There is a stigma, but there are also tradeoffs. I dropped out after a year, so I have three more years of experience than most people my age. That experience includes managing projects, negotiating with CEOs, presenting stuff to boards of directors, etc. I kind of feel bad for people who stuck it out and graduated into the terrible 2009 job market (that's when I would have finished).
College is just not as good a deal as it used to be. More and more of the stuff you'd need to know is available for free; more of the people you need to know are one email away. For students who aren't attending elite schools, college is probably not a good deal (adjusted for inflation, the wage premium for college students peaked in 1985; it's been dropping in real terms since then, even though tuition is rising faster than inflation).
100 years ago, an ambitious young person might have had two choices: stay on the farm and be the best farmer he can be, or move to the big, strange city, and try to do something extraordinary. In the future, I suspect that most people will view higher ed as equivalent to staying on the farm. You can do it, sure, and it will probably lead to a safer future for you. But if you think you're really extraordinary, or you'd like to find out, you have to get out and do something.
College is just not as good a deal as it used to be. More and more of the stuff you'd need to know is available for free; more of the people you need to know are one email away. For students who aren't attending elite schools, college is probably not a good deal (adjusted for inflation, the wage premium for college students peaked in 1985; it's been dropping in real terms since then, even though tuition is rising faster than inflation).
100 years ago, an ambitious young person might have had two choices: stay on the farm and be the best farmer he can be, or move to the big, strange city, and try to do something extraordinary. In the future, I suspect that most people will view higher ed as equivalent to staying on the farm. You can do it, sure, and it will probably lead to a safer future for you. But if you think you're really extraordinary, or you'd like to find out, you have to get out and do something.