What Degree Should You Choose If You Feel Behind After Messing Up Your Early 20s? A School Counselor’s Perspective
Last Tuesday, I locked the main office door at 4:30, turned to put my jacket on, and Javi was leaning against the hallway wall, waiting for me. He’s 28, my neighbor’s kid, I’ve known him since he was 12, when he’d mow my lawn for 20 bucks and knock over my garden gnome by accident. He scuffed his work boots on the tile and asked if he could pick my brain for 10 minutes. We went back in, I poured him a cup of the terrible office coffee that’s been sitting in the pot since 7 a.m., and he got right to it. He said he’d messed up his whole early 20s: dropped out of community college after his first year, got a DUI right after that, bounced between construction gigs and crashing on couches, finally got steady full time with a local contractor two years ago, and now he’s ready to go back for a degree. “But what the hell do I pick?” he said, twisting a frayed leather work glove around his finger. “All my high school friends have 401(k)s and mortgages. I’m starting over. What degree gets me caught up fast?”
I hear this question at least once a month these days, from 25 to 30 year olds and from their parents calling to ask what their kid should do. Most of the time, the first answer people get is “follow your passion” or “pick whatever pays the most”, but that’s useless when you’re already carrying the weight of feeling like you wasted time. The mistake almost everyone makes in this spot is picking a degree that’s supposed to erase the past, not build the next step. Javi told me he’d been thinking about an online MBA, because he saw a TikTok that said you can get one in 18 months and it doubles your salary. “Sounds impressive, right?” he said. “Like I didn’t waste the last 10 years.”
I told him the first thing to do before you even look at degree listings is pull all your old paperwork. Javi forgot he had 12 credits from that first community college stint 10 years ago. Most people leave old credits on the table that can cut a semester or more off your time, which saves you money and time you don’t want to spare when you’re already feeling behind. Then, call the admissions office of any school you’re considering and ask how much work experience credit they offer. Javi’s been working full time in construction for 6 years, that’s enough for 3 more credits at the local state college, maybe more. That’s not a tiny win—it cuts two classes you don’t have to pay for or take time off work to attend.
The next rule I gave him: don’t start over from zero. Pick a degree that hooks into what you already do. Javi already knows how to read blueprints, how to manage a small crew on side jobs, how to fix a broken-down pickup on the side of the road. Why would he start over with an MBA, a degree built for people who already have years of corporate management experience? That would just mean he’s struggling to keep up with classmates who’ve been working in offices for years, paying for classes that don’t connect to anything he already knows, and quitting halfway through because it feels like too much. Quitting would just feed that old “I messed up again” feeling he’s already trying to outrun. Instead, the bachelor’s in construction management through the local community college and state college partnership is done part time online, builds on everything he already does, and will qualify him for a project manager spot at his current company as soon as he finishes. That spot pays 35% more than he makes now, and he doesn’t have to quit his job to get the degree.
I’ve seen this dynamic play out with parents, too. A mom came in a few months ago, her 27 year old daughter had gotten sober after five years of opioid use, wanted to go back to school. The mom was pushing her to do a four-year bachelor’s in psychology, because “it’ll show she can help people, and that she’s changed.” The daughter had worked as a part time dental assistant for three years while getting clean, liked the work, and wanted an associate’s in dental hygiene. The mom thought that was settling, because she wanted a “respectable” degree to make up for her daughter’s past. I told the mom what I tell all parents in this spot: next time you talk about degree options, ask “What’s one thing you do that doesn’t feel like a chore?” instead of “What looks good on a resume?” The daughter liked working with patients, liked the steady routine of dental work, didn’t want to spend four years and six figures on a psychology degree that would require more school after graduation to get a job. She started hygiene school this year, already makes more than she did as an assistant, and is still sober.
My older brother messed up his early 20s too. Dropped out of college after two years, got a DUI after crashing his truck into a cornfield, got addicted to painkillers after a back injury, got clean at 27. He was talking about going back for a business degree back then, because he thought that’s what a successful person did to fix his past. I asked him the same question I ask everyone: what do you do all the time when you don’t have to do it? He was always welding custom metal signs and railings for friends out of his old garage. He ended up getting a two-year associate’s in welding technology, done in 18 months while he worked part time construction. He’s 51 now, owns his own small custom metal business, makes a good living, has a house and a kid in college. He’s never been the corporate guy he thought he needed to be at 27 to make up for his mistakes.
For parents, the best small thing you can do is avoid pushing for a fancy degree just to fix your kid’s past. It puts too much pressure on them to prove something instead of building something that works for their life right now. If they’re nervous to get started, offer to help them pull their old transcripts or drive them to the community college open house. That’s the kind of help that matters more than any generic encouragement.
Javi left my office that day, still nervous. He said he still wakes up some days and panics that he’s 10 years behind everyone he graduated high school with. I didn’t tell him age doesn’t matter or everything happens for a reason—that’s garbage. He is behind where some people are, but that doesn’t mean he has to pick a degree that jumps a 10-year gap in one go. Last week, I saw him walking his dog past my house, and he said he enrolled in two classes this semester, part time. He’s still working full time, hasn’t figured out the whole work-school balance thing yet, and still talks about feeling behind sometimes. But it’s a start, and that’s all a degree needs to be right now.
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