The Social Costs of Dropping Out

Dropping out was one of the best decisions I ever made. I’d mulled over doing so since high school, as I’d long been dissatisfied with the standard educational experience—a high school friend I caught up with years later remarked “I remember you talking about dropping out, but I can’t believe you actually did it”—but I didn’t pull the trigger until 2 years into college, 5-6 years after first considering it. I have generally poor experiential memory (probably as a consequence of my aphantasia), but the day I dropped out is one of my most vivid memories. After finally mustering up the resolve to commit to dropping out, I flopped on my bed and sobbed for an hour, not out of sadness but due to a feeling a sense of intense relief that I have not and probably never will experience again. I look back at that moment fondly; the instant I made the choice, I knew it was the right one. It has certainly worked out fine on every measure.

I share that story to make clear: this is a post about a cost of dropping out, but not regretful post, or a post discouraging the practice at all.

However, I believe it’s important to understand the tradeoffs you’re making with major life decisions. I certainly didn’t at the time, and from talking to other dropouts or people considering it, most of the tradeoff considerations center around professional life and their career progression. Those are not the only things college offers.

For most people, college is the foundational building block in their social circles for years to come. This seems to hold even for people who don’t really try at making friends, which is somewhat surprising to me, as is how enduring those social circles tend to be.

For most kids, college is their first opportunity for meaningful freedom from the yoke of their parents. I distinguish this from actually busy adults in the developmental sense of the word, as the modern college experience is akin to daycare and has few axes of success¹. Famously, many Asian teens will briefly become party animals, then settle down again after getting that out of their system (or not), but the effect exists more broadly. This intense socialization and increased freedom happens among a peer group that is more similar to you, and with more common interests, than any you’ve had before. With that framing, it’s not so surprising that by default even relatively antisocial people will find a friend group. The rotating groups in classes each semester means a huge amount of forced comingling between people who are likely to get along.

For many, this is also when they can develop a more serious long-term relationship, and get physical with it. The meme of college students fucking like rabbits in the dorms freshman year is, as far as I can tell, basically true. The freedom combined with increased opportunity for a relationship, on top of continued teens/early 20s hormones, also helps force people to become better socially adjusted and more apt at interacting with the other sex. This effect is particularly pronounced for guys. Many people stop wearing ill-fitting clothes, kick a nervous tic or two, and learn to flirt².

Even after graduation, people often end up in similar cities to their existing friend group. This becomes their initial, primary social circle, and they discover the horrible truth: that the college social experience is basically unique, and you will never again be constantly exposed to different people who share your age and interests by default. And the people you now spend the most time around, your coworkers, are discouraged as objects of romantic interest³.

When you drop out, you give this all up. And often the process leading up to dropping out consists of making this tradeoff to a lesser extent. I spent much of my high school and limited college years programming, and while that focus was great for skill acquisition, it definitely precluded the standard high school/college social experience. I’m not convinced this tradeoff is inherent, but it seems to be incredibly common. I suspect I would have tried to navigate it differently if I’d understood the full implications, but it’s hard to say in hindsight.

None of this is to say you can’t be social, make new friends, and find fantastic partners after college! It just doesn’t happen by default, especially for introverts, and requires a level of agency to make happen that is rarer than you’d think. Many people coast off their college circles for years, and look back on those as the best experiences of their life.

When you drop out, you suddenly have no choice: you must take responsibility for this aspect of your life. This is tough. It takes time, energy, and learning from failure, and you may not be comfortable pursuing it until you’re settled career-wise; I certainly didn’t fix this for a while. It’s also particular tough immediately after dropping out, as people your age are mostly still in school and their leisure time is dominated by school-centric social events. Even after they graduate, you end up at pretty different levels of life experience and often pretty different values, which makes dating weird. This goes away after a few years, and I’d generally encourage people to push past it, but you will probably end up with an older peer group and a few years of awkward dates.

For most of my friends, this all more or less worked itself out, so if you’re considering dropping out it’s not all gloom and doom. And the benefits of dropping out can be massive - it’s a variance-increasing decision, for good or for ill. But this is an important aspect to be aware of, and if you do drop out, to try and address as soon as you have some breathing room to do so.

If you’re thinking of dropping out, or recently pulled the plug and you want to chat, shoot me an email. I have limited generic advice to offer, but I’m usually happy to make time to sit down and talk things over.

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Thanks to Ryan Hill for reading a draft of this post.

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