Open Thread: Does Education Matter for Freelancers?

photo credit: sansreproache/flickr

Rockable Press recently shared some statistics from their up-coming freelancing book, Freelance Confidential, with their mailing list. The book includes results from the survey conducted here at FreelanceSwitch a few months ago that polled 3,200 freelancers on every aspect of their work. There were a lot of nifty facts about freelancing in there, but nothing generated more heated discussion more than this simple line:

44% of freelancers are self-taught and never received any university or technical college training in their field.

Some responses were shocked that the number was that high and saw it as a bad thing for the industry. Others thought it should be higher and that education adds little value for freelancers. I thought the responses were so strong that it would be great to open it up to a discussion for the FreelanceSwitch community. So tell us what you think!

• Does a freelancer need a college education or technical training to be successful?
• Is there a difference between self-taught freelancers and freelancers with formal training?
• What value does formal training or education add for freelancers?

What do you think?

photo credit: Some rights reserved by sansreproache