine learning |
| Develop a creative mind | Become adept at interpreting data | Learn SQL | Train your skeptical muscles | Learn SQL and mySQL |
| Know advanced Excel skills | Learn data visualization | Be detail oriented | Learn data visualization | |
| Know SQL | Learn data intuition | Cherish precision | Learn data intuition | |
| Be a good team player | Remember that best practices aren’t always common practices | |||
| Meet expectations | ||||
| Put yourself in other people’s shoes |
From the highlighted concrete skills, it doesn’t take a genius to see what concrete skills are deemed critical to real-life data analysts.
Python
R
SQL
Excel
Multivariate calculus
Linear algebra
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
Machine learning
Data visualization
Data intuition
Now, once you know what concrete skills are valued by your dream job or profession, your job is to have a strong foundation in these skills before you get a vaunted bachelor’s degree. Happily, your college should be a big help in this regard. Any college worth its salt should have algebra, calculus, statistics, programming (Python), and database (SQL) courses.
But remember, you don’t take one course in something and know it forever. I took two calculus courses in college and did rather well in them. Yet today, nearly forty years later, I couldn’t solve a differential equation if my life depended on it. So these skills must be honed every day. The good news is that the resources needed to learn these skills are mostly free (Python and SQL Server Developer can both be downloaded for free). You just got to carve out an hour or two everyday for these extracurricular activities, so to speak.
Where would you be if you followed my Groovy guide to doing college right? Hmmm…let’s see. You’d be debt free. You’d have a piece of paper that entitled you to more interviews than the dudes and dudettes without a piece of paper. And you’d have the concrete skills that employers in your desired field are looking for. Something tells me you’d be better off than most of your peers.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Are my two ways of mitigating the college scam something young people and their parents should consider? Or are my two ways of mitigating the college scam a bunch of alt-FI* bullcrap? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. And have a glorious weekend. Peace.
* Not really sure what the definition of alt-financial independence is. It’s a takeoff on the alt-left, alt-right monikers from the political realm. All I know is that I don’t have the same degree of reverence for higher education that most personal finance bloggers have. So that makes me “alt” in at least one regard. I got to think about this. Perhaps I can formulate a cogent definition of alt-FI in the future. The plot thickens.
Yes, it’s a damned F*ed-Up situation we as a country got ourselves into with college and debt. There’s got to be a better way!
I am old enough to have gone to school several decades ago, and lucky enough to get out with no debt. I went to a college run by the city I lived in so as a resident I had very low expenses.
I laughed when I read you wrote: ” For starters, don’t study a hobby-related major such as … history. ” My sister became a lawyer and I asked once why did she study history. She said because when she went to law school they required a bachelors degree to get it but they didn’t care what it was in!
Haha! I love the sister story. When I was an undergraduate at Buffalo University, a professor of mine told me that our student body president only ran for office because his GPA was average and becoming president would help get him into law school. I read a while back that aspiring lawyers in Great Britain go to law school directly out of high school. I wish we would try that here. Is there anything in first year law that a bright 22 year old can handle and a bright 18 year old can’t? We’re making college way more burdensome than it need be. Less well-roundedness and more focus, damn it. After all, why make a young person take 40 classes when 15 will do? Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Cheers.
I’ve mentioned I’m a Kiyosaki fan more times than I wish to own up to. He was a terrible student who took personal development classes and also learned very specific skills after college in 60’s. Always says he’s a “best-selling, not best-writing author”.
While some professions require college, most don’t. I was blessed to go directly to Wall Street—education not required. Most of my buddies killed time in college but did just fine.
Just finished Caplan’s book, “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money”. Food for thought.
