No, They Will Not.

Deciding where to take one’s education after high school is perhaps the most important decision a young adult has to make in his or her life. There seems to be a growing percentage of people who believe that college is not worth it or that it and that education above high school is pointless. Michael Ellsberg has a strong opinion towards college. In his article titled “Will Dropouts Save America?”, Ellsberg argues that not going to college gives students an advantage in the real world. I feel that this position makes no sense and that it could adversely effect success in the lives of students who read the article.

The argument Ellsberg starts out the article with is that some of the most successful people in the world are college drop outs. One of his main examples is Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college, to create Apple. He indirectly suggests that by not attending college Jobs was able to create his company Apple. What Ellsberg fails to mention in his article is that Steve Jobs did have some sort of education after high school. After he dropped out of college, Jobs continued to take separate college courses including a course on calligraphy. This course on calligraphy later inspired him to include different fonts in his computers, which ended up being one of the most unique and sought-after features of the first Apple computers when they came out. In his 2005 Commencement address to Stanford students, Jobs said, “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces,” (Jobs). What college did for Jobs is important, it gave him inspiration. Which is what I believe College should do for everyone.

Another argument Ellsberg makes is that college breeds people to work for someone else when they should be creating their own businesses. This argument honestly makes me mad. Ellsberg acknowledges that school doesn’t really teach children how to run a business, so how is anyone supposed to create and properly manage a business if they don’t have any education on how to do so? Ellsberg is basically telling students that it’s perfectly fine to just jump in and make a business without having any knowledge on managing money or people. Doing this would set anyone up for failure. In fact, Ellsberg understands this and believes that "entrepreneurs must embrace failure," (Ellsberg). What he fails to explain is how anyone could turn that failure into success without having knowledge on how to run a business. Also consider that if a majority of people decided to create their own businesses, there would be a lack of workers and businesses would not have much to differentiate themselves from the giant mass of other similar small companies. If everyone followed Ellsberg's advice and dropped out of college to create their own businesses, the only thing America would have is a bunch of businesses that are not run properly and that are likely to fail.

The arguments Ellsberg makes are either totally illogical or misinterpreted. Through his writing, Ellsberg could lead students down a path of destruction, a dark path where learning is not important and success is just handed to people without college degrees. I guess if anything can be taken from Ellsberg's article, it's that students should always make their own decisions. No two people's situations are alike, so it's very important to look at the facts objectively and make a decision that's right for you. I firmly believe that if you do this and make all your decisions based on what you believe and what your goals are, then the only thing you can be is successful.