Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am
Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking debt free degrees with Jason Brown.
Speaker 2: That's right, man, we are going to talk about getting
Speaker 2: your degree debt free with Jason Brown. And just to
Speaker 2: set it up for folks, Jason, he's a friend of ours.
Speaker 2: He's actually local here in Atlanta, so he has joined
Speaker 2: us in our in the How to Money clubhouse. I'm
Speaker 2: not necessarily gonna I'm not gonna call it a studio
Speaker 2: per se. He is here in person, which is a
Speaker 2: ton of fun. But Jason, he's contributed to the site,
Speaker 2: to our site, how to Money. He's written a ton
Speaker 2: of articles there. He's got three kids. Congrats by the way,
Speaker 2: on the you got the new guy there and so
Speaker 2: you born. But you've written multiple books Margin Matters, It
Speaker 2: is possible another one. But you've talked about achieving getting
Speaker 2: your degree debt free, and specifically with student loans were starting,
Speaker 2: we felt that who better to have here on the
Speaker 2: podcast to talk about not only paying off student loans,
Speaker 2: but specifically graduating debt free and avoiding those student loans
Speaker 2: to begin with. So Jason, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was an amazing introduction there. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Probably the best I've ever had. I really appreciate great
Speaker 3: to be with you guys in person, and I can
Speaker 3: only hope and pray that whatever I say just helps
Speaker 3: the next generation absolute absolutely avoid the dreaded student loan debt.
Speaker 2: So one other thing I'll mention is that I don't
Speaker 2: know if there is anybody else I know that.
Speaker 1: Is taller than Joel. So Joel is a pretty what
Speaker 1: are you? You're like sixx six five sixty six and
Speaker 1: Jason is probably six to seven, you know, six seven
Speaker 1: six eight.
Speaker 3: Here's the story. I've been telling everybody, I'm six foot eight.
Speaker 3: But then they had at the office, they had the
Speaker 3: biometric screening and the guys come in, you know, they
Speaker 3: do your height and weight and I and I wait,
Speaker 3: I measured in it six foot seven. So I can
Speaker 3: only believe that gravity, old age bringing me down. So
Speaker 3: now I have to change, you know, my driver's license.
Speaker 3: I'm six foot seven. Now that's what we're going with.
Speaker 1: And I'm not used to looking up with people. I
Speaker 1: don't like it, Jason, but I still like hanging out
Speaker 1: with you anyway. But are Okay. The first question we
Speaker 1: ask anybody who comes on the podcast, as you know,
Speaker 1: is what do they like to sporge on? Matt and
Speaker 1: I we sporge on craft beer. We're drinking a pale
Speaker 1: al right now, what is that for you? While you're
Speaker 1: saving investing? What do you kind of spurge on from
Speaker 1: time to time while you're doing the right thing with
Speaker 1: your money?
Speaker 3: Now, as you said, I have three boys, seven, three
Speaker 3: and five months, so at this stage of life, I'm
Speaker 3: not splurging on anything for myself.
Speaker 2: As you guys know, diapers, right, yeah, maybe a sleep
Speaker 2: mask for you and your wife, perhaps.
Speaker 3: Your white noise machine. But the equivalent, I will say,
Speaker 3: the equivalent to to what you guys do with your
Speaker 3: with your beer is I am a seven eleven slurpy snob. Okay,
Speaker 3: so here's the thing, seven eleven slurpies. Here in Georgia,
Speaker 3: there are no seven elevens, So I can't get a
Speaker 3: slurpe anywhere. So I have to go down to Florida.
Speaker 3: They're they're real big in Florida. You'll find them in
Speaker 3: certain cities in Florida on every street corner. Now, the
Speaker 3: thing about seven elevens, you have to go to a
Speaker 3: different seven eleven, you have to go to all of
Speaker 3: them because they all have different flavors, flavor selections.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah you did not know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So but but the seven eleven Slurpy I've always been
Speaker 3: a slurpe snob. I've always thought that was the best
Speaker 3: you know drink, you know, refreshment you can get.
Speaker 1: Some would say like high end Scotch. You're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: slurpyn Surpy is the way to go.
Speaker 3: Now. I just found this out. Somebody sent me like
Speaker 3: a Facebook message or something to say, hey, you realize
Speaker 3: you can get slurpees at Speedway. I was like, what
Speaker 3: are you talking about? Well, apparently the company that owns
Speaker 3: seven eleven they just bought Speedway the gas station, the
Speaker 3: gas station chap and there's actually two speedways that are closed.
Speaker 3: There's one in Alpharetta, Georgia, and there's one in Cardigsvill, Georgia.
Speaker 3: And I've already been to both to confirm this. So
Speaker 3: this is true. At Speedway they have the seven eleven
Speaker 3: slurpey machines inside the Speedway gas stations. There are some
Speaker 3: now in Georgia. If you're in the area.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you can get your fix without having to
Speaker 1: drive seven hours, you know, because then it truly is
Speaker 1: a splurge for you to have to drive to another state.
Speaker 1: It takes a while to get down to Florida.
Speaker 3: That's a good point because it's you know, it's a
Speaker 3: dollar drink, so it's you know, really not a splurge,
Speaker 3: but then hundred bucks and gas though, debt's the slurge
Speaker 3: and the time to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that one. Let's start talking about kind
Speaker 1: of the subject and hey, let's talk about debt, free
Speaker 1: degrees and paying for college and payments like we, like
Speaker 1: Matt said at the beginning, they're about to restart on
Speaker 1: student loans in just a few days. We all know
Speaker 1: that student loan debt is a massive problem. This is
Speaker 1: something you've been highlighting for a bunch of years in
Speaker 1: your work. Can you put it into context for us though?
Speaker 1: Can you kind of maybe share some numbers and talk