School Is Not Education: How Self-Learning Builds Smarter, Stronger People

What do Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X, and Alexander Hamilton all have in common? What about more modern figures like Elon Musk, Jay-Z, or Barbara Oakley?

They are wildly successful. And they are all autodidacts—a fancy term for people who are self-taught. Whether through books, experimentation, or pure necessity, these individuals exemplify a timeless truth: Formal school and being educated are not the same thing.

This is not to say that formal education is unimportant. It absolutely is. But school is a tool—not the destination. Owning your education is the difference-maker. Self-learning unleashes two life-changing traits: curiosity and resilience. And in today’s economy—shaped by rising tuition, uneven teaching quality, and the rapid rise of GenAI—those traits are more valuable than ever.

About the author: Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.

Self-Learning Starts at Home

Like so many of us, I was born curious. My parents told stories of how I relentlessly asked questions—endlessly and intensely. They were loving and supportive, but even they had their limits. Eventually, probably out of sheer desperation, they bought me a set of “Tell Me Why” books.

Those books changed my life.

I spent hours paging through them, asking and answering my own questions. For me, Tell Me Why was my first Google—or ChatGPT—a tangible launchpad for a lifelong journey of exploration.

We lived in a modest suburb of Richmond, Virginia. Fortunately, our neighborhood backed up to undeveloped woods, streams, and wildlife. That space became my laboratory. But it could have been anywhere—an extra room in the house, neighborhood streets, even a garage. The point is, my parents encouraged and expected me to find my own laboratory. Learning was not just in books—it was in frogs, tree roots, muddy water, and gravity-defying bike jumps. I learned by doing. I became my own teacher.

The Autodidact Advantage: Curiosity and Resilience

Self-learning begins with curiosity—and in childhood, play is its earliest expression. When children build, explore, and experiment through play, they are developing the very habits that fuel lifelong learning. Yet too often, homes unintentionally suppress this instinct. Questions are dismissed. Exploration is redirected. Play is mistaken for distraction. This is a mistake. As parents, we must protect and nurture curiosity-driven play—it is not wasted time; it is how learning begins.

The second trait is resilience. Autodidacts operate at a higher standard: they do not wait for perfect conditions. They own their learning. They push through confusion and setbacks. They adapt when circumstances or teachers fall short. Paradoxically, the pursuit of high grades—through tutors, academic coaching, or related “concierge” services—can become a resilience-reducing crutch. While the transcripts may shine, students may arrive at adulthood without having built the adaptive skills that real-world challenges demand. Grades can reflect resilience—but only when earned through self-directed effort and challenge. In that context, grades are not just a signal of achievement, but of capacity.

This is why self-learning must be scaffolded early, long before a child is expected to be fully independent. As parents, my wife and I took this to heart. We gave our four children the gift of self-learning. We created an expectation that they would learn how to learn.

From Public School to Honors Graduates

Our children all attended Virginia public schools—from kindergarten through master’s degrees. Did they always have motivating or inspiring teachers? No. But that is the point. Life does not guarantee perfect bosses, agreeable clients, smooth situations, or clear instructions. It throws curveballs. What matters is how you respond.

To be clear, this does not mean we were hands-off or uninvolved. Quite the opposite. We invested significant time with our children—but always in the context of modeling and encouraging self-learning. We did not simply give them answers; we showed and motivated them to find answers for themselves. My wife is the master at motivating children to self-learn. As a result, when teachers were a mismatch for their needs, they filled the gaps. They taught themselves when needed. By college, they had fully learned to own their education. And the result? All four graduated with honors.

Not because they went to the “best” schools. Not because they had elite professors. But because they were curious and resilient—and expected to teach themselves.

The Financial Payoff of Self-Learning

In today’s climate of sky-high college costs, self-learning offers an enormous practical benefit. It enables students to succeed at less expensive schools without sacrificing outcomes.

Why pay $75,000 a year for a brand-name degree when you can pay $15,000 and get the same—or better—result if you are a self-learner?

Self-directed students do not depend on hand-holding. They find the knowledge they need. They earn strong GPAs, choose valuable majors, and become highly attractive to recruiters, because they know how to learn, how to adapt, and how to solve problems.