Hey, Ian! It’s been a long time. Sorry I’ve been such a stranger. I promise to do better. Your Kiyosaki example is very fitting. There’s a difference between schooling and education. Far too many Americans equate sitting in a seat in a classroom as education. Sadly, education isn’t so easy. Most of the classes I took in college could have been handled by any competent 8th-grader. What does that say about “higher education?” And thanks for reminding me about Caplan’s book. I read a review of it a couple of weeks ago and forgot about it. Got to put that on my reading list. Thanks for stopping by, Ian. Cheers.
i still value the liberal arts portion of my education, and i’m a chemist. one smart thing i did was get an employer to pay for a huge chunk of my expensive classes. i was in a similar dorm situation early on in a concrete block building with 2 beds to every room. 1st apartment was that way too, 4 people in a 2BR with no A/C in norfolk. i get sweaty just thinking about that place.
freddy smidlap recently posted…Good Eats for Cheap #2 – Grilled Cabbage Salad
Agreed, Freddy. I really wish higher education would unbundle their product. Imagine if the trade aspect of college were for matriculate students, and the non-trade or liberal arts aspect of college was open to any adult. A college, for instance, could offer a 12-week course in behavioral economics for $90. No tests, no term papers, no grades–just lectures followed by Q&As. Now suppose this class had 100 students and the professor got 85% of the tuition. This would mean 100 people would get a very affordable education; the college would get a $1,350 administration fee; and the professor would get $7650 for 12 three-hour lectures ($212.50 per hour). If colleges were really interested in dispensing knowledge, this is the business model they should adopt. Love the way your mind works, Freddy. Thanks for stopping by.
Interesting example, behavioral economics is pure Hokum. Economics is already all about human behavior. $90 wasted.
Oooh, good point. I read “Human Action” by Ludwig Von Mises years ago and I obviously forgot an important element of that treatise. Yes, economics is all about human behavior. Thanks for the correction, my friend.
We’re in the process of registering for classes for my son who will be attending university in the fall. There is only 1 class in his first year that he must take which is required for his major. The remaining classes are all electives.
We are trying to steer him into “worthwhile” classes that will give him a well-rounded base on which to build his degree.
Let me tell you that there is a world of difference in what a parent feels is a “worthwhile” class and what an 18-year old, first time away from home, young man feels is a “worthwhile” class. I’ll have to admit “Film and Media” sounds a lot more fun than “English.”
Dash2Retire recently posted…The Curse of Individual Stocks
I hear ya, D2R. The 18-year-old mind is a fickle beast that would much rather munch on “Film and Media” than “English.” Perhaps this post might help him see the light–if not for this semester, perhaps semester 2, 3, or 4. It’s worth a shot. Good luck, my friend.
Has it really been three years since you published the CLEP post? It seems like yesterday.
I went to college simply to get the piece of paper and $50k in student loans. Personally, I wish I had some technical skills or handy skills I could have learned when I was 18 and had fewer life distractions.
A family member is a mechanic and makes more than I do and he never spent a day in college or tech school for that matter because he started as a teen and gained experience.
People say it’s harder to learn when you get older, but I think two leading reasons are you have to juggle a career to pay the bills and find to time to spend with the family.
My son the lawyer paid off his last college loan this week (he’s years ahead of his peers). Conversely, his high school friend the electrician bought a house near my brother’s two years ago. The trades get no respect (egotrage anyone?) but they make a lot of sense.
Egotrage, indeed. In a country where everyone is preoccupied with status, there’s gold to be found by shooting low.
Lot of wisdom here, my friend. Right after high school graduation, my friend bought a piddly bread route with the help of father. I went to college right after high school. Fast forward five years later. I had my vaunted college education. My friend had grown his bread route from 12 customers to 90. I was making $17K, he was making over $100K.
Sorry, long comment coming up 😉
Firstly, I agree with your post…I especially like the hacks to lower the cost of college, and I also agree that unfortunately a degree is now often used as the screening tool between the yes or no decision to even get an interview. I, with no degree, found this out personally on a number of occasions despite having a professional accounting qualification and more than 25 years of high level experience. Being turned down because I hadn’t got a degree 25 years earlier was dumb on behalf of the recruiter.
