比尔 盖茨的成功，引起了各界对大学退学学生成为百万富翁的关注，从而引起关于高等教育和大学存在价值的讨论。乔布斯的辞世，更是使很多人开始反思读大学究竟值不值得。
   应该如何看待没有接受过完整的高等教育而取得成功的那个群体，其存在是否具有普遍性还是特殊性，其成长历程是否代表了未来人才的发展趋势还是昙花一现，以及高等教育和大学需要反思和变革什么，颇多热议。

   
   2011年10月21日，Carnegie Corporation的董事长 Gregorian在Times发表了一篇短文，对此现象进行了分析，全文如下：

The Myth of the Millionaire College Dropout

In the new book The Education of Millionaires, Michael Ellsberg suggests that although “there are many wonderful things you can learn in college,” few of them are transferable to real life. Perhaps in an effort to fill that perceived gap, Ellsberg has written what might be characterized as a motivational self-help manual that aims to reveal “the capabilities and mind-sets that will get you ahead outside the classroom.”

So far, so good. I welcome the kind of robust debate about the value of higher education that this book may engender. It is necessary to bear in mind, however, that what Ellsberg also reveals is a passionate regard for making money — lots of it — as a measure of the value of an individual’s work and worth. To defend his thesis, the author cites a number of college dropouts — such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Dell — to demonstrate how successful they have become without the benefit of a college degree. Their stories, though compelling, point towards the highly misleading conclusion that higher education may sometimes be more a hindrance than a benefit to those seeking to thrive anywhere north of the poverty line. I notice that Ellsberg does not challenge the value of a degree when it comes to professions other than entrepreneur — that makes sense because none of us would consult a lawyer or put ourselves in the hands of a surgeon or even an accountant who had not undergone rigorous education. I am also not surprised that while Ellsberg highlights the accomplishments of dropouts, he excludes degree holders who have become wealthy and famous. For example, of the current Fortune 500 CEOs, some 99% have a college degree. Similarly, of the Forbes 400 richest people in America, 81% hold postsecondary degrees. (In my experience, when the time comes for both well-off college dropouts and graduates to send their children to school, they both opt for the most highly rated schools on anyone’s list, no matter what the cost.) So why should the exception — the dropout — become the rule to emulate?

Debates about the value of higher education are always acute during times of economic and social crises. Questions arise about whether the halls of academia or the college of hard knocks provide better preparation for dealing with life’s challenges. The cost of higher education dominates the debate, although critics tend to trot out the price of an Ivy League school rather than reference the more affordable tuitions at the nation’s many excellent public colleges and universities, which educate the majority of U.S. students. Regardless, the fact remains that people with college degrees still earn much more — and are more likely to have a job to begin with — than people without.

But what is forgotten in the discussion about dollars and cents is that the purpose of education, whatever its cost or its source, is not simply to enable one to earn a living but to prepare one for living over the course of an entire lifetime with all the ups and downs that come our way. This is particularly true of the liberal arts which, I believe, are the key to endowing students with the perspective for reflection upon the nature and texture of their own lives. The liberal arts provide young men and women with the standards by which to measure human achievement and to recognize and respect the moral courage required to endure human anxiety and suffering as well as to analyze and plan how to achieve their individual goals. One might be wise to recall Derek Bok’s famous statement that if you think education is costly, compare it to the price of ignorance.

What is also left out of the debate about higher education is that its purpose is not just to provide a pathway paved with gold for the nation’s elites. If we frame the discussion that way, we may unintentionally serve to disparage the people who are in charge of the daily management, maintenance and smooth operation of our civilization — the men and women who deliver our mail, comprise our police force, serve in our military, work in our libraries, teach our elementary school children, and devote themselves to a thousand other jobs that, if not performed with responsibility, commitment and creativity, would undermine the basic structures of our society. Though these individuals may not be reaching for the kind of stars that Michael Ellsberg and others would have them aspire to grasp, most are doing something even more important: they are engaging in the useful tasks of good citizens and contributing to the common welfare, including providing for their families. And perhaps they are even carrying out what Marcus Aurelius called “one of our assignments in life … to do what needs doing.” In my book, that is more than quite enough.

