College can suck. Endless amounts of stress from exams, homework and anything and everything else we all have to deal with can make this higher education experience seem like too much effort to be worth it, but college educations are an absolute necessity in today’s economy.

In today’s day and age, nearly every job that is created is intended for college graduates. This is largely due to the surge of internet importance in the past few years. Everyone is involved in the internet in some way or another, making it a vital part of the modern world. As a result, manufacturing jobs that don’t require higher education have fallen off significantly.

Ever noticed a lot of old, abandoned manufacturing buildings and factories around the Tri-Cities? That is a result of the nation’s economy going from one that builds things, to one that designs things to be built somewhere else.

Think of our big American corporations like Apple and Microsoft. The offices are in the United States, but the factories are in China or another manufacturing nation. All of the jobs related to most modern companies that are needed in the states are things like software engineers and managers, people who are required to have degrees before they will even be considered for the position. But what of famous college dropouts?

Bill Gates is a prime example of the best case scenario for a college dropout, but his is an incredibly rare case. “Some college” may appear on job applications and resumes, but the only thing that really tells an employer is that they couldn’t make it through. Typically, people with even just associates degrees make more than high school graduates at every point in their career. The more education you get, that same theory holds true.

Today, even if you have an incredible idea and massive work ethic, very few people will care without that degree. For every Bill Gates story, there’s thousands more sad stories that no one ever hears of.

College is a necessity now. I know it’s hard and it can really suck, but I can also promise that it will be worth it in the end.