To drop out or to soldier on? A degree never hurt any one, experts advise students

An increasingly familiar and seductive story has been circulating about young people who, drawing inspiration from billionaire entrepreneurs and computer business giants, consider dropping out of college to “fast-track” their success.

Names like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell lend star power to the myth of the wildly successful college dropout.

A recent New York Times homage to the phenomenon compared dropping out to “lighting out for the territories to strike gold”, with one young executive describing it as “almost a badge of honour” among startup entrepreneurs.

Like any myth, this story has a kernel of truth: There are exceptional individuals whose hard work, determination, and intelligence make up for the lack of a university degree. If they could do it, one might think, why can’t everybody?

In October 2011, Michael Ellsberg, the influential American author of The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think, asked, in a sensational article titled ‘Will Dropouts Save America?’, a question that initiated a deep discussion on whether college education is any important.

He argued that many graduates, like himself, work to enrich people many qualifications lower than them.

“I am typing these words on a computer designed by Apple, co-founded by the college dropout Steve Jobs. The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen. And as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker,” he wrote.

The impression was that, for one to be successful, dropping out of campus could as well be an ingredient for a successful life.

KENYAN STORY

In Kenya, there is no shortage of examples of people whose story is similar to that of Ford Motor Company’s Henry Ford, publisher Robert Maxwel, Oracle Computers’ Larry Ellison and Google’s Larry Page.

Samuel Majani, the founder and CEO of Ghafla! Entertainment, is an electronic and computer engineering dropout from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

In less than five years after dropping out of school and starting online business through his website, kenyalyrics.com, he is now a successful entrepreneur who has won several awards for his work. In 2014, for instance, he won the BAKE Award for best entertainment website, and was listed as one of Kenya’s ‘Most Influential People’ in the Drum magazine’s October edition.

Seven Seas Technologies, one of East Africa’s leading technology solutions companies, was started by Michael Macharia, who dropped out of campus because he lost his project after his computer crashed.

He would later start a business that aimed at protecting data from complete loss, and the mathematics and physics dropout from JKUAT was later to study finance and accounting so that he could manage his business better. Today, he is a multi-millionaire doing business across the region and has recently expanded to West Africa.

SUCCESSFUL LIFE

Walter Mong’are delayed graduation from Kenyatta University, but today leads a successful life as an actor, comedian, journalist, and, currently, as the head of communication at Nairobi County.

Mong’are was in the early 2000s a popular comedian, and has worked in radio stations in Kenya as a broadcaster, owns a music band, and has travelled across the world entertaining people. He is, to many young people, a successful inspiration. The country’s foremost comedian, Daniel “Churchill” Ndambuki, calls him ‘The Father of Kenyan Comedy’.

DJ Kaytrixx, a popular Kenyan disk jockey, dropped out of Moi University to do what he loves best; mix music. Fifteen years ago, when he joined Moi University, he became the official DJ, earning between Sh200 and Sh250. Today, he can earn up to 850,000 per gig.

Ashish Thakkar, the founder of Mara Group of Companies, which has interests in IT, agriculture, manufacturing, real estate and hospitality, is another prominent example of a successful dropout.

Ashish dropped out of school when he was 15 to do business. His parents did not agree with him, but later on his father agreed and gave him an ultimatum of one year to either be successful or return to school. He chose the latter.

GOOD DECISION?

Because of these success stories, many university students, especially those with a passion for business, have contemplated dropping out of school. But Theophanus Nyakundi, a final year student at Kenyatta University who owns an accounting services firm, Global Intelligence, based at Summit House, Nairobi, says dropping out will only make sense if it is to pursue “a successful venture”.

“Most people who drop out and become successful have seen the future and know exactly what they are doing. The other ones who fancy the idea of dropping out but lack profitable ideas are simply mad.”

Prof Chris Wanjala, a literature professor at the University of Nairobi, says this trend should not entice students from poor backgrounds as most of those who succeed this way “are not necessarily” from such roots. Prof Wanjala adds that motivational literature is to blame for some of these issues as it promises an almost overnight success.

