Self-Education

May 1, 2026

A college education is important because:

• it is required for advanced degrees or certain professions
• it expands your world view; you meet people from everywhere
• it teaches you how to think

There is only one problem: it is prohibitively expensive! Many college students can only afford to attend college through grants and by taking out student loans. Most Americans can't cover a $500 emergency, so how can they afford a $200,000 education?

What can someone who wants an education but can't afford it do? It depends. If they want to be a doctor, they are out of luck. Study hard and take out loans, start at a cheap community college, transfer to complete your degree and do well enough in undergrad to pursuse an advanced degree.

If they want to expand their world, travel. Travel around the United States. Travel around the world. Realize that the world is much bigger than you are. Find places to volunteer. Engage with your local community.

Finally if they want to learn how to think, they should learn to read and write and visit their local library. The books are everywhere and effectively free. You just have to find the right ones. For those getting started I have a suggestion: How to Read a Book by Moritmer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.

Why should they read How to Read a Book ? Isn't the title redundant? How can they read it, if they don't know how to read? This book assumes that the reader can sound out words and understand what they are saying. That is not what this book is about. It teaches readers how to be an active, demanding readers. This book teaches techniques that help you to make sense of what you read so that you can as the authors put it move "from understanding less to understanding more." The best books to read are ones where the author knows more than you. By definition, they are difficult to read. But by being a demanding reader, you can grow by reading those books instead of being frustrated.

As for learning how to write, I don't have any recommendations. The best I can tell you is by writing essays and getting into the habit of writing what you think and explaining how you arrived at that conclusion. This also coincides with Adler and Doren's suggestion that you should read with a pen in your hand. Putting things in your own words is an effective way to tell if you understand it or not. If you can't explain something, you don't know it well enough.

These two approaches are symbiotic. Learn to read so that you can learn to decode arguments and write so that you can practice making them. In fact, this blog is my attempt at improving the latter. Some of the posts here are scattered because I have so much to learn but I plan (and have so far been successful) to write every day until I have mastered it.

So what is my recommendation for the curious learner on a budget: visit your local library.