Education = Overrated Or Underrated?

The truth behind this modern-day paradox

There is one question that almost everybody has thought of at least once in their life and that is “Is education really that important?”. There’s still a lot of people who don’t really see the value in education and that is because there are a lot of successful people who don’t have a great educational background. The other side of the argument is that there are people who strongly believe that education is the key to success and it’s essential to creating a better life. Now let’s look at some example of successful people who didn’t have a great educational background :

1. Steven Spielberg (Film Producer, Co-Founder of DreamWorks Studios)

image from variety.com

Most of you probably know who Steven Spielberg is by now, the man behind all-time great movies such as Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the co-founder of DreamWorks Studios. Most people don’t know that Steven Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California multiple times, it is due to the fact that he didn’t do well in school by only getting mostly C grades. Not having a great educational background never stop Steven Spielberg from winning multiple Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards while being regarded as one of the best film producers ever.

2. Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin Group)

Sir Richard Branson is a world-renown businessman and entrepreneur with a net worth of over US$ 5 Billion, with this unbelievable amount in net worth you would think that he is a graduate from a world-class educational system, well he isn’t. Richard Branson doesn’t have a great educational background in fact he is a High School dropout at the age of just 16 years old. Leaving school never stopped him from founding Virgin group, which controls more than 400 companies around the world in many fields of business. His success in entrepreneurship got him knighted at Buckingham Palace for “services to entrepreneurship” and he was awarded the title of “Sir”.

3. Andrie Wongso (Motivator, Entrepreneur, Actor)

Andrie Wongso is well known across Indonesia as Indonesia’s Best Motivator but he is not only a motivator but a former action movie star in his younger days. Andrie Wongso didn’t have the greatest of childhood, coming from a financially less fortunate family he helped his parents sells cookies and cake to the local shop and markets, he was also forced to drop out of elementary school because his school was shut down. He now has multiple business ventures such as his AW motivation training, AW Publishing and AW Success Shop which is the only store in Indonesia that specifically sells motivational products.

Those are some great examples of individuals who overcame all of the odds and became successful in their respective fields. Now let’s look at some example of successful people that have a great educational background :

1. Tony Fernandes (Entrepreneur, CEO of AirAsia, Owner of Queens Park Rangers Football Club)

Dr. Anthony Francis Fernandes is an entrepreneur and one of the best entrepreneur on earth, he is the owner of AirAsia, a Malaysian airline and is the majority shareholder for Queens Park Rangers Football Club in England. He is a graduate from Epson College and London School of Economics with a degree in accounting and was awarded an honorary degree by Cranfield University. Having a net worth of over $700 Million while having a bags load of awards such as Malaysia CEO of the Year 2003 and Entrepreneur of the Year just proves how much that degree helps him with his many ventures.

2. Shaquille O’Neal (Athlete, Entrepreneur)

Most of you sportshead probably already know who Shaquille O’Neal is, a retired hall of fame basketball player. With him being a former athlete you might think “Wait Shaq got all of his money from his basketball career, he shouldn’t be in this list!” what if I were to tell you that Dr. O’neal makes more money from his business now than he ever got from his playing career. While 60% of professional athletes go broke just years after they retire Shaq manages to make his own empire, Shaq owns 155 Five Guys restaurants, 17 Auntie Anne’s, one Krispy Kreme franchise in Atlanta, and even a movie theater. How did Shaq manage to do it? well because he realized the importance of a great education, in his interview with USA Today he said “Education matters. It instills self-discipline. It exposes a person to a world of shared knowledge. It forces us to stay attuned to current events. And most important, it helps each of us understand how and where we fit into this world,” thus why he returned and completed his Bachelor’s degree at Louisiana State University, despite being drafted into the NBA his junior year and he also has a doctorate degree in Organizational Learning and Leadership from Barry University.

3. Michael Bloomberg (CEO of Bloomberg L.P)

Michael Bloomberg is a philanthropist, businessman and a former Mayor of New York City with a net worth of over $55 Billion. Being considered are one of the wealthiest men not just in the United States of America but the world is no easy achievement but having the knowledge and education from Harvard University does help a lot. He uses his power and wealth to help improve the quality of education because he understands just how significant the impact that education has on someone’s future, some of his acts towards improving the quality of educations are donating $1,8 Billion towards John Hopkins University for student aid and increasing the school budget by more than $5 Million while he was still the Mayor of New York City.