Gregorian is the President of the Carnegie Corporation

    有兴趣的朋友可以继续看这个链接：http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/21/the-myth-of-the-millionaire-college-dropout/

    看起来，Gregorian已经说得很清楚了，虽然有盖茨、乔布斯这样的经典案例，但是拥有学位获得成功的人更多。而且，高等教育和大学的价值不能仅仅用金钱来衡量，大学教育还意味着更为丰富的内涵。

    不过，该文刚发表，就有网友Mike n 进行了精彩的评论：

mr. gregorian, you sir are an elitist which means you are severely out of touch with reality. no university is remotely capable of preparing people for "all the ups and downs that come our way".

seriously, when has sitting in a classroom ever emulated the real world? of course i'm being facetious, the answer is NEVER.

i went to a public university that prides itself on the quality of its "education", yet almost everything i learned was irrelevant towards being successful in the real world. i wasn't treated as a student, but merely a customer, a cog in the machine sent down the conveyer belt of the diploma mill. my time spent in college was a complete waste and all it left me with was a worthless piece of paper and a huge pile of student loan debt.

if it weren't for all the millions of people just like me that are just cogs in the machine, then the higher education factory would not be able to survive. higher education as it is today only really serves the elites and the lucky few and it needs all the middle class suckers like me to keep going. i believed the myth that college was the best path for success and i really wish i wouldn't have.

even regarding the professions that must have a degree- lawyers, doctors, engineers, pharmacists - the prices and time frames required to obtain these degrees could seriously be slashed in half. of course this will never happen b/c universities only really care about making money, everything else is a means to serve that end. case in point, why must anyone wanting to be a lawyer waste 4 years pursuing an undergraduate degree when all they really need to know is learned in law school? furthermore, why must students take pointless general education classes? answer- schools want the money.

you cite the common misconception that people with college degrees earn more money on average than people w/o degrees, but there's no proof whatsoever that says they earn more b/c of college. anyone that knows anything about basic math knows that averages don't really mean anything, especially in this conversation. also, you're confusing correlation with causation. who's to say these higher wage earners wouldn't be as successful w/o a college degree? it's their work ethic and personalities that cause them to be successful not what they "learned" in college. all of my friends that went to college and are successful have admitted that most of what they learned in college was pointless and irrelevant to their life now, even the ones in careers that had no other choice but to go to college.

there are much better ways to learn and prepare yourself for success in the real world than sitting in a classroom for 4-8 years. with modern technology we are starting to see that college isn't all that it's cracked up to be and for most people it's a bad investment. the ivory tower is slowly starting to crumble and it's only a matter of time before we see new and better ways to prepare people for success in the real world.

    批评者Mike n说，现在的大学没有把他当作学生，而仅仅作为消费者来对待，大学生是在文凭工厂传送带中无关紧要的。今天的高等教育和大学仅仅服务于精英和少数幸运者。为什么想成为律师的那些人浪费了四年时间来取得本科学位，仅仅知道的就是那些在法律学校教会的东西？很多人（作者的朋友）都承认他们的生活和职业都和大学无关，只不过他们没有别的选择只好去上大学。对大多数人而言，这是个糟糕的投资。因此，随着现代科技的发展，一定有比在教室里学习四年更好的方式来促进成功。

    特别值得回味的是Mike n 的最后一句话，象牙塔正在慢慢倒塌，它只是时间问题，我们将看到新的、更好的为现实世界成功的准备方式。我们的高等教育能否真正促进成功和发展，是否已经成了现实版的“伤仲永”？中南大学刘路（刘嘉忆）的现实成就，教育的“圈养”还是“放养”，是昙花一现，还是大众化高等教育之后的必然现象？我们的高等教育未来如何，获得文凭还是现实成功和幸福生活的“通行证”吗？如果不是，那么未来社会中成功和幸福生活的砝码是什么呢？



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