Do entrepreneurs need a college degree?
By Binu Paul, SiliconIndia   |    48 Comments
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Do entrepreneurs need a college degree?
Bangalore: The question - 'Do entrepreneurs need a college degree?' is quite relative and highly debatable. Many believe that entrepreneurship is all about taking risks and therefore, leaving school to become an entrepreneur is indeed one of them. But others argue that although education may not be a 'must have factor', it does equip entrepreneurs with the skills that can make them more effective. We do have the examples of many successful billionaires like Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Walt Disney and Steve Jobs who considered 'willingness to take risk' rather than a collage degree as the basic parameter for being an entrepreneur. While a few of these great men are 'dropouts by situation', most of them are 'dropouts of choice'. Peter Thiel, the Founder of PayPal, strongly believe that higher education doesn't prepare students to be successful entrepreneurs. In fact, he has offered 20 kids under 20 up to $100,000 to drop out of school to work on their business ideas. He believes that stepping out of school gives them a chance to put their formal educations on hold and they can continue it when it's convenient. He feels the modern-day higher education is more likely to cripple a young person with debt than it is to give them the freedom and the tools to pursue their big ideas. The noted entrepreneur, academic, researcher, and writer Vivek Wadhwa has a different view about chasing the dream of entrepreneurship. He feel that to build a business, one need to understand subjects like finance, marketing, intellectual property and corporate law. He says although the initial idea is vital, but it is a debatable issue as to how far it can take you without proper educational backup. The time spent at the college gives an opportunity to cross path with potentially thousands of people and the depth of knowledge increases. It is also true that a decent college degree will open better business opportunities. On the other hand, college is expensive and quite time consuming. There is no 100 percent pass out in colleges and many students take years to obtain their degrees. Moreover, for a young student who is an entrepreneur in heart, the courses offered in our traditional educational system are mostly irrelevant. However, a handful of such success stories cannot deny the truth that there are countless dropouts who have failed. Many feel that the aforementioned men are by far the exceptions to the rule and that education is necessary to gain the skills needed to succeed and to build character. It is essential to have proper education, only which can provide the traits of decision-making and leadership that are vital to be an entrepreneur to the young minds. The old models of higher education should be redesigned in a way that education and entrepreneurship go hand-in-hand. And once at the point of decision making, just do what you feel is right, trust and stick on with your decision, and you can make a difference in the world.

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