Now after reading those examples you might be thinking “I guess education is overrated and isn’t really that important because you can achieve success either way”, and my opinion to answer that statement is it’s a mix of over and underrated. Speaking from personal experience I have friends who highly believe that education is to the utmost importance of factor to succeeding in life and I have friends who are bad students academically and even dropouts who think that education isn’t the end-all of the factors in achieving success. To find out if education is truly over or underrated let’s break it down, you can categorize education into 3 types :

1. Formal education, the type of education that is implemented at school and universities it’s structured, rigid and systematic. Formal education provides you with credentials that will help you in the long run and is a safe and proven method in achieving success.
2. Non-formal education, the type of education that a person obtains through activities outside of schools such as organization and community activities. Non-formal education is excellent for improving your social ability and overall confidence.
3. In-formal education, the type of education that a person obtains from their family, personal research and everyday activities. Informal education is the first education that a human being received in their life and is a never-ending activity. Some say informal education is the best type of education because it can happen anywhere and anytime.

Now, just how important are these types of education really are? let’s look at the data :

From the charts above we can see the hard facts on the impact of formal education. The first chart shows us that from a financial standpoint the better education you have the more money you will make because companies will pay more to those who have the credentials that few people have. The second chart shows us that the higher your education is the better your chances are in being successful, most companies or just individuals will offer a job to a person who has a high level of education because it’s an indication on how well he or she could work and elevate their businesses.

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world — Nelson Mandela

We have now seen the impact on how formal education has and will affect our chances of being successful. I agree on those statements that say “Formal education isn’t everything for achieving success” but, we cannot deny the facts that formal education helps a lot and plays a big part in a person’s success. Countless of celebrities and athletes have also acknowledge the importance of having a great formal education and have contributed in their own way to make sure the less fortunate get’s a great quality education, the most notable contribution made recently in the education world is basketball superstar LeBron James opened up his I Promise School, a public school created to help improve the quality of education in his community in Akron, Ohio. Growing up with a rough childhood LeBron James understands the importance of quality education from a young age and he also understands the importance and impact of higher education that’s why graduates from his I Promise School who meets certain criteria will be given a full scholarship into the University of Akron.

In order to achieve success, of course, you need more than just a degree and that’s where the importance of informal and non-formal education comes in to play a part. In my opinion, the impact of having a great informal and non-formal education is greatly underrated because we don’t always realize the lessons that we got from it and how we are using those lessons in our daily lives. To show you just how important informal and non-formal educations are I can’t just show you a graph of statistics like I did for formal education, why? because it’s a more intangible asset compared to formal education.

To put in into context I’ll give you an example informal education let’s say you are learning about accounting or math of course when you are making a financial statement or a transaction journal you can use the lessons you have learned into creating those thus making it a tangible asset because you created something that you can touch physically, now for informal and non-formal education sometimes you don’t realize the effect it has for example when you were a child your parents teaches you how to behave correctly, how to speak properly to another person and they try to mold you into a having great personality all around, another example is when you joined a community or an organization you learned how to socialize, interact and deal with many people who have different culture, behavior, attitude and that’s what makes it an intangible asset because the skills you gained from it doesn’t translate to a physical object. Now let’s make a conclusion on the examples i have just given you and that is the lessons that you get from informal and non-formal education does affect you big time in your everyday life whether you realize it or not it shows in your attitude, behavior, socializing skills and many more.

Here is a great video by Chaitanya Sant on how informal education is just as important as formal education.

Video courtesy of Chaitanya Sant

Alright it seems I have to wrap things up now, so we have talk and discussed about the three types of education about how over or underrated they are and how important they are on their own to achieve success and the fact of the matter is you can’t overrate or underrate one more than the other because just like a well-oiled machine it all has to work in synergy together, you can’t only have a great formal education, a great informal education or a great non-formal education but you have to have a balanced education of all three. Success can be achieved by intelligence from formal education but it will only last for so long if it’s without the backing of a great attitude and mindset that a person gets from informal education and it cannot grow into something bigger without the ability to socialize and create a collaboration that you get from non-formal education.

Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself — John Dewey