Right now, millions of high school seniors are finalizing their college applications and deciding which path to take. But an increasing number of people from this generation are starting to ask if college is actually worth it. Fifteen years ago, at 18, I made what many considered a bold bet: I skipped college and moved from Naperville, Illinois, to Silicon Valley with my childhood friend, the person who’d become my startup co-founder.
At the time, I felt strongly that paying $100,000 or more for college made less sense than getting real-world experience. It was pretty unheard of, especially in a town where even today, about 90% of people from my high school go to college. Back then, I was an outlier. We had the famous examples of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropping out of college to work on their companies, but very few about people who skipped college altogether.
These days, an increasing number of Gen Zers are making the same calculation I did. A recent Indeed/Harris Poll survey found that 51% of Gen Z feel that their college degree was a waste of money, compared to 20% of Baby Boomers. In the same survey, 68% of Gen Z respondents said they could do their jobs without a degree.
I’m not here to tell every student to skip college. But the taboo around questioning college is holding an entire generation back from making the decision that’s actually right for them. Too many students default to college because it’s expected and “everyone does it.” Meanwhile, those who skip college often do so reactively, driven by financial necessity or frustration with traditional education, rather than a clear vision of what they want.
When I decided to move to Silicon Valley, I was running toward the opportunity to learn by doing, to build products that people actually used, and to surround myself with people who were already doing what I wanted to do. For many considering college right now, that may be the right choice.
The Skills That Matter Either Way
My own path to success was far from linear. I’ve built three startups since moving to Silicon Valley. With my most recent company, StackBlitz, we were building for seven years before we found product-market fit.
In 2024, our runway was tightening and so we decided to make one final effort in launching Bolt.New, a vibe coding tool that allows users to build apps and websites through conversational prompts. The product went viral, and our ARR grew from $0 to $4 million in only four weeks. Today our company is worth $700 million and is used by millions, including Fortune 500 teams.
First, learn how to learn. The specific knowledge you acquire at 18 will be obsolete by 28 (unless you go into a field like law or medicine). For most careers like designers, developers, or entrepreneurs, what matters is whether you’ve developed the ability to teach yourself new skills, to identify what you don’t know, and to seek out the resources and people who can help you grow.
If you skip college, you need to be even more intentional about moving toward opportunity, not waiting for it to come to you. For me in 2010, that meant moving to Silicon Valley and surrounding myself with people who were smarter and more experienced than I was, and saying yes to every opportunity to learn, even when it didn’t immediately advance my career.
Second, build resilience. There will be hardships and challenges along the way, whether that’s a failed sales partnership or a product launch gone wrong. There will also be pushback – when I told people I was skipping college, reactions ranged from concern to outright hostility. Learn how to lean into that discomfort and find a viable path.
Third, create leverage. Whether you’re in a classroom or a startup, always be thinking: How can I create disproportionate impact? How can I build something that scales beyond my individual effort? This mindset, more than any specific path, is what separates those who thrive.
Finally, developing judgment by making decisions, seeing the consequences, and adjusting. If you can’t articulate a clear reason for the choices you’re making, that’s a signal to slow down. But if you’ve done the work to understand what you want and why a particular path makes sense, you need to trust yourself. The sooner you start making meaningful decisions and owning their outcomes, the faster you’ll develop this skill.
Fifteen years later, I don’t regret skipping college, but I also don’t think everyone should follow my path. What I do think is that Gen Z deserves better than the false binary we’ve created where college is considered the superior option by default.
As you face college decisions in the coming weeks and months, ask yourself: What do I want to learn? How do I learn best? What environment will challenge me to grow? And am I making this choice because it’s right for me, or because it’s what’s expected? You may be surprised by the answer.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
