A College Dilemma

[Ben Bymaster]

I've always loved real estate. I would stare at house plan books for hours on end as a child, before creating my own floor plans. I read nearly 50 business and real estate investing books throughout high school. Nearly all of the content I consumed on my own was about real estate. I even got in trouble at my high school hourly job multiple times because I would have headphones on listening to the BP podcast. For many years now I've wanted to become a commercial real estate investor. I just graduated high school, and my plan is to get a finance degree in college which will hopefully help me land a job in the commercial industry before investing on my own. I've taken over a year's worth of college classes, and it honestly feels extremely suffocating. I wake up everyday with an unexplainable urge/hunger to invest in commercial real estate, but I have to spend the entire day learning abstract skills which I will never use in life. I'm beginning to think that this plan is not the most efficient way to become an investor. I would love to get some advice from someone in this field. Is college truly the best path? It just feels like I'm racking up a massive amount of debt and waisting my time while I could actually be working. Thanks for reading!

[Corby Goade]

The truth is, you don't have to choose, you can do both. I started investing while I was in college. I worked full time and went to school full time and started buying property. You need a place to live, and surely you can drum up some roommates, pick up a duplex and rent out the other side. You are in a perfect place to house hack. 

Yes, college is expensive, and it's more expensive than when I was going to school, but the truth is, a college degree will open doors for you that would never open otherwise. In order to invest at a level that will eventually sustain you, make you free, you need income. No one is going to loan $250k to a kid with no experience or income. If you graduate with a finance degree, you will be qualified for higher paying jobs, in general, than you would qualify for without that degree- correct? Those higher paying jobs equate to more mortgages with better terms. Those mortgages, over time, will create equity and leverage for you, which means more property. 

Everything comes with a cost and anything worth having is worth working for. Sounds like I am in the minority on this thread, but I think a degree is important. Sure, you can do well without one, but research shows you a MUCH more likely to be successful with one. Be patient, work hard, get your degree and start investing now at a small scale and watch your portfolio grow. Best of luck!