the battle of the overeducated versus the "adequately" educated

so this is the age old question of how important is education to be "successful". everyone agrees to the point that every child has a right to education and its impt they should be educated at least upto high school. but what happens after that, at what point does your education stop adding that extra marginal value to what you end up doing for the rest of your life.

forbes magazine listed 7 of the top 15 richest pple are college dropouts. they probably just didnt see the point of studying things they werent interested in. a colleague of mine, outrightly asked me whats the point of me giving these professional exams. and why phds were giving it too, since they were overtly qualified for it. and his advice was that i should spend my time working longer hours, doing extra work for my boss rather than studying for this exam.

maybe. hes right in his own way. he started from ground up and has a substantial amount of experience, which in a way is something that cannot be measured no matter how many degrees one rakes up.

however, i do believe there is value in education. and true there is only a small percentage of what you studied that you actually use at work. and once you climb higher up the corporate ladder or decide to open your business, the further away you move from "real work". you move into manging pple/the business. experience, people skills and being able to see the big picture is what is key realy. even then i think there is nothing like the experience in being in university, there is no other environment where you have the opportunity to learn what you like, to make mistakes without being fired. most importantly its where pple actually want you to learn and will help you whole heartedly.