For most of us, a college degree was the ticket we needed, allegedly, for something better than those who skipped higher education for a full-time job after high school. I wasnât so sure then, and now Iâm positive I was wrong back in the 1980s, when fashion and music were awful and so was I. Like everything else, people are a case-by-case self-contained phenomena, but you can play the odds on everything. People who aren't trained and ready are going to have a harder time fitting into the economy of the very near future. Consider: By 2040, 95% of retail purchases will be made online, Nasdaq predicts. The workforce who would have stocked those shelves and rang up those sales will have to go somewhere else, and theyâll probably need training and focus to get there.