Why do so many people prefer starting a business over getting a degree?
Because a successful business can bring much higher income, while a job after a degree usually has a fixed salary. A degree takes about 4 years and costs a lot. A business can start with small capital and might grow 4 times in those same 4 years. Plus, many graduates still struggle to find good jobs.
•Do you think a degree is important to run a business, or can skills and experience replace it?
•What would you choose: start a small business without a degree, or get a degree first and then start a business?
The answer is simple, when you have a business, every mental and physical effort you makes goes directly in profiting you. While having a degree would just prove that you have learned something, might get you a job where you use your brain to benefit others for a fixed salary.
Degrees are formal education while in business, you don't need to spend years appearing exams to learn about something, you could learn at your pace making mistakes and implementing theories in real life.
But there's a big problem with business is that most of it fails. Most of the time people either don't have skills or passion to handle the business well and sometimes having both too might not be enough. It has a more luck factor too, there are some very rich businessman who were average while many good minds fails.
I personally have couple of degrees which are useful for my job but they won't benefit anyway if I were to start a business, having a law degree gives me an option to start my own legal firm which is a business of its own but I don't see myself doing that. I plan on having a business that scales. I'll let everyone here know when I starts one.