Self-Guided Education: How to Advance Your Career Without College Debt

Life is Your Textbook to Higher Education & Enlightenment

Ditching college debt starts at your own desk; armed with curiosity, open resources, and a notebook.

Each day we live, we have the option to further our education for free. If we truly want enlightenment, we must realize that we have to take life up on the opportunities it gives us to get that higher education.

Every day we are alive, we learn something new. Though most of the time it is something that has no importance, like whether or not Britney Spears wears panties. Seriously, how important is it to know the trivial details of celebrities when, in our daily lives, we are enslaved by our jobs and our corporate-owned government (which is tipping towards a tyrannical government)?

Though our jobs are not forcing us to slave for them, that is our own choice, we need to realize that life is our textbook. We must utilize that textbook if we want to further our education to get a better job or career.

Balancing Entertainment With Essential Knowledge Keeps Life Flourishing

We have the choice of the information we receive each day, whether it is entertaining, educational, or vital to our existence. We must realize that what we choose to inform ourselves with will strengthen one area of knowledge and weaken the others, unless we make sure to balance out the information we search for.

The existence of life relies on many different venues to exist. Neglecting to search for knowledge and information in these different venues can eventually bring life as you know it to a halt. Therefore, I present you with a challenge: As you are searching for a higher education and new knowledge for a better career, better your life as well by taking in all the lessons that life has to offer with independent study (also known as self-guided education).

Independent study can be very beneficial to further your education for a better job. It will not only help you save money in your journey to a higher education and a better career, but allow you to obtain knowledge for free.

Reading and researching are not only enlightening; they are the keys to higher learning. The foundation of self-guided education starts with independent reading and curiosity.

Why Traditional College Tuition is Leading to Debt, Not Careers

When people are in search of continuing education because they want a better job or to start a career, they automatically think that means going to some sort of vocational school, college, or university. Maybe they consider taking advantage of distance education programs to further their education.

However, going to a college, university, or even a vocational school has become quite expensive, as a majority of these institutions around the world have been raising their tuition fees. The cost of tuition is so exorbitant that it will take years to pay off, even if you manage to get job placement or qualify for a Pell Grant.

The False Promise of Guaranteed Job Placement

The thing about job placement is that there are all the other people who took that same course, and were promised the same job placement opportunities. Thus, not even the colleges, vocational schools, and universities that offer job placement can actually guarantee that you get a job in the field of your studies. If you're lucky or know the right people, you may get a job in the field you studied to help pay the incurring educational debt.

The True Cost of Forgetting What You Paid to Learn

What's even worse is that I have heard time and again how so many people who graduated at the top of their class went searching for that career, not remembering any of the knowledge they were supposed to have gained. Many have had to go back through their textbooks to re-learn the information and knowledge their college courses were supposed to help them retain.

If it wasn't for the fact that so many jobs are asking for a BA in this or an MA in that, many of these institutions would be out of business. However, because most people do not see any way around these requirements, they end up going into huge debt just trying to get a better job.

The Public Educational System: Training for Labor vs. Teaching to Think

We are naturally curious beings, and we have these amazing brains that could easily handle self-guided education, yet we barely scratch the surface of our brain's true potential. Why is that? Let’s start with our public educational system.

If you remember going to school as a kid, let me ask you this: Do you remember being excited about learning due to exploring and experimenting, using critical thinking, asking questions, and then discovering the answers?

There was one teacher throughout my education who made learning exciting for me; she was my second-grade teacher. This is what public education offers: a very low possibility of having a good teacher who will provoke your interest, and a high possibility of a boring lecture of "this is what happened" or "how this works," with no exploration into the subject except for what the teacher is instructed to teach.

We Are Taught What to Think, Not How to Think

Basically, we are taught what to think, not how to think, because we do not have enough teachers willing to explore the information they are teaching. It’s like the saying: “You give a man a fish and you feed him for a day… You teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

We are not taught how to think and learn critically unless we are lucky enough to have had at least one good teacher. Instead, we are simply fed bits of data and told to process it like a computer.

