Denver Post — John Maxwell is curious about the world and freely shares, in casual conversation, tidbits of English history. Yet he says he’ll never again set foot in a college classroom.
“I consider myself mostly self-taught and I just believe I should cut my own path in life,” said the 24-year-old Maxwell, who dropped out of Littleton’s Araphoe Community College after one semester.
Maxwell said he didn’t want to waste his parents’ money on college work that held little or no interest to him.
“I just wanted to see what I wanted to do with my life and college was never a part of that,” said Maxwell, currently an employee at a Parker liquor store. “It might cost me financially down the road, but I never really saw myself as getting rich anyway. So I don’t see it as much of a loss.”
Maxwell is among a generation of young men who increasingly are turning their backs on colleges, universities and the associated degrees — either dropping out of upper-level learning or never considering it a viable option.
Some of the young men shunning campus say they don’t want to take on massive student-loan debt.
“If you don’t want to go to college you can go to a trade school and come away with something and not be on the hook for $150,000,” said 28-year-old Adam Stark, who dropped out of college and now is thriving in the music business in Denver.
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