Going back to school is a tough decision to make. You must consider how it will affect your life as well as the cost of tuition and other factors that may change. If you’re looking to get ahead and run your own business, going back to school is going to help you do that. Here are several ways that returning to school will help you run a business.

It Will Expand Your Knowledge

Going back to school is going to be a great opportunity to learn new things that will help you in every area of business. You will be able to learn about economics and business through the classes you choose to take. You can join classes such as a mergers and acquisitions class, which will expand your knowledge of large businesses, or you can take simple business classes to learn about small businesses. Taking classes to learn about every type of business is recommended.

Not only will you be able to learn about the business side of it all, but you will also be able to take classes to expand your knowledge on the type of business you are going into. For example, if you are planning on running a photography studio, you may want to take photography classes so you not only gain knowledge on how to run your studio, but also improve your talents to become more successful.

There are plenty of classes you can take that will help your business run better if you are more talented at what you do.

Access to Jobs

If you go back to school, you may not want to run your own business right away, but become experienced first instead. You will also be able to find a job you can do while in school if you need to quit your current one to attend school. Through your school’s career service office, you may find a job that works around your schedule and possibly one where you can gain experience in the field you are looking into and also build your personal brand.

When you approach graduation, you may find job openings in your field because businesses will be looking for college graduates to hire.

Connections

In college, you will have connections to so many people. People that work in your area of interest may attend college-sponsored events. You will want to take advantage of this and talk to them. You will also be able to talk to a career advisor that will help you accomplish your career goals by providing you with information and advice.

All of these are great reasons to go back to school. Going back to school is going to help you become more successful at running your own business because you will expand your knowledge not only by taking classes, but with the connections you have to other people. These people can help you make important career decisions and college is going to be a great experience. How has school assisted in running your business?

“We don’t need no education” ~ Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall”

A college education is often touted as being a prerequisite to a good life and a high income. Unsurprisingly, college prospectuses promote the success of their alumni as a reason why you should choose to complete a degree at their particular campus. However, there are plenty of billionaires in the world who traded in their college degrees for a successful business life. In fact, the Forbes World’s Billionaires list 2011 actually identifies the most wealthy college dropouts on earth today. Proof if ever it was needed that slackers don’t always comes second, and that when it comes to business, the studious can’t always cut it.

10. Roman Abramovich

With $13.4 billion to his name, Roman Abramovich is joint 53rd on the list of the world’s richest people. Abramovich claims to have attended the Moscow State Law Academy, graduating in 2001, and has been linked with the Ukhta Industrial University and The Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in Moscow. Both of the latter universities deny that he attended, and it is rumored, but unsubstantiated, that he dropped out of the Russian capital’s law school. With sources conflicted about the precise course of events it seems somebody may be trying to change the record here – only in Mother Russia! Still, with an oil fortune, diverse investments and England’s Chelsea Football Club in his possession, all the hearsay surrounding his education is unlikely to bother the Moscow business magnate.

9. Mark Zuckerberg

Still only 26, Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world and, with $13.5 billion in his pocket, the 52nd richest person on the planet. As immortalized in the Hollywood movie The Social Network, he dropped out of Harvard, where he studied psychology and computer science, to head west to California, overseeing the rise of the social media phenomenon that is Facebook. Even though Facebook was originally targeted at a college market, it was by dropping out and seeking venture capital that Zuckerberg gained such huge success.

8. Steve Ballmer

The 46th richest man in the world is following in the footsteps of the 2nd (of whom, more later). The current CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer did complete a college degree (in mathematics and economics) before working for Proctor & Gamble but dropped out of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business to join Microsoft as its 30th employee. We think that qualifies him as a failing student of sorts, so he makes the grade for this list. That said, the savvy timing of his employment meant that his salary included a percentage share in the company which he has since parlayed into $14.5 billion of personal wealth, placing him 46th in the world in terms of net worth. So, if you’re an OTT ball of energy with a certain amount of business nous, it seems you can afford to drop out…

7. Michael Dell

It is clear that Michael Dell valued education only as a route to business success. At the age of just 8, he applied to take a high school equivalency test so that he could enter business sooner. What’s more, while attending high school he invested money from part time jobs in the stock market and successfully targeted newlyweds for newspaper subscriptions while working for the Houston Post, such that he made $18,000 that year – more than his teacher’s salaries. As a pre-med at the University of Texas at Austin, he founded the company that would become Dell. Unsurprisingly, he never completed his studies, but now has a personal wealth of $14.6 billion, making him the world’s 44th richest person. ‘Nuff said.

