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Is college really worth the time, effort, money, knowledge in the long run?

Depends on what job/career you want. My mom works at a bakery, a job shes always wanted, and she never went to college. I cant get a job due to disabilities, so i dont plan to get a degree but id like to take some art and cooking classes. My boyfriend is a manager at mcdonalds, where they pay for your classes if you take ones on their list (you can get a degree as a lawyer and mcdonalds would pay for it, for example); in a year or two he will be making salary. By the end of the year he will have had enough raises to where he will be getting paid more than his mom who has worked at a bank for the past 10 years. Tom, the mcdonalds head boss guy is making 300k$ a year and he never got a degree. He took a few business classes, but that was it - and mcdonalds paid for them

Anyway, the only time i see college as "needed" is if the job/career you want demands you have a degree

College was an experience that I'm glad I had and would do again. I met some great people, especially great professors who really shaped me as a person, and I wouldn't be the person I am now in a lot of ways without meeting those people and having the experiences I did. It also helped me to feel less attached to my family and prepared me to move forward on my own after college, which was still hard but would have been much harder. Also in terms of job skills I am actively using now, in theory, most of the content could be self taught but you'd have to know what skills you need and how to get them- I'm not really good at providing that kind of direction or structure for myself honestly and probably would have failed. And of course, unfortunately, there are jobs you can't get without that piece of paper regardless.

I'll be in my 30s before my debt is paid off and these payments kind of hurt. For the reasons listed above and others, I'm happy with the decision I made even though I acknowledge that I should not have had to pay as much as I did. It's hard to explain, but even though I paid all that money and still had to supplement with reading and projects I did for no credit on my own initiative in order to get what I felt was a complete education, I believe that the structure and the connections there were the foundation I personally needed to reach my goals on many levels. For others, college is just an annoying and even restrictive formality and they will thrive more and more quickly without it. For others, it's just not an option and they can choose another path anyway and get along fine, so for them it's not worth it to accept the cost. And ultimately, if I hadn't been able to go to college, I would have survived, but I'm glad I was able to do it.

so TLDR it depends on the cost, your resources, your personality and your goals

It all depends on you personally, and what you want to do... and maybe a little bit of luck and fortune. For some people, it's entirely worth it. I didn't go to college but my husband did, and he worked in his field for a few years but made less than he's currently making at a fast food restaurant, so in the end it wasn't "worth it" for him.

What are you studying? My only like setback is that I honestly don't know what I want to study and I don't even know what I want to do in life so that's why like...I really don't know if I want to go to college if I don't even know what I wanna do with my life.