School worth it? Depends...

For what school costs in Kenya, go, and go until you can't go anymore. If you get a scholarship there or abroad, use it, and go. Learn all you can. Get a graduate degree. Then enter your field. Don't think that Kenyan schools are subpar. They aren't they are fine schools. All that is lacking is the education on how to hustle and take it from the classroom to the street, and to the boardroom, and that is lacking in schools everywhere. That's something you simply learn in the trenches... as long as you believe in yourself and your countrymen and WORK TOGETHER.

For the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to go to many schools in the US, eh, you're better off putting that money into land, housing, or something that will appreciate back home. Here, you can easily spend $250,000 on a Bachelors from, say, USC, and come out and make $30k a year... IF you can find a job, and without a green card, you can give that up. Get your toilet paper ready, and prepare to wipe some old Mzungu behinds! Investment-wise, 250k for 30k ain't smart, especially because it will cost you $40k a year to live (hello debt).

Now, if you work your butt off and send money home, where it can go farther, and if you take a few, eh, ahem, risks while abroad and get as much cash as you can, go home and then go to school for a few grand, you've made out well. It's just so very hard to get trapped in the debt cycle here in the US... then comes alcohol, bhangi, and next thing you know, you are on welfare or doing manoki work, begging some Mzungu to marry you for papers. Avoid that, and do like the Russians and Nigerians do and GET MONEY, STAY FOCUSED. To jump in the ghettos made for Acatas, spending all your money trying to impress people back home into thinking you are doing great is a darn shame and a disaster, KCSE scores long past. That's not a pleasant place to be.

Now if you are in a high-paying field, then, that's different. You can go abroad, make 100k a year and live off of 30k, sending the rest home, and then you will have a nice retirement after 20 years IF you can stay focused and not start thinking that you are an Mzungu that needs to drive german cars and live in 4000 sq ft houses. I know a chick that did this after ten years, now living in Lavington and enjoying life. She sold securities for a big investment firm here. And left her school debt, credit cards, loans, etc sitting in the US UNPAID LOLOLOLOL. liquidated, and went home with seven figures... selling securities makes good money here. Smart girl.

And if you are not abroad, listen to all the intelligent advice from all the people here on Wazua. And don't wish to be abroad... it ain't fun wiping old peoples *arses.

Hill

JasonHill I agree with you 100%, where's that clap smiley.

But nowadays if you default on your loans I think they'll find you.

What would you say to a young man who's a very good friend of mine, he made it through school without loans - 2 years of community college, then one year of state college, then fell sick, couldn't get back into the state college, and now can't seem to be able to find a school he can join at the same amount of money?

Should he take student loans for a year and pay them off (eg like $30,000), or should he take them, finish and run away (and nowadays I hear they can smoke you out of wherever), or should he just quit?

I think education counts but to a point... it's not worth it if it's going to kill you to pay for it....

@ Jason Hill
You cant discharge student loans even if you filed for bankruptcy, you gotta pay them.

I think that the problem with most education systems is that they are misapplied.

The blueprint of these systems originated in medieval europe, I think what is now Germany. It was Goverment sanctioned. The motivation was to create / develop a competent and disciplined workforce to help run goverment. Soldiers, administrators, taxmen / accountants, judicial officials etc.

The real enterprenuers had no need for such "school". The farmers, gold & blacksmiths, merchants etc. learnt from their own kind through apprenticeship. You can only learn to be a doctor from a doctor, a lawyer from a lawyer, a pilot from a pilot, a thief from a thief, an enterprenuer from an enterprenuer...

My former Kiswahili teacher had no interest in nuturing the development of my mathematical or business skills. Alinifunza ufasaha wa lugha: ngeli, mizani katika shairi, sadfa katika fasihi. Nina ufasaha mwingi wa lugha hii lakini hauna maana au thamani katika maisha yangu ya sasa. Mimi hata siongei kiswahili mufti... I use sheng & with the usual mixture of English words.

Consider what we did in school:

Parade every morning... prefects & teachers checked if my shoes were polished, shirt & shorts ironed, socks pulled up etc.

I did Geography... I know how lakes are formed, glaciers, desert landscapes, platetechtonic theories...

I did math till university... calculus, complex numbers, advanced statistics...

I did chemistry... mole concept! Enough said.

I did biology... from mitochondria to Darwin's Theory

From history I know Australopithecus Boisei, Otto von Bismack, Cecil Rhodes, Moi, Kenyatta, Mboya... nothing about Nathan Rothschild, JPMorgan, Rockefeller or even Ndegwa...

I also did agriculture, physics and a few others.

By the time i finished 844, 16years... I did not know how to open a CDS account, i did not know what a bond / stock / option was. I did not even understand how pension schemes worked! No one told me how to save, how to apply for a loan / mortgage!

I learnt how to write a CV but not a business plan, nor a budget, nor a sales strategy!

But in primary school homescience, i sewed pin cushions, fringed mats and a lap bag... no one taught me how to make a business plan or how to apply for a business loan or how to pick a good shop location in case i wanted to open a tailoring business! Strange?

No wonder our great grandparents mostly sent their least industrious and weakest children to mzungu school leaving the better ones in the home!