Every student taught in the public school system is just an organic computer trained for labor (or "human resources," as the documentary State of Mind - The Psychology of Control states). "No child left behind." Imagine the possibilities and the intelligence that we would have if every teacher explored everything they taught instead of just giving us facts to memorize.

Enlightenment and Defending Your Freedoms Through Self-Study

As public schools are government-funded, I would like to ask how many of you who are reading this know everything that is written in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and what it all truly means?

We all know that the Constitution and Bill of Rights give us our freedoms in the U.S. because that is what we were taught. But did your teacher ever explore every amendment and article that makes up those documents? Most likely not, because that is usually something you explore in-depth only in law school. These documents give U.S. citizens their freedoms, yet most citizens do not learn much more than the role of the three branches of government.

Don’t you think it would be important to learn everything you could about the documents that give you your freedom? I encourage you to please go and learn everything you can about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Visit the National Archives, read America's Founding Documents, and research what you don't understand.

Without the citizens to back the Constitution and Bill of Rights, our government can easily become a tyrannical government. Law enforcement, congressmen, and senators will view them as just pieces of parchment that the public doesn't understand, meaning they don't have to abide by them.

The Danger of Exchanging Freedom for False Security

Since we do learn something new every day, wouldn’t it be safe to say that gaining intelligence and enlightenment is one of the many reasons why we live? If so, why are we not taking the opportunity to educate ourselves with important things that will help us excell in life and fend against a corporate-owned government tilting towards tyranny?

Instead, we rely on that very government to tell us how to learn, how to live, and how to be safe. Yet, every ounce of security they say they provide is another freedom lost. When you rely on someone else to protect you, you give that person the right to control you.

Utilize Independent Study to Advance Your Career

We often treat universities as the sole gatekeepers of higher learning, forgetting that academic institutions didn't create knowledge; they simply organized it. Independent study is what brought forth the very curricula taught in lecture halls today. Long before there were degree programs and tuition invoices, there were curious minds observing, reading, experimenting, and documenting on their own.

Don't let the saying "curiosity killed the cat" keep you from your dreams. Albert Einstein routinely skipped university lectures to study cutting-edge physics independently. It was his relentless curiosity, not institutional lectures, that fueled his genius. It was curiosity that made Thomas Edison a world-changing inventor; he had only three months of formal schooling before pursuing his education independently. 

Don't let money hold you back because you can't afford college or vocational school. Education is free when you go searching for it and all you have to do is explore by asking questions, searching for the answers, and always look for supporting evidence in what you are researching before you come to your final conclusion. You can start exploring today; use online resources, or any public library, as they can be low cost or even free resources to start your independent studies.

How to Test Out of College Degrees with CLEP and DSST Exams

Independent study can actually help you get a BA, MA, or other college degree, and that better job you've been looking for, without the massive debt. With some degrees, you can simply test out of the classes needed to get a degree by taking College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) or DSST exams.

You don't have to go into thousands of dollars in debt for a better career!

Yes, you will have to pay a testing fee, but it is usually only a few hundred dollars per exam, compared to a $15,000+ tuition fee for a full semester. CLEP and DSST exams primarily grant undergraduate (Associate and Bachelor's) general education credits, reducing the amount of money needed for course expenses down to just exam fees. You use self-guided education to learn the material on your own time, take the exam, and get the college credits transferred to a university.

The Practical Roadmap to Higher Education & Better Job Opportunities 

Understanding the philosophy of self-guided education is the first step toward breaking free from college debt. But knowing why independent study works is only half the battle: you also need a clear strategy to put it into practice.

To see how to request course syllabi before enrolling, source affordable textbooks outside the campus bookstore, and use self-paced study to master real-world skills like psychology and web design, check out my step-by-step practical guide: [How to Cut College Costs: What to Know Before Pursuing Higher Education].

The Future is in Your Hands 

Start guiding your education today to retain the knowledge you need for a better future!

If this guide inspires a new perspective or practical ideas for your own learning journey, please consider sharing it with others to help them cut costs on college. Together we can make a better future for the world! 

I’d also love to read your feedback or personal experiences in the comments below. Hearing directly from readers helps me continue crafting practical, empowering guides for life's textbook. Thank you for reading, I hope you have a blessed day and much love to you!