6. Azim Premji

Azim Premji managed to skyrocket the Indian IT company Wipro Ltd. from a worth of $2.5 million to one that is now valued at $1.4 billion. His 78% stake in Wipro along with other investments have generated him a personal worth of $16.8 billion, making him 36th on the world rich list. He took over the family business, which later became Wipro, after his father died in 1966. This unexpected tragedy meant he had to leave his course in electrical engineering at Stanford University. Azim Premji is nothing if not persistent, however, and he completed the degree 30 years later.

5. Sheldon Adelson

Precocious tycoon Sheldon Adelson owned his first business at the age of 12, making a career selling newspapers on street corners, and moved on through finance and charter tours to found COMDEX, a computer trade show that was first held in 1979. He briefly attended City College of New York, but dropped out before completing his studies. It seems to have been a good idea, though, as his acquisitions of Las Vegas casinos and hotels has brought him a net worth of $23.3 billion, making him the 16th richest person in the world.

4. Mukesh Ambani

Entering the top ten richest people on Earth now – so you know dropping out can’t always be a bad thing! – meet Mukesh Ambani, ranked 9th in the world, with a net worth of $27 billion. He joined his father’s business, Reliance Industries, in 1981 and now owns a 48% stake in the company. Reliance industries is India’s largest private sector company and has diversified interests in everything from communications to petrochemicals. Ambani enrolled at Stanford in 1979 but dropped out of his business masters in order to focus on his father’s business, a focus that has clearly reaped dividends. And while he had earlier gained a degree from from the University of Bombay, a dropout is a dropout, be they a billionaire or no…

3. Eike Batista

The son of a Brazilian mining executive, Eike Batista spent much of his childhood in Germany and studied engineering in Aachen University. However, rather than completing his degree, he started a gold mining company in the Amazon in 1980 – a move that took the shine off his educational record but would soon fill his pockets. In 2000, he sold his share of the company for a cool $1 billion; but he didn’t rest on his laurels, instead investing these funds into further mining ventures and oil and gas exploration. His business savvy and ability to take advantage of market trends have allowed him to amass $30 billion in personal wealth, making him the 8th wealthiest individual alive and giving him the number one spot in Brazil.

2. Lawrence Ellison

The death of his adoptive mother prompted Larry Ellison to drop out of his second year at University of Illinois. He then spent a single term at University of Chicago before dropping out again and moving to California in 1964. These two attempts at college certainly were not signs of a lack of determination though. In 1977 he founded the company that would become Oracle, a software firm specializing in data systems. His abandonment of academia to move to California put him at the heart of software and computer innovation, a move that has led to him amassing a fortune of $39.5 billion as of 2011, making him the 5th richest person in the world.

1. Bill Gates

The richest college dropout in the world is also one of the most well known. At number two in the world’s richest rankings and with a net worth of $56 billion, Bill Gates is a household name. He was the world’s richest person from 1995 to 2007 and again in 2009, unsurprising when you consider how ubiquitous Microsoft products are in homes and businesses across the world. Gates enrolled in Harvard as a pre-law major in 1973, but kept up the computer programming he had begun in 8th grade. It was these extracurricular activities that made him his fortune after the release of microcomputer design the Altair 8800 computer prompted him to set up a software company with Paul Allen. In 1975, he took a leave of absence from his studies at Harvard, only to return for an honorary degree in 2007.

There are many students today who are considering a change in their major. For some, they may have started out with a finance major, for example, before the economic problems that the country has recently been dealing with. Because of all of the financial problems that the United States is dealing with now, many of these students have decided to go a different route.

In 2011, there is going to be a change in the trends of what majors students are choosing. Taking a look at some of the career paths that a person can take, and how these career paths are faring, will help us understand some of the schooling trends as well.

Business

A business major is currently said to be one of the fastest growing, and one of the higher paying, majors that a student can get. There are more and more companies that are hiring business majors instead of people with a major that may seem more appropriate to the job. This is because of the training that a person with a business major gets.