This is not theoretical. It is our family’s story. Our children all attended lower-cost public colleges and are now thriving professionally. Because they were self-learners, paying more for a private or elite college would have been a poor trade—higher cost with no added value. In fact, paying more and getting the same—or even less—is never a good decision, especially when it burdens students with unnecessary debt.

This principle also applies powerfully to the community college to four-year college path. Some may believe this path is a disadvantage in the eyes of company recruiters. In my experience, the opposite is true.

As a recruiting leader at a prestigious consulting firm, I often evaluated students who met our core criteria—strong grades and a relevant major—but who also came through the community college pipeline. When that was the case, we flagged it as a positive, differentiated resilience signal.

For example, one of the most common behavioral interview questions we asked was:

“Tell me about a time you had to overcome a difficult situation?”

This question helps recruiters evaluate a candidate’s ability to adapt and persist—core attributes for success in high-performance organizations.

And time and again, students who transferred from community colleges delivered authentic, compelling narratives about real-life challenges they had overcome—often with limited support and greater uncertainty. Their stories were not just well-rehearsed; they were lived. And they made a strong impression. Ultimately, the proof was in the pudding—these hires were highly effective. They were quick learners, adaptable, client-focused, and unafraid to do the grunt work that leads to growth. They showed no pretension or entitlement—just gratitude, grit, and a strong will to succeed.

The takeaway?

The path of self-learning—whether through public colleges, community college transfers, or nontraditional routes—does not diminish your value. When paired with curiosity and resilience, it amplifies your signal. It tells future employers: This person can figure things out. This person finishes what they start.

And in the long run, that is what success is made of.

Self-Learning in a GenAI World

The human brain and the AI brain are fundamentally different—but increasingly complementary. Humans are emotional, embodied, and driven by purpose. We are causal creatures, driven to understand why and predict the future.

AI is disembodied, statistical, and driven by pattern recognition. AIs are able to correlate an unfathomable volume of data. In the right hands, Generative AI (GenAI) is not a replacement for human intelligence—it is a powerful accelerator of it.

In a world moving faster than traditional education can keep up, your ability to self-learn is no longer just a nice-to-have. It is your competitive edge. The most valuable skill today is not memorization or test-taking—it is adaptability: the ability to independently seek out knowledge, absorb it, and apply it in changing contexts.

This is where the partnership between human and machine becomes transformative.

Humans learn through trial, error, emotion, and simulation—honed over millions of years of evolutionary breakthroughs like steering, reinforcement, and mentalizing. GenAI, by contrast, learns through massive text exposure and statistical inference. It mimics understanding but does not experience the world. What it lacks in lived experience, it makes up for in breadth, speed, and recall.

Self-learners who understand this difference can unlock GenAI’s full potential. They use AI to clarify, test, simulate, and stretch their thinking—turning their natural curiosity into compound knowledge gains. They do not just consume information—they shape it, guided by questions only a human can ask.

The result? A self-reinforcing feedback loop: the better you are at learning, the better you are at using AI. The better you use AI, the faster you learn. You build real-world skills faster than others can catch up.

In this new era, success will not belong to those who know the most—it will belong to those who learn the fastest, adapt the quickest, and collaborate best with intelligent machines.

Final Thoughts: Education Is a Mindset, Not a System

Autodidacts are not unicorns. They are made, not born. They emerge from environments where curiosity is nourished and resilience is practiced. Parents, mentors, and teachers all play a role—but the most powerful lessons come when learners take ownership.

School can be valuable—but it is only one path. Books, podcasts, videos, labs, internships, and real-world experience are all classrooms, too.

And now, GenAI has added an exponential layer to this learning ecosystem. It rewards those who take initiative, ask thoughtful questions, and build new skills with speed and flexibility. The students and professionals who thrive in this world will be the ones who embrace self-learning as a way of life, not just a phase of school.

So if you are a parent, make it a priority to raise a self-learner. If you are a student, embrace the challenge of owning your education. Be curious. Be resilient. Be adaptable. And remember, the world’s most successful people did not wait to be taught.

They taught themselves—and now they’re learning even faster with AI.