The way we look at "higher education" is shifting -- rising tuition costs and the end of affirmative action means many young people can no longer take college for granted. Some argue that it inhibits creativity. PNS commentator Lateef Mungin, now in his mid-20s, dropped out of college to pursue his music, but has returned with a will. This is the first of several articles on the paths to college.

As much as I wanted to blow off college, for me there was no choice. No side-glancing, stutter-stepping or stalling. Right after my high school principal gave me my diploma and a hug, I was in college. My parents would have it no other way. To them, college was like the gateway to heaven. I never knew why.

What is this endless treadmill of learning and unlearning? Where does it lead? I dropped out of college.

"There are college-educated dishwashers," I told my friend George, "just as there are geniuses, millionaires, who never went to college. Just look at Bill Gates or Don King, Jim Carey, Malcolm X...."

George nodded agreement without looking up from the joint he was rolling. That day, I was going to make some music, take a nap, and then go to work at the 7-11.

I was a man chasing dreams -- sideways schemes of music, microphones and money. I spent my time writing raps and working the graveyard shift. In the early morning light, I would fall into a BART train and sleep.

One day a man signaled to me on that train, screaming, his voice chasing people into the next car.

"YOU'RE BLACK!" he yelled, staring at me with red eyes. He was tall, with a clipboard stuffed with well-thumbed paper in one hand and a wooden cane in the other.

"You're black, too," I said in a lower voice.

"You're damn right I'm black," he screamed, sitting down next to me even though there were empty seats all over the train. He sized me up for a wild moment and said, "Your mother's grandmother was a slave. Shoot! We are only 133 years away from slavery. That ain't long. Things haven't changed. Your mother is probably still a slave."

The man rubbed his long goatee. Why did he have to talk about mothers? Why did he have to go there? My mother is a hard-working woman without a college education. For her there was no choice after high school but to work her way out of a poor New York City neighborhood. She started at the lowest level of an oil company, and worked her way up. Now she manages people with B.A.s and PhDs.

"I always felt like I was playing catch-up because I didn't get to college," she would tell me. "Today you could not get the good job I have without a college diploma. No way."

Over and over she would say she did not want me to struggle the way she had.

I turned to the crazy man next to me -- he was furiously writing on his clipboard -- and asked him, "What college did you graduate from?"

"Vietnam!" he screamed. "And I get down for my grits, too! Watch."

He got up and put his cane on his shoulder like a gun. He began "shooting" at me with the cane and yelling about someone knifing him in the back.

Just then the train stopped. I got off without looking back at the man. I ran across the platform to catch the connecting train. The sign said, "Destination San Francisco, Daly City." But to me, the sign read "San Francisco State University."