Computer Science

The technology and computer science fields are booming. There are tons of jobs available in these fields, so more people are choosing these majors. Those who choose a computer science major will find that there are ample opportunities for great jobs once they get in the field.

Nursing

Though there is always a demand for those with a nursing degree, many this year are projected to choose not to finish their nursing degree. In fact, nursing majors are said to be taking a dip this year.

Law

This is another area that, though it is generally seen as a high paying career, is dropping off a little. Not nearly as many people are choosing to get a major in law. Many feel that because of the economic crisis, there is not as much demand for lawyers, and so the career is stagnating.

Graphic Design

Many people today are choosing a graphic design degree. This is a degree that can be quick to get and can open many different opportunities, from designing business cards to full websites. This is an option that many people who are looking for a change in career choose.

Today, many people are making a change in their schooling, and in some cases are completely changing course on their career ideas. A prevalent trend this year is quick degrees. Through online schools and traditional schools, there are many major options that can be finished quicker than in previous times. Because of this option, many more people are able to get into the work force quicker.

CONCLUSION

You may find that the major you originally chose is not something that you enjoy, or doesn’t have as good career options as you first thought. Changing your major is something that many people do, and is a great idea for some. There are so many majors that you can choose from and you should never feel like you are tied down to one.

Let us know – is your major on this list?

As a TED junkie, I decided to compile 20 of the best business talks in the conference’s history. Each talk offers insights either into a business leader’s mind, or into concepts that will change the way you think about business and the economy. (If you have any favorites not included on this list, please mention them in the comments below.)

20. Chip Conley: Measuring What Makes Life Worthwhile

Hotel owner Chip Conley talks about adapting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to a business model based on happiness. He shares what he learned on the way.

19. Jeff Bezos on the Next Web Innovation

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos offers a fun, visual lesson on how people behaved during the gold rush, and how the dot-com story almost exactly reflected that behavior. He uses excellent stories, clips, and pictures to make his case, which puts a chapter of our economic behavior in historical context.

18. Chris Anderson: The 4 Key Stages of Technology

Author and WIRED editor-in-chief Chris Anderson talks about the four stages that a technology needs to go through to become viable. It’s a valuable look at what a thought leader has to say about technology trends. The talk, while more intellectual than entertaining, is full of useful tips, including how to think about technology and how to time an innovation.

17. Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice

Too many products and services in our society lead to too much choice, according to psychologist Barry Schwartz. Even our identity is a matter of choice: We invent and reinvent ourselves whenever we want. He goes over positive and negative effects of this choice in people, including the levels of satisfaction people experience with products, how products affect them, and how regret plays into the equation. It’s a unique look into today’s consumer society.

16. Sergey Brin and Larry Page on Google

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page talk about their company, search patterns, and Google.org. A fascinating talk if you’re interested in inner workings of Google.

15. Richard Branson’s Life at 30,000 feet

Virgin emperor Richard Branson shares interesting parts of his life story, including making it big with Virgin and selling Virgin Records to start an airline. This talk, with TED curator Chris Anderson, gives you a rare peek inside Branson’s head.

14. Jan Chipchase on Our Mobile Phones

Head Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase explores engaging questions on mobile technology. What do mobile phones really mean to us? How would someone who can’t read use a mobile phone? How would impoverished people in developing countries use one? Chipchase gets you thinking about mobile technology in a completely new way.

13. John Doerr: Salvation and Profit in Greentech

Legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr gives a serious talk on climate change. Claiming “we’ve reached the time…when panic is the appropriate result,” Doerr talks about how to fight climate change, eminent VC-style. This fascinating talk shares Doerr’s valuable perspective on battling a big problem, not to mention a number of interesting company stories.

12. Cameron Herold: Let’s raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur Cameron Herold shares his own stories of school to help us revisit the way we see success in children—and in ourselves.

11. Ray Anderson on the Business Logic of Sustainability

Ray Anderson, head of the Flor carpet company, says business can lead us out of our sustainability mess. Anderson, whom Fortune has called “America’s greenest CEO,” calls himself a recovering blunderer. His talks about alternatives to businesses that are “stealing our children’s future,” using the greening of his carpet company as an example.

