I think this article misses out on what in my opinion is the biggest reason to go to college for a teen and it all has to do exploration. Simply put you don't know what you don't know and at 17-18 that can be a lot. College gives you an opportunity to explore who you are and what you care about in an environment largely free of external stress (yes I know there can be stress but it's generally a lot different than "I need to provide for my family"). A lot of people are super confident in what they think their life path is until they actually encounter the steps it takes to get there. Generally we do a pretty poor job of educating young people on what different careers actually look like and what it takes to get there. There are a million lawyer and doctor shows but it's a lot harder at 17 to know that you'd actually love to study library science, or be an economist.
At 17 I thought I wanted to be a sport journalist or shoot rockets into space. Turns out I had zero interest in the path to ESPN and am terrible at chemistry. Sure looking back I can totally see that computers made all the sense in the world but I didn't recognize that then. If I had bypassed college and just started working to get to one of those paths I saw for myself who knows where I'd be. This is not to say that college is the only place where you get this freedom to explore, but colleges, especially good ones certainly encourage you to explore other options.
I think ideally your last year of high school would be nothing but career exploration, but failing that I recommend most teenagers go to college even if they think they know what they want to do.
At 17 I thought I wanted to be a sport journalist or shoot rockets into space. Turns out I had zero interest in the path to ESPN and am terrible at chemistry. Sure looking back I can totally see that computers made all the sense in the world but I didn't recognize that then. If I had bypassed college and just started working to get to one of those paths I saw for myself who knows where I'd be. This is not to say that college is the only place where you get this freedom to explore, but colleges, especially good ones certainly encourage you to explore other options.
I think ideally your last year of high school would be nothing but career exploration, but failing that I recommend most teenagers go to college even if they think they know what they want to do.