Second thing, I wish my kids had taken on some student debt! Before I get abuse, here’s why:
We paid the cost of our kids college, which comes close to $100,000 each. I wish we’d done it differently as follows. We could have paid for a lesser amount, say $50K or $60K. Our kids could have paid for perhaps $20K by working part time. The balance could have been funded by a student loan. They would have repaid the loan in there earlier work years (where they went to college, student loans are repaid directly from your salary once you start working so you pay it back without even seeing it). If they didn’t have these repayments, they may have saved this money but I think more likely they would spend it going out, on vacations, clothes etc. Even though they may not like it, this would teach them about debt and the downside of repayments. Then, if they wanted to buy a property, perhaps in their late 20’s, we would give them the $40K or $50K that we saved by not paying for their full college costs, and they could use this for the deposit. My logic is that they quite probably wouldn’t have prioritized saving during their early /mid 20’s to get a deposit otherwise. I’m not saying this is right, but I think it’s an interesting alternative view (but it still makes sense to apply your college cost saving hacks first).
Sorry for such a long comment 😉
Long comments are welcome here, my friend. And Mrs. Groovy and I agree with your point. Students need to have skin in the game. Without some short of tribute coming from them, they’re likely to take their educations for granted. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, “What they obtain too cheaply, they esteem too lightly.” My preferred route is part-time or full-time work. A modest amount of student debt can work as well. Great comment, David.
I like to say “don’t get a PhD unless you are going to teach other people how to get a PhD”.
I tell you, we may be at a turning point when companies like Treehouse are treating computer science as a trade, much like plumbing used to be. ChooseFI had a good podcast on it and I believe it would almost be worth daring to skip the university, if it weren’t for the way it is currently your price of entry into the job market. Treehouse is breaking through by partnering with big firms and I believe they have other competitors doing that as well. Together with YouTube, the alternatives are there for the self-motivated. And on that note, I am really impressed with your skills table. Great idea!
Thank you, Susan! I forgot about Treehouse. I heard that episode of ChooseFI and got a tremendous CMLT.
“You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.” ~Good Will Hunting
I’m sure the point of the extra classes above the 15-20 directly related to a major is to create a more well rounded graduate, but it’s insane how much the cost of college has gone up. I graduated in 03 from a public university and it has skyrocketed since then. I agree with your points though. Not everyone has a “live at home” situation with mom and dad, but even those that don’t have that option could try to find roommates, not live in the most expensive part of town or apartment with every amenity, etc.
Anything that cannot go on won’t. Ergo, I don’t think the university system as it exists today will last much longer. If I had kids in school now, I’d be looking at those “$1.50 in late fees” alternatives.
Same here, Steve. It’s hard to argue against $1.50 in late fees.
Nailed it, Lindsay. My last semester at Buffalo University in 1984 cost me $540 for tuition and fees. And that was for 16 credits (five courses and a gym class). I could literally cover the cost of that with a part-time minimum wage job. And what’s even more shocking, all of my professors were tenured. Now today, something like 70% of college instructors are adjuncts making peanuts. Where does all the money go?
Oh, man – I’m in the minority on this one. I agree that student loan debt should be minimized as much as possible.
But, that said, I believe in the value of a broad education. I went to a Jesuit school that made us take a big “core curriculum” outside our major, and to this day I appreciate it. I still carry with me what I learned in electives like sociology, logic, social psychology, and world religions.
I honestly think it’s made me much more capable of understanding the world and human behavior. It also challenged my worldview in many ways, and made me see how I was wrong in many of the opinions I held.
And, I see many people out there that may know a professional skill, but don’t seem to act with *wisdom*, which I think is due, in large part, to lack of broad knowledge.
I say this from the comfortable position of having no student debt. Still, I keep my sociology textbook close by, to this day.
You’re not wrong, Miguel. And this is what gets me so frustrated with higher education. Consider this. I read the behavioral economics book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, and I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much, I would have loved to have taken a course in behavioral economics at a local college. But what would that have cost me? $900 to $1,200? And would the value of that course and the classroom interaction that came with it have been worth that $900 or $1,200? I don’t think so. If a local college offered a behavioral economics course to non-matriculated students for $100, I would jump all over it. There’s a lot of brilliant professors on the typical American campus, but they’ve overpriced their services.
