He was so obviously thrilled: Hey, Mom and Dad, Ive been offered a full-time job! And its doing just what Ive always wanted to do.

Our parental brains raced. Had he said full time"? Surely not. He was only a junior in college.

It seems a company had indeed offered our son a full-time job, if he would drop out immediately. Apparently theyd decided that whatever he would gain by picking up that last English credit and the other remaining odds and ends that stood between him and a framed diploma would not materially enhance his ability to do the work they wanted him to do. In their view, he was ready now.

What would you say?

I caught an interview with Simon Cowell on Good Morning America recently (June 6). In case youve somehow managed to insulate yourself from popular culture over the past five years, Simon is the hard-hitting judge on American Idol. He is also #21 on the Celebrity 100 list Forbes compiles of the most powerful and highest paid stars, has launched half a dozen shows, and is worth an estimated $200 million. After commenting on his success, the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets for having dropped out of high school as a teenager and never having gone to college. His response caught my attention to the degree that I replayed it on TiVo often enough to write it down word-for-word.

Heres what the wise one said: Absolutely not. Because there was nothing I could or wanted to learn in school; it was just a complete waste of my time. What I did have, and I've always had, is that I'm a hard worker. The secret of my success is that I make other people money.

Simon is, of course, not the only prominent figure who did not pick up a college degree on the way to fame and glory. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and Michael Dell left the University of Texas after founding his company in his dorm room. Other college dropouts whove done pretty respectably include Steve Jobs, Tom Hanks, Ted Turner, Steve Martin, and Woody Allen.

Were they right? What should our son do?

As you might expect, my husband and I took a somewhat strong and, I would have to admit, rather unconsidered position that he should not drop out of college. We argued that he (we) had way too much invested not to see the process through and reap the end reward.

In the year since, he has graduated (and, thankfully, launched into a job at least as good as the one he passed up). But, I find myself increasingly wondering whether the absolute certainty of rightness I felt at the time was justified.

Will the degree really mean as much to him, over the course of his lifetime, as a college degree meant to me during mine?

Or, is it possible that the growing shortage of college-educated employees will actually, in an ironic way, decrease the value of a college education over the next several decades?

There are several arguments to be made on that side of the coin. First: as competition for college-educated employees increases, companies will become more and more motivated to use those without college degrees effectively in the workforce, in jobs that today would routinely require a diploma-in-hand as the price of admission. They will come to screen candidates in different ways, searching, perhaps, for the Simon Cowells among them: those who are bright, motivated, and will make them money.

A second argument: in their desperate search for college talent, companies will join professional sports franchises in recruiting individuals earlier and earlier in the pipeline. It will become a sign of your exceptional talent to proclaim that you were hired in your junior or even sophomore year in college. Only those in the lower ranks of the class will make it through as seniors.

And finally, although I hate to say it: a perception that at least parts of todays college education are actually not particularly relevant may pervade more and more young peoples (and older employers) consciousness.

Im a huge fan of education. I hope I was right about the value of a degree to our son. But occasionally I do wonder.

What do you think?

HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE RECOMMENDS:
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