Also, a prevalent technology culture has opened opportunities which are not really captured in curricula, and this makes it reasonable for some students to drop out because they can learn elsewhere and exploit the enormous opportunities.

“Education is no longer an avenue for social mobility as it were in the yesteryears. The youth are simply adjusting to the realities of the present,” Prof Wanjala adds.

Dr Robert Muniu, a senior lecturer at Kenyatta University, blames it on the current education system, which he feels does not help students find their career in time.

“When I read newspapers of how young men and women are making money from agribusiness or techbusines, I fear that, soon, university life may lose value,” he explains, adding that at some point, the 8-4-4 system was termed as a producer of people who are jacks of all trades but masters of none.

But Dr Nicholas Tinega, a surgeon at Masaba Hospital in Nairobi, believes that a college education is important.

“Far from being an obstacle to entrepreneurial success, a college education arms a person with the suite of skills necessary to capitalise on a great idea,” he says.

“At their best, colleges and universities are themselves hothouses of innovation, a natural site and climate for translating ideas into application. It is no coincidence that some of the practical ideas that have most changed our world, such as the Internet, came directly out of universities and colleges.”

Appealing as it may be, the against-all-odds story of the college dropout is not the story we should be selling our young people, agrees Dr Peter Oliewo, a researcher and mathematician.

Not all people, he warns, become successful entrepreneurs. Many people fail, and their stories never come to the media, and so “we cannot make a conclusion based on only one side of the analysis”.

Dropping out, he continues, is not really the best option because there is a proven path for economic, social and intellectual opportunity through class work, and that makes college education a worthy venture.

“Sensational media stories about millionaire drop-outs miss one thing: The vast majority of Kenya’s college dropouts are more likely than graduates to be unemployed, poor, and in default”, observes Stephen Mwadime, an engineer and founder of Adopt A School.

Mwadime says ignorance, even with a lot of money, is so expensive that “you will be literally paying educated people to make you continue having the money”.

Microsoft boss Bill Gates seems to belong to Mwadime’s school of thought.

On June 3, 2015, Gates published a blog titled Yes, You Do Need One, in which he argued that “although I dropped out of college and got lucky pursuing a career in software, getting a degree is a much surer path to success”.

He noted further that college graduates are more likely to get a rewarding job and lead healthier lives as research has always shown.

AIMING LOWER

A report by Maseno University human resource students about college graduates aged between 25 and 34 found that the number of those employed in food service, restaurants and bars had risen by 37 per cent in 2014 from 2008, though the sample size was small.

There were similar or bigger employment increases at petrol stations and fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi services. This showed that graduates were settling for lesser paying jobs, which were previously considered fit for primary and high school dropouts.

Young graduates who majored in education and teaching or engineering were most likely to find a job requiring a college degree, while area majors — those who majored religious studies and humanities, for example — were least likely to do so.

Almost three quarters of all recent education graduates (71.1 per cent) were in jobs that required a college degree. Of all area studies majors, the share was 44.7 per cent.

Sixty-seven per cent of employed Kenyans are doing jobs completely different from what they studied in university, the report also revealed. This was partly because they either studied it because of their grades, or took whichever course when the one relevant to their qualification was not forthcoming. 

Over the last 10 years, the ratio of number of graduates to employment opportunities has been decreasing, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, a trend which may get worse in the years ahead.

“The hope of the Kenyan youth is still at stake, given the fact that most policies are never designed to tap their vibrancy for economic and social growth,” notes Prof Edward Kisiang’ani, a political  scientist.

He explains that it has only been recent when the Devolution ministry has streamlined the National Youth Service, and that the fruits of the programme seem to be opening an eye into what has been missing. The Youth Fund, unfortunately, has not really performed well.

According to Henry Rotich, the Cabinet Secretary for Treasury, nearly all net job creation in Kenya comes from start-up businesses and in the informal sector, not the government.

“In fact, the government has been in efforts to reduce the workforce and curb the ever rising wage bill,” he says.

That is why, in his budget, he introduced a tax rebate for companies that will be willing to absorb fresh graduates, a move that was largely interpreted as bait for companies to take in more graduates.

RICHEST MALE DROPOUT

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TOP RICHEST DROPOUTS

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