/biz/ - Business & Finance

In 1 week I'm going to launch my first non-tech startup. AMA.

Is university a scam or will it really get me much further ahead in life?

I'm a 19 year old Canadian here and I'm deciding whether or not I should spend over $60,000 on 4 years of university (Saskatchewan) or $12,000 on 2 years at a technical college (SAIT). I'm going for mechanical engineering and I want to hear your thoughts on it. I've already been accepted to University of Saskatchewan for mechanical engineering but I have put it on hold for the year. I still have the option of backing out and going to 2 years at SAIT instead. My family is kind of split half and half on the issue. We have a few family friends that are oil engineering executives and both of them have said that experience is much more important and nobody really gives a shit if you just go to tech college for 2 years. My uncle works in mortgages and says many of the engineering tech guys he's seen have made well over $500k a year and are happy they didn't pursue full degrees. The upside to only doing 2 years at tech college is that I would have 2 more years of experience and money earned compared to a 4 year uni grad.

I want to eventually end up in the automotive racing, hopefully motorbikes and engineering on a team. Will I be able to do that with only a tech college diploma? The $48,000 difference is very appealing, since I wouldn't have any debt coming out of a tech college compared to university.

Any opinions on this /biz/? surely some of you had to have gone through something similair to this and can give me some insight.

pic unrelated