Education

Elon Musk is a controversial person in many ways, one of which, is his lack of concern about a persons formal education. He feels that a college education does not provide an adequate return on the investment. Many college graduates come to realize that when they get their first job. For most, everything they need to know they learn on the job and they often times remark that nothing they learned in school is helpful. The admonition that you will find out what its all about when you get out into the real world starts to make sense to them. Teacher colleges understand this when part of their curriculum is one semester of student teaching. Many student teachers find this out very quickly. Knowing how to read and write and having an open mind willing to take on new challenges is what is needed. Knowing how to fit in, to get along and to work as a group is more important than two semesters of history. For most people going to work right after high school makes more sense than college and Musk understands this. The coming reshoring of industry will offer opportunities for high school grads to have good paying jobs with benefits. These people will earn a half million dollars while their college friends will be running up $50,000 in debts. College will still be necessary for professionals in medicine, law, engineering, those who want to teach and PhD's for research but for most people high school will be enough.