The fact that you're reading this article means you've had exposure to education. In fact, without it, this entire website, how to access it with a computer, and how to take advantage of the information available wouldn't even be possible without the simple skill of knowing how to read. And that comes with going to school. So, let's be quite honest, unless you want to spend your short life being miserable, ripped off by others, used and generally working for others doing menial tasks, education is your friend.
It's very popular to bash on education right now, and higher education institutions have created this trend. For the last four decades, the push to get a college degree has been an all-encompassing market campaign because it represents big money for the institutions providing the training and in return receiving the exorbitant tuition. Add in the fact that most developed countries fall in the same institutions' trap that receiving training from a particular given institution is better than other institutions, and you have the reinforcing downward spiral of everyone struggling to find a way to get that name degree for guaranteed social and financial success.
However, a degree doesn't mean diddly if you don't know how to use it. As a hiring manager, I repeatedly come across candidates who have wonderful degrees, but can't pass a simple writing exam to save their life. I even had one where we made it possible for people to cut and paste from the Internet, we just wanted to have someone who could put together good, smooth-reading content quickly. And, they failed. So the school you come from doesn't mean squat today if you can't perform. But that school did walk off with a hefty bundle of tuition in exchange. What a waste.
The concept of education is a waste of time was really kickstarted in the 2000s by the same character who helped launch Paypal as well as Facebook, one Peter Thiel. Now, don't fool yourself, Thiel is not a natural boy genius. He went to Stanford and also got a law degree there. He was simply smart enough and fast enough to see big opportunities in the above projects when they got started and no one else was tracking them. However, Thiel has been a big critic of higher education, even funding a program paying entrepreneurs $100,000 to skip college and get to work on ground-breaking projects instead. It's not a charity; Thiel would benefit from being the "angel" investor in these projects as well. However, socially, the move had the desired effect, putting a spotlight on the insane waste that goes on with the chase to get the right college degree today.
I don't argue that college degrees seem worthless today. The combination of too many candidates seeking work, AI and technology wiping out basic level tasks, and employers wanting too much for too little in compensation has created an ongoing churn of disappointment. And, let's face, while we all want to believe in the altruistic idea of education being personal improvement, in reality we're doing it to improve our basic life, income and immediate compensation. As soon as someone invents some other channel by which people can earn livable incomes and then some, the crowd will migrate to that and away from education, something that scares the crap out of the higher education institutions and their bank accounts.
Education in and of itself is never a bad thing. But even without the college degree chase, there is still a cost. You have to provide the time for it. You need to practice, exercise, and train to achieve a competency in a given area. There's no Matrix-like plug-in mod for your brain (at least not yet) to suddenly be an uber-expert in ancient Syrian pot-making or Roman ballista fabrication or C++ coding. But the rewards it does give do last for a lifetime. In fact, half the stuff I learned 30 or 40 years ago is applying now almost daily.
Unfortunately, our consumer nature is driven by immediate gratification. This is where the root of the "education is bad" philosophy comes from. It doesn't deliver fast enough, so therefore it's a waste of time. Yet, here's the truth, everyone you look at who is a major touting success has two things under their belt: a tremendous amount of education, and truckload of practice at what they are good at.
So don't get caught up on the bandwagon of crapping on education in general. Instead, ask yourself why it may not have worked for you and what you need to do different to make education valuable for you again. You don't need a piece of paper or degree; education is available and all over the place now, even free for the taking online. But you do need to apply yourself, seek out those tools, and practice, practice, practice.
