A bunch of the small stakes guys never finished college and they were talking about it in the forums the other day.  My message to all those guys is, for the love of God, just finish up your degree!!!

* It's really not that much work - if you are even semi intelligent, you can just go to class, do a minimal amount of work and pass.  Really, those 10-20 hours a week are going to kill you?  Don't think of it as something to dread - on the contrary, if you think about it as being able to learn about anything you wanted, it makes the experience better.  Surely you must have some intellectual curiosity?!?  I was a math and economics dual major because I really found those subjects interesting.  But along the way, I took a visual studies class (drawing), a world music appreciation class, a psychology class, etc.  I hear at some schools, you can even take things like film studies and ceramics.  Shoot!  If someone paid all my expenses (including for the family), I could go to school the rest of my life.  Easily.  There's a lot of interesting and cool stuff out there to learn.

* A degree will help you get life outs - because you never know what will happen.  Just like you should have a few outs in case you get caught making a move at a poker table, you should give yourself some life outs with a degree.  Now I'm not going to say that anything you learn in college is going to be directly applicable in your next job.  The main thing a degree does is get you in the door at interviews.  Most people know this.  But I'm going to point out the flip side of that argument... 

* In particular, NOT having a degree will make you look like a retard - to a prospective employer, as well as everyone else you meet.  Yeah, I know Bill Gates never finished college.  But that's not you.  Have you ever watched Monday Night Football, and the players introduce themselves?  The people you notice aren't the ones who say they went to "Notre Dame", "THE Ohio State", "The U" or whatever (even if they only went for a semester).  It's that one dude who has to say "James Polk High School."  Superficial, I know, but that's just how life is.  And when you finally meet the girl of your dreams (let's for the sake of argument assume she's NOT going to have a problem with you not finishing college AND that you play poker for a living - LOL), don't be surprised if you feel like crap perpetually because her family (in particular the inlaws), friends and neighbors think you are some kind of moron.  I'm not saying *all* of them will feel this way, but unless you like hanging out at the local trailer parks, you will in most social circles be the "dude who couldn't finish school."  I think I'm pretty open mined about such things and I never judge a book by its cover, but I'm going to have a first impression - and that first impression is going to be "LAZY" and/or "MORON," unless you have some compelling excuse like family hardship, too busy saving the world, or whatever.  Before you go jumping on my back, how would you feel if your kid brought home someone who never finished high school (for whatever excuse you have for not finishing college)?  Exactly.  Not saying they're not a great person - it's just they will constantly be fighting first impressions... FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.  How do I know this?  It's because my father never went went to college (which was fairly typical for that time in Korea), and over the years the fact that he never got any respect for his ideas just ate him up (doubtful later post).

* I can see how if you can make $100K playing poker, you have less incentive to study and finish your degree.  In my limited experience of observing the poker landscape, it seems to me like 20% or so of winning regs one year become losing regs the next.  On the one hand, 20% is a pretty low number.  But since you are only 20 years old or whatever, that means you'll have to earn a living somehow for the next 40 years or so.  On average, the odds of you being a "winning player" for 40 years is about at close to zero as you can get.  In fact, after only 20 years, the odds of you continually winning is only 1%.  If you look around at the people who were "big winners" even 5 years ago, I don't think that many of them are left.  Wow!  Those life outs sure would be handy right about now!

I'm not tying to be mean - just telling you how it *probably* will be.  The more prepared you are to face that day if/when you need to make a change, the better off you will be.  I'm just trying to be a friend.