10. Yochai Benkler: The New Open-Source Economics

For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, communications, computation capacity, and other building blocks of the economy are in the hands of the crowds. 70% of critical Web applications are produced open-source, in direct competition with big corporations, notably Microsoft. Thought leader Yochai Benkler explains what this means for jobs, corporations and the economy at large.

9. Charles Leadbeater on Innovation

What is creativity, and where does it come from? Think tank researcher Charles Leadbeater explains why you don’t need an organization to innovate. Innovation, rather, has always been interactive and collaborative. Today, consumers are often ahead of producers in terms of ideas. Leadbeater shares why this is, and how our world of innovation actually works today.

8. Dean Kamen: The Emotion Behind Invention

Prolific inventor Dean Kamen, best know for creating the Segway, describes his work designing a new kind of prosthetic arm for soldiers who lost limbs while serving. He describes not only his own thought process, but the people who motivated him to make it work. This is an excellent look inside the mind of one of today’s greatest inventors, not to mention the stories of the vets who inspired him.

7. Bill Gates on Energy: Innovating to Zero!

Uber-philanthropist Bill Gates shares where he’s putting his money in order to help lower carbon emissions to zero by 2050. An interesting talk by one of today’s leading philanthropists and ex-CEOs.

6. John Gerzema: The Post-Crisis Consumer

Trend expert John Gerzema talks about how consumers are behaving now, and the four cultural shifts that drove them to their current habits. He provides a thought-provoking model of where consumers are. Importantly, he also describes how businesses can connect with today’s consumers.

5. Dan Ariely: Are We In Control of Our Own Decisions?

We make many mistakes, but don’t have an easy way to see them, thanks to cognitive illusion. This excellent talk by Predictably Irrational author and behavioral economist Dan Ariely gives us insight into how we make decisions.

4. Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die

This is a recording of Steve Jobs’ 2005 speech at a Stanford commencement. He talks about his health, his dreams, his attitude on life, and, naturally, Apple.

3. Seth Godin: Not Business as Usual

Author and blogger extraordinaire Seth Godin delivers a compelling talk on the merits of bad or bizarre ideas in marketing. In characteristic contrarian fashion, he emphasizes that normal will not get you noticed. He uses fascinating examples to make his points on ideas and marketing.

2. Malcom Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

Author and thought leader Malcolm Gladwell makes points about companies’ market behavior and human nature by telling market researcher Howard Moskowitz’s story. Moskowitz, charged with figuring out how to make Campbell’s Prego pasta sauce more desirable, discovered that in general, people only liked three kinds of sauce, including one niche–chunky–that no sauce manufacturer had touched before. Gladwell’s story offers insight into product segmenting, the food industry, and how people behave in market surveys.

1. Rory Sutherland: Life Lessons from an Ad Man

Ad man and compelling speaker Rory Sutherland gets inside the consumer mind by comparing real with perceived value. This is a talk not to be missed, by one of TED’s most entertaining business speakers.

The most universally agreed upon networking tip is this: Offer to help others first, and they will return the favor. “You should always ask new contacts to tell you about a business challenge they are confronting,” says Dr. Ivan Misner, PhD, lead author of Networking Like a Pro: Turning Contacts into Connections, and chairman of global networking organization BNI International. “That way, you might know someone who can help, and that’s the start of a relationship.”

Lillian Bjorseth, author of Breakthrough Networking: Building Relationships That Last, reminds her clients to share information. “One of my favorite follow-up methods is to send someone a relevant article, photo, anecdote, marketing tip, or other resource via email,” she says. Follow-through on seemingly unimportant promises or casual conversations can be just as integral to business success as delivering a reliable product.

Read more here. The article suggests that trading business cards is relatively meaningless, while cultivating your contacts is where the real action happens. This is essential, useful stuff.

The Sept. 11 Education Trust has set up a new September 11 lesson plan for middle- and high school students. The plan, which includes DVDs, Google Earth terrorism mapping, discussion, and archival footage, is intended to help students learn about 9/11 in an interdisciplinary way. Schools in New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Alabama will participate in the program tomorrow.

To get a peak at exactly what the September 11 lesson plan offers, I visited learnabout9-11.org.

Here are some sample discussion questions that teachers might ask students:

* Twenty, fifty, or one hundred years from now how do you think the events of September 11th, 2001 will be understood as part of the larger context of United States history? What about world history? In your opinion, what other events had a similar impact on U.S. or world history?

