70 College Quotes About Why a Good Education Matters

These university and college quotes will motivate you to study, learn, and succeed.

Attending college could be the most fun or the most stressful time of your life. The journey towards higher education is a path of dedication, patience, and hard work.

These college quotes will inspire you to get good grades while still having a memorable experience.

Throughout university, you’ll make new friends, learn a vast number of things, and experience unique lifestyles and perspectives.

Read this collection of college quotes to truly appreciate the achievements and struggles of being a university student. 

If you understand the importance of education, the college experience will appeal to you. These college quotes about higher education highlight the realities of attending university.

Remember these inspirational sayings and proverbs the next time you’re walking around campus.

Whether you spend most of your time at parties or in the library, you’ll love these incredible university insights.

Share this list of college quotes with all the students, professors, and alumni that you know.

You might also like these graduation quotes on success, dreams and your future.

College quotes to motivate you on your quest for knowledge and success

1. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

2. “No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer

3. “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

4. “College has given me the confidence I need to fail.” – Jarod Klintz

5. “Definition of a college professor: someone who talks in other people’s sleep.” – W.H. Auden

6. “The aim of the college, for the individual student, is to eliminate the need in his life for the college; the task is to help him become a self-educating man.” – George Horace Lorimer

7. “The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

9. “Every year, many, many stupid people graduate from college. And if they can do it, so can you.” – John Green

10. “Educating yourself does not mean you were stupid in the first place, it means that you are intelligent enough to know that there is plenty left to learn.” – Melanie Joy

College quotes to open you up to new opportunities

11. “College is the reward for surviving high school.” – Judd Apatow

12. “A college degree is not a sign of a finished product but an indication a person is prepared for life.” – Reverend Edward A. Malloy

13. “You can lead a boy to college but you can’t make him think.” – Elber Hubbard

14. “Education is the best provision for life’s journey.” – Aristotle

15. “Months are different in college, especially freshman year. Too much happens. Every freshman month equals six regular months –– they’re like dog months.” – Rainbow Rowell

16. “College inspired me to think differently. It’s like no other time in your life.” – Lari Oleynik

17. “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character –– that is the goal of true education.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

18. “College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night?” – David Wood

19. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou

20. “College is like a fountain of knowledge and the students are there to drink.” – Chuck Palahniuk
If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of knowledge quotes for those who love learning.

College quotes that will motivate you to study hard

21. “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” — Chris Grosser

22. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”― General Colin Powell

23. “You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that’s the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.” – Michelle Obama

24. “The American Dream is one of success, homeownership, college education for one’s children, and have a secure job to provide these and other goals.” – Leonard Boswell
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of American dream quotes that will inspire you to achieve your own version of success.

25. “College is a refuge from hasty judgment.” – Robert Frost

26. “Unemployment rates among Americans who never went to college are about double that of those who have a postsecondary education.” – Bill Gates

27. “The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.” – William James
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of education quotes about learning and success.

28. “When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.” – Elon Musk

29. “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” – Frank Zappa

30. “In my bright, utopian future world, they will hand out college educations like cups of water at the end of the L.A. Marathon.” – Henry Rollins

College quotes to inspire your academic journey

31. “My favorite college experience was probably leaving college.” – Marshawn Lynch

32. “In college, you learn how to learn. Four years is not too much time to spend at that.” – Mary Oliver
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of mary oliver quotes that will give you a brand new perspective on life.

33. “Success isn’t overnight. It’s when every day you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.”― Dwayne Johnson

34. “When bright young minds can’t afford college, America pays the price.” – Arthur Ashe

35. “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes.” – John Maxwell

36. “I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” – Ray Bradbury

37. “It is not hard for me to remember when I was in college. I loved many things about college life: I loved learning. I loved the comradery. And I loved football.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin

38. “Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.” – Orison Swett Marden

39. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”― Robert Collier

40. “Going to college made me realize you have to have real spaces of privacy, and you have to establish those early.” – Cole Sprouse

Other college and university quotes to inspire you

41. “The same independence that got me into trouble in high school got me praise in college.” – Alan Dershowitz

42. “Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy from college campuses to the White House.” – Hasan Minhaj

43. “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci

44. “If you have four years to complete your college education, do it.” – Bo Jackson

45. “The privilege of a university education is a great one; the more widely it is extended the better for any country.” – Winston Churchill

46. “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm Forbes

47. “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” – Anatole France

48. “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” – Theodore Roosevelt

49. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle

50. “Education doesn’t cease when you leave college or leave the university. Education is a lifetime process.” – Jim Rohn

Don’t forget to also check out these senior year quotes for graduation and the yearbook.

More college quotes and sayings

51. “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” – Brigham Young

52. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” – Aristotle

53. “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

54. “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

55. “Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.” – Adelaide Hoodless

56. “Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow. Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.” – Malala Yousafzai

57. “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” – Joseph Stalin

58. “What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.” – Norton Juster

59. “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” – B.F. Skinner

60. “Education is the movement from darkness to light.” – Allan Bloom

Don’t forget to also check out these graduation quotes from famous films about success.

College quotes to further your education goals and go further

61. “There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.” — Zig Ziglar

62. “A college education shows a man how little other people know.” — Thomas Chandler Haliburton

63. “College inspired me to think differently. It’s like no other time in your life.” — Larisa Oleynik

64. “College ain’t so much where you been as how you talk when you get back.” — Ossie Davis

65. “Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.”  — R.S. Ingersoll

66. “College is a place to keep warm between high school and an early marriage.” — George Gobel

67. “You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

68. “Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest when you haven’t planted.” — David Bly

69. “The chief value in going to college is that it’s the only way to learn it really doesn’t matter. ” — George Edwin Howes

70. “A college education should equip one to entertain three things: a friend, an idea and oneself.” — Thomas Ehrlich

College quotes that provide perspective

71. “College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.” –J. Cole

72. “My college years are a blur.” –Robert Ben Garant

73. “All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.” –Mark Zuckerberg

74. “My college experience was like everyone else’s. I learned a lot. I gained a new perspective on the world and on people that I’m so thankful and appreciative for.” –Kyle Carpenter

75. “I think a college education is important no matter what you do in life.”  –Phil Mickelson

76. “College was especially sweet because of the positive, hopeful atmosphere of a college campus.” –Jerry Kramer

77. “Getting through high school and college was one of my greatest achievements.” –Ann Bancroft

78. “One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.” –Dennis Prager

79. “I got a wonderful college education. I went to Harvard. In those four years, I accumulated a lot of knowledge, but I also created a kind of habit of learning that has stayed with me my whole life.” –John Lithgow

80. “The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.” -Derek Bok

Which of these college quotes inspires you to go back to school?

A college degree is an extremely valuable asset to have in life. Being well educated can boost your potential and open you up to new opportunities.

This collection of quotes about university will motivate you on your quest for knowledge and success.

If you want to expand your horizons, attending college is the perfect path for you. Remember these inspirational quotes throughout your academic journey as a student.

If you need some motivation to help you study, take a break and read this collection of inspirational college quotes.

The university lifestyle can be hectic and stressful, so it’s important to remember your goals and maintain a positive attitude.

Keeping these words and insights in mind can help you keep a clear perspective. 

What are your favorite college quotes about education? Let us know in the comment section below.