<Snipped quote by Whiskers>

I don't think many people going to university think, oh hey let's gamble thousands of pounds of debt for a tiny chance of getting in Forbes. I mean unless they're studying business. You're buying yourself a semi-acceptable gap in your CV and credit ratings to open yourself up to ideas, think about what to do with your life and take really long holidays. You get to live in a huge self contained community where you can meet hundreds of new people, many of them like minded and some who'll challenge your views.

Also, £1.75 snakebite.

Not sure if me being American has to do with not understanding the snakebite thing, but this is the most appealing way anyone has ever described college to me.

Most Billionaires are old money. their parents were rich and now they're rich. Only very, very few people make it without already having connections.

Nope. There are as many bootstrappers (the proverbial 'rags to riches') in the Forbes 400 as there are folks who inherited their billions and sat on them. A little under 10% each. The majority of the ultra-rich came from the upper middle class and started successful business enterprises; Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are two notable examples. While they were by no means ever living in poverty, they nonetheless very much qualify as self-made, being two of the richest men on planet Earth and having started in suburbia. The oft-told story of ancient WASP families holding all of the world's wealth hundreds of years running is patently untrue.

<Snipped quote by KnightShade>

Not sure if me being American has to do with not understanding the snakebite thing, but this is the most appealing way anyone has ever described college to me.

It's an equal mix of cider and lager with a dash blackcurrant juice. It slips down really easily, can be bought cheaply in four pint pitchers at some places and turns your vomit purple. It makes us feel edgy because it's been banned to serve it from one tap.

dear god it sounds delicious like the nectar that comes off flowers growing on the pubes of mother gaia herself.

the kids here like to drink Four Lokos which is supposedly pretty edgy flavored alcohol in a can. never drank it myself, i just stuck with a 40oz of Mickey's or Steel Reserve. Mm, beer. I need to try legitimately good hard cider because apparently all the ones i've tried are shit.

so some colleges sell alcohol thats cool

I don't know about the ones over there, your legal age being later, still pretty sure drinking is generally involved.

College helps, it just isn't a guarantee of any sort anymore. It's sort of like... cutting off your left arm to get closer to the life rafts on a sinking ship. Sure, it hurts (financially), but it affords you more of an opportunity to not drown.