Using community college to knock out some of the silly required classes helps control the costs too.
Happy 4th Mr & Mrs. G!
Woot, woot! Good point, Amy. Community college is the one aspect of higher education that’s still a bargain. Have a great Fourth.
In my ill spent youth I believed in the Liberal Arts concept: learn the general to possess the tools to solve the particular. However, i’ve had no occasion to use Cell Biology or American History in the decades which followed, If you want to spend 4 years of drunken debauchery, become a roadie for Foghat.
Thus I advocate a cynical strategy of getting the unrelated courses as cheaply as possible. (E. g. use CLEP tests and transfer credits from community college.) It’s cheap to spend 1-2 years at a local community college, then transfer someplace reputable with a reputation in your chosen field. Distance learning?
But just having a sheepskin doesn’t mean you know anything useful. Thus I believe employers should require certifications in specialized areas of expertise.
An archosaurian diapsid reptile with a perforated acetabulum.
That, by the way, is the definition of a dinosaur. It’s the only thing I remember from my five years at Buffalo University. And I’ve only used it a couple of times since I completed my first round of undergraduate education in 1984. Those couple of times were in this blog. If I never began to blog, my first round of undergraduate education would have been a 100% waste rather than a 99.999% waste.
Boo degrees! Hail certifications!!
Absolutely right! The problem I feel is that many high school graduates (and sometimes their parents) want the “full college experience” more than they want to get their degree and be on their way. It’s very much like young workers who aren’t saving for retirement. It’s hard to forego what you want at the moment for what clearly makes the best sense in the long term. We need to do a better job educating our young people about what a difference it can make in the trajectory of their lives by doing it the “right way”.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips recently posted…What Would You Do If You Knew for Sure That…?
Nailed it, Gary. When I went to college in the early 80s, my dorm room building was a spartan cinder-block structure. When I visited my niece and nephews at their schools in the early 2010s, I thought I was visiting a resort at Cancun. It’s freakin’ ridiculous. Learn crap, but as long as your school has a great football team, everything’s wonderful. Always love your perspective, my friend. Have a happy Fourth.
Since being on this path to FI I have definitely had a change in mindset when thinking about college education. I did the usual path attending 2 costly private schools for my bachelors and masters degree and fortunately came out with no debt thanks to my parents. While I don’t have any regrets, I often times find myself wondering about would I have done it differently knowing what I know now. And the answer would be probably yes… Alt-FI strikes again!
Here is some of the nonsense I took in college.
Great Mysteries of the Earth (this dealt with Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, and Bigfoot)
Mass Media and Social Roles (much of our class time was devoted–I kid you not–to the politics of the female orgasm)
Geology of Dinosaurs (this class dealt with dinosaurs)
I took these classes in 1979 and 1980. A credit back then was around $33. So I wasn’t going into massive debt for this bullsh^t. But college tuition today is way more than $33 a credit. More like $330 a credit. And that’s my biggest gripe. With the cost of college today, it’s criminal to make young people take 40 courses when they only need 12 to 15 courses. Love the way your mind works, Mrs. WoW. Have a great weekend. Cheers.
Mr.1500 would approve of the dinosaur class for sure!
I’d add a third method. Do as many CLEP, AP or other pre-testing as possible. Bring that four years down as low as possible. If you can get those bull sh^t requirements done at the community college to cut costs even further, I think you’d be able to cash flow a bachelors degree fairly frugally. Have a great weekend and enjoy the 4th. JD
You’re absolutely right, Jeff. See my response to katsiki below. AP and CLEP should be on every high school student’s radar. Let freedom from bullsh^t courses ring! Have a great Fourth, my friend.
F***’in A!
