My wife and I both went to college and graduated with bachelor’s degrees. On the whole, I think we’d both agree that college was worth it for us. We got to have the careers we wanted. College degrees helped us to build a stable, prosperous, and interesting life.
But college isn’t for everyone. And our oldest child is on a very different path — a flight path.
That’s right: our 17-years-old son wants to be an airline pilot. And airline pilots don’t have to go to college. Instead of a four-year degree, we’re considering a different plan for him where he would stay at home for a year after high school and complete his pilot training at a private flight school near our home.
Here are a few reasons why I’m totally fine with my son skipping college.
College doesn’t feel “worth it” for many Americans
Several decades of rising tuition, high levels of student loan debt, and widespread economic uncertainty in the job market, have led many Americans to no longer believe that college is always worth the cost. A Pew Research survey in 2024 found that only 22% of Americans believe that college is worth taking out loans to pay for.
My wife and I are lucky. Our student loans were manageable, and have been paid off for many years. But not every college graduate feels like their degree was a great investment and not every degree leads to a guaranteed six-figure salary. And if you run into financial trouble, student loans can be hard to get rid of. It can be difficult to get them discharged through bankruptcy, and the government can garnish your wages if you fall behind on student loan payments.
The American college experience isn’t always a carefree time of football games, fraternity parties, and Frisbee on the quad. It can be a big financial risk. Not every family wants to take that risk.
We don’t. We’d rather support our son in getting exactly the right training that he wants to have for his career, without spending a bunch of money on extra classes that he’s not as interested in.
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College isn’t for everyone
Not everyone is cut out for full-time academic coursework — and that’s okay. If a kid has already spent the first 18 years of their life going to school and following rules and doing homework and sitting indoors under fluorescent lights, they might not be excited for another four years of that experience.
Many young people go off to college — and rack up a few semesters’ worth of student loans — only to find that they don’t want to sit in a classroom anymore, so they drop out. The financial stakes of making the wrong decisions about college can be high.
People who don’t finish their degree are twice as likely to default on their student loans. If you’re not 100% sure that college is right for you, you might be better off not going.
My son is in this category. He’s good at high school, and he takes AP math and science classes, but he’s highly motivated and focused on being an airline pilot. He doesn’t want to be in a classroom, he wants to be in a cockpit. I don’t want to hold him back from doing what he’s most interested in and passionate about.
We’re focused on our child’s needs
If our son wanted to go to college and be an airline pilot, we would support him in that. There are great four-year universities and two-year community colleges that offer pilot training combined with academic degree programs. But we think a private flight school (with no college attached) might be a better fit for what he needs. He can live at home, save money on rent and car payments, and get flight training at our local airport — everything he needs to launch straight into his flying career.
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And most importantly, even aside from the money, fast-tracking his future with a private flight school just feels like what our son needs. He’s passionate and highly motivated about aviation. He’s taken aviation classes and private flight lessons while in high school. He’s exceptionally level-headed and responsible. He’s learning all the Federal Aviation Administration rules, airplane mechanics, and aviation lingo. He’s already spent hundreds of hours training with flight simulation software. This is what he wants to be when he grows up, and he’s ready to go after it, full throttle. And we’re ready to watch him fly.