How would you react to being told that someone you loved was “unaccounted for”? Why might it matter to a person’s relatives that the person’s body be accounted for?

Below are more details of what students will see and experience during the September 11 lesson:

The accompanying DVDs contain interviews with family members and survivors of the September 11th attacks. These help to lend a human dimension to a historic event difficult to wholly appreciate in terms of raw numbers of persons killed or property destroyed.

The lessons can be implemented in a single class session or over the course of an entire week. The individual educator has the freedom to decide how much content to include. You can decide how much print or video information to use, creating a flexible mix of content to suit the abilities of students in your classroom.

Some activities include:

Mapping terrorist activities on Google Earth

“Advocacy” addresses how citizens can shape the government’s response to a disaster.

Teachers or schools need to purchase the lesson plan. A single license costs $99; a 5-user license is $499.

Forbes has released its college rankings list for 2009. Surprisingly enough, the usual suspects–Harvard, Yale, Princeton–don’t crown the list. Instead, the US Military Academy (West Point) was rated the best college in the nation. Forbes explains how West Point beat the Ivy Leagues in a separate article.

Here’s a taste of the top schools:

Best Colleges

1. United States Military Academy, NY
2. Princeton University, NJ
3. California Institute of Technology, CA
4. Williams College, MA
5. Harvard University, MA

See the full list here.

Best College Buys

1. Berea College, Ky.
2. New College of Florida, Fla.
3. United States Military Academy, N.Y.
4. United States Air Force Academy, Colo.
5. University of Wyoming, Wyo.

See the full list here.

Luckily, the days of dragging yourself to night classes may be over. The Internet is full of free language resources whose multimedia features and social networking component make learning both fun and immersive. We scoured the Web for quality free sites, and came up with the seven websites below. Happy learning!

1. LiveMocha

LiveMocha offers free lessons in 11 languages. Through a personal homepage, you access free language courses and build a community of foreign friends. Native speakers in your LiveMocha community help correct your lessons and chat live with you. Interactive, multimedia lessons make learning fun.

2. Busuu.com

Busuu offers extensive courses for English, Spanish, German, and French students. The free version contains more than 150 image- and audio-based lessons. Their video chat application lets you connect with other students or native speakers online. You can gain access to more features, such as podcasts and PDF printouts, through a premium membership.

3. SharedTalk

This Rosetta Stone community language exchange site lets you find penpals using custom search criteria, then exchange emails with your penpal in your language of choice. You can also chat live in the “Chat House,” a chat room allowing public and private language exchanges with native speakers.

4. Word2Word

This portal links to learning resources for more than 100 languages. Some language resources are more extensive than others (for example, it’s easier to load up on Spanish lessons than Swahili). Word2Word works best for those who need survival courses or are looking for obscure languages.

5. BBC Languages

BBC Languages offers free audio and video courses, quizzes, games, phrases you can download to your mobile device, and a 12-week email course that earns you a BBC language certificate. They have lessons for fourteen different languages, and phrases for 36. An excellent resource for quick travel phrases.

6. FreeLanguage.org

Free Language is a portal that links to a wide variety of free language lessons, podcasts, video lessons, Wikibooks language pages, and other resources. You have to “do your homework,” so to speak, in order to put together a comprehensive learning system for yourself.

7. eLanguageSchool.net

eLanguageSchool offers basic resources, including words, phrases, and grammar, for ten languages. Resources, such as video with subtitles, vary by language. A good place to refresh your knowledge of a language, or start learning one. If you want immersion, however, look elsewhere.

One UK school wants its students to go veg. If they won’t do it willingly, they can be forced, via cost-conscious parents. From the UK Telegraph:

Parents whose children sign up to the ‘Vegetarian Scholarship’ could save £1,500 each year at Wycliffe College in Stonehouse, Glos. The “progressive” school was founded by a vegetarian Methodist minister in 1882, and today’s governors hope the new incentive will keep his values alive.

The school was founded by GW Sibly. He chose the school site for its clean water and proximity to a railway station, and the pupils grew their own fruit and vegetables. Vegetarianism remains an important part of school life.

I’m surprised nothing like this has happened in the US, where childhood obesity remains a major problem. Reducing tuition is a good way to push all kinds of agendas, especially during hard economic times.