There are three main reasons why everyone (including you) should consider independent learning.
It presents many advantages.
First, independent learning costs much less than going to colleges and universities.
How so? you ask.
Well, let me explain.
When you go to a college or a university to take a course, you pay a lot money for things other than tuition.
Part of these other fees are student association fees, administrations fees, students services fees, scholarship fund fees, and many more.
My wife has just registered for a program at a university.
For one semester tuition fees constituted only fifty percent of the total amount she had to pay.
She paid a little over two thousand dollars.
Out of that, only about one thousand dollars was for tuition.
All the rest was for various fees.
Honestly, I find this ridiculous.
There must be a better way.
A second advantage of independent learning is that it allows you to use your time much more efficiently in that you don't need to take classes you are not interested in or don't need.
When you enroll in a college or university program, they impose you a certain number of courses you have to take.
While I believe that if you want to become a nurse, for example, there are things you absolutely need to know (based on the country and the state or province you're in), I also believe that sometimes (at least in some cases) students are forced to take courses they really don't need.
Let me use my wife again as an example.
She was born in a French-speaking country.
Her twelve years of primary and secondary education were in French.
On top of that, she was a university student for four years.
In the new program she has just started in Canada, she is forced to take two French courses.
Every day she comes home with stories of how bad the teachers are.
Not only doesn't she need the French courses, she could even teach the teachers who are teaching her.
What a waste of time, energy and money! Here is a third and final reason (as far as this article is concerned) why you and I should seriously think about independent learning.
In a way, we have no choice.
Even if you went to college or university, the reality is that you need to keep on learning.
In today's world things evolve very quickly.
It won't take you long before you find yourself obsolete (and therefore incompetent) if you don't keep on learning.
Today's workplace requires different skills you may have not even learned in school, college or university.
Continuing education is a "must" for anyone who wishes to continue to have a place in today's job market.
We all know (or hear of) people who have been let go of their jobs that they loved because their skills no longer matched their jobs' requirements.
How sad! Such tragedies can easily be prevented through independent continuing education.
Again, as human beings, we are perpetual learners.
But this does not mean that we have to always be enrolled in college university programs.
We've been there; we've done that already.
There is a time for everything.
There is no reason for being a perpetual college or university student.
This wouldn't be smart anyway.
All that being a perpetual student means is that we need to become independent learners.
This alternative way of acquiring new knowledge presents many advantages.
Three of such advantages are the following: independent learning costs less; independent learning spares you from being forced to take courses you don't need or are interested in; independent learning allows you to remain up-to-date in your field of expertise.
There are many independent learning programs and resources out there.
You should explore them and take advantage of those that would be useful for you.