Wtf are we paying our college for? Or any college for that matter?
I've been thinking about this for a while, and honestly, I don't even know where to begin. Wanted to post this on linkedin bad then I thought screaming I had zero attendance out loud wouldn't be a good idea.
I think I'm getting really tired of pretending that everything about this system makes sense.
I'm in my second year of college, and here's the slightly embarrassing part: I barely attended any classes in my first year.
I still got an 9 CGPA.
And yes, I know, we're all doing it. Attendances are often a formality, exams become a memory game, and a lot of the actual learning happens outside the classroom.
But then I have to ask myself:
What exactly am I paying for?
My college costs around ₹1.28 lakh a year. That's more than ₹10,000 a month.
And because I don't live near college, there's the PG on top of that, which brings the cost to roughly ₹25,000 a month just for college + a place to stay there.
₹25,000 a month.
That's a LOT of money, especially when I genuinely don't feel like I'm getting ₹25,000 worth of value out of the whole thing.
And I'm a genuinely curious person. I love learning. I just don't particularly enjoy memorising information word-for-word because that's what an exam expects me to do.
The frustrating part is that I'm not even eligible for most scholarships because on paper, my family's income looks “decent.”
On paper, maybe it is.
In reality, ₹1.28 lakh is a LOT of money. And once you add the PG and everything else that comes with actually attending college, it gets ridiculous.
I keep thinking about what else that money could do.
How many students could get access to something they desperately need?
How many people could I help?
How many projects could be built?
How much could I learn if I had that money to actually experiment, explore, fail, build and try again?
I mean it. I have SO much to explore for free already. With that kind of money, I could probably do much more than what I'm currently getting out of college.
Instead, my parents are spending it so I can have a degree from a particular college.
So that I can tell people, “I'm from xyz college.”
And honestly?
Who gives a fuck?
Why have we collectively decided that the name of the institution you attended should matter more than what you actually know, what you can build, how you think, and what you contribute?
I genuinely have so much respect for people who choose to drop out.
Not because dropping out is inherently better than college.
But because there is something incredibly brave about looking at a system everyone tells you to follow and saying:
“I want to do something with my life instead.”
Maybe I'm just frustrated.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Very plausible.
But lately, learning in this country, earning in this country, and even figuring out how you're supposed to build a life here has started feeling like suffocation.
I'm not against education.
I'm against spending years and lakhs proving that I'm educated when I could be spending that time actually learning.
And maybe that's the question I'm struggling with right now:
Are we actually investing in education, or are we just investing in the right to say we went to the right place?
It just started out as a rant to GPT but I couldn't not post it somewhere honestly!