hitting the booksIf you want to be an entrepreneur, many paths can lead you there. Do you need a college degree? MBA? Engineering degree?

For some types of businesses, formal education could be a great foundation. For others, it might not be necessary. Sometimes, on-the-job training makes the most sense.

Carol walks you through some scenarios in a recent post on entrepreneur.com, “Should You Go to College If You Want to Be an Entrepreneur?” She begins:

“There is no direct path to entrepreneurship. If you want to be a doctor, you study pre-med, go to med school, get a residency and then, become a full-fledged doctor. There are fairly clear steps to climbing corporate ladders, as well. However, for entrepreneurship, the path isn’t well-defined.

History — and the media — are littered with tales of a handful of successes that didn’t graduate from college but made billions in business, like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and John Paul DeJoria. And of course, there are many, many more who did grab a college degree and made a success, some early on and some later in life.

With the costs of attending college skyrocketing and student debt reaching record numbers, what should you do if entrepreneurship is a part of your plan? First, there’s never one right answer when it comes to entrepreneurship. So, you have to look at your own goals and objectives, as well as where you stand in your life currently.

Personally, I am a fan of education in general, regardless of the form. I think you need to have a commitment to lifelong learning to keep growing personally and professionally. So, the question needs to be reframed as how do you go about obtaining that learning, and how much should you pay for — or rather invest in it — based on your objectives.”

You can read the rest of the post here.