By Jon Farmer
Right now aspiring and recent high school graduates are preparing applications for college, university, and apprenticeships. Teachers are handing out materials and well-meaning relatives are asking detailed questions about averages and career paths. We're funneling our teenagers into post-secondary institutions but we're not doing it on purpose. It's a habit and one that we need to examine.

Post-secondary schooling can be a stepping stone of training and self-discovery on the way to an engaging career but it can also be a waste of time and money – an obligation that saddles twenty-somethings with debt and sends them racing into a job market with degrees they may never use.

You won't see the difference between useful and wasted schooling in college rankings or the cost of tuition, however. The difference is entirely in whether the student has a reason to be there: the personal and inspired kind of reason that some people call passion. It keeps attention focused on the work at hand and minds racing over future possibilities.

Some seventeen year olds have reasons like that to go to school but many only go because we tell them they're supposed to. Those students end up switching programs, dropping out, or working in entirely unrelated fields. Fortunately, we can help teens make sure that they are going to school on purpose. We can encourage them to explore the world and themselves first, through work, volunteering, travel, or any number of adventures. School will always be there and gap years are gaining in popularity for a reason. They give people time to carefully plan next steps rather than rushing off with a herd of other graduates.

Simply perpetuating the myth that schools have a monopoly on education produces uninspired students, unmotivated workers, and unhappy human beings. It also costs a lot of money. We need to remind young people, and the adults in their lives, that the entire world can be a classroom and that life's most important learning never produces a grade.