For college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes, the numbers are even more stark: 80 percent will probably never get a bachelor’s degree or even a two-year associate’s degree.

That can be a lot of tuition to pay, without a degree to show for it.

A small but influential group of economists and educators is pushing another pathway: for some students, no college at all. It’s time, they say, to develop credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so.

As much as I believe in an education and the way that it can provide you with a slightly more certain career path, but with the way the world has been working and how skills (or at least the facilities to teach them) have become readily available as long as you have time and an internet connection—perhaps College can truly become an option, one of the many paths (and not the only) towards success.
Education itself must veer away from the instruction of yore (memorization and routine) and go towards more practical applications, especially since it has become more and more apparent that learning truly is better if contextualized, experienced and practiced.