The college model, and how employers treat a bachelor’s degree, absolutely infuriates me now. I got a degree in Criminal Justice, but it had nothing to do with how I got my first job out of college. It was the government security clearance I got at an internship that got me my job, and I’m not even in the justice field anymore! I am analyzing business systems hahaha…
College CAN and NEEDS to be changed to a 2 year model. Remove the B.S. stuff that has nothing to do with your major, and only focus on your major. This is higher education that is supposed to teach you job specific skills. If I want to be a coder, I shouldn’t have to do anything that doesn’t revolve around coding. That’s what the employer’s want in terms of your skills.
This is such a hot topic that I could go on for hours about, but I won’t for now…
Thanks for bringing this up!
“College CAN and NEEDS to be changed to a 2 year model. Remove the B.S. stuff that has nothing to do with your major, and only focus on your major.”
I got a tremendous CMLT reading this comment. Thank you, Sean.
It sounds like your saying my religion degree was a waste of time? Probably true. Honestly, biology majors are also a waste. I could only get away with these majors because I knew I was going to med school. Cocky yes…but a risk I was willing to take! I like your thoughts above. If I could go back I would add a finance or accounting course to my education.
I heard Brits who want to study law go straight to law school out of high school. I wish we had that more streamlined education process here. Why are we torturing brilliant people like yourself with a bachelor’s degree. Wouldn’t it be better to get future doctors into med school two or three years sooner? This way they become doctors two to three years sooner and have less debt. Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Have a great weekend.
Good post. Totally agree!
For anyone going to college or sending kids there, look into alternative ways to get credit. AP tests in high school, CLEP, Dantes before and during college. There are also ACE credits for some online courses. Straighterline and other online courses / test-based methods. Lots of options to cut down the bills.
Hope this helps someone!
How about this, katsiki.
The amended Groovy guide to doing college right.
1. Get as many AP and CLEP credits before you leave high school.
2. Work part-time, live at home, and go to a local school.
3. Avoid student debt like the plague.
4. Don’t take anything for granted. Find out what concrete skills are needed for your chosen profession and master those skills before you get your bachelor’s degree.
Love the way your mind works, katsiki. Have a great weekend.
Just imagine how fired up you’d be on this topic if you had kids heading to college. 🙂 I amazed at how many non-major classes my son and daughter have to wade through in their pursuit of a bachelors degree. They’s be better off spending four years working part-time and using their other time to self-study the topics they are interested in. They’d learn more related to programming and graphic design then what they’ll get on campus.
Haha! Oh, god, imagine what kind of a nut I’d be if I had skin in the game. All I know is that when I look at the winners of higher education I see administrators, tenured professors, and coaches. On occasion I see adjuncts, students, and parents as winners. Am I wrong to think that college shouldn’t be such an iffy prospect for students and parents? For most college majors, 12 to 15 courses will do. Forty is overkill. If it’s any consolation, Brian, I feel your pain. Have a great weekend, my friend.
When hiring at my last company we valued experience and passion way higher than a degree or certification. There are people who are really good test-takers who can’t logic their way out of a paper bag. But if someone takes the time to learn “in their spare time” to stay current – because they enjoy it – those are very valuable people!
Brad – Financial Life Planning recently posted…Insurance You Need To Protect Yourself From Hurricanes
Amen. Some employers obviously get that the pieces of paper our colleges are handing out aren’t the be-all and end-all. Hopefully, more employers will come around to this reality. Have a great weekend, my friend. Cheers.
Well said Mr. Groovy.
Getting the piece of paper is not enough. Winning college is all about learning useful skills and getting out without being in a debt prison. Oh and having a little fun along the way.
“Winning college is all about learning useful skills and getting out without being in a debt prison. ”
You said it much better than I, my friend. I escaped college without the debt and without the skills. So I chalk that up as a loss on my part. There are no partial wins when it comes to higher education. Have a great weekend, Jason. Cheers.
Great advice Groovy, my agency is hiring data scientists like mad. Unfortunately we focus too much on what college they went to. I agree that one can get these skills for the most part without dropping $150,000 on 4 years of school.
Agreed, AF. My career didn’t gain any traction until I learned SQL and database development. And I did that on my own for around $500 worth of books (the internet was in its infancy back in the late 1990s and early 2000s). Have a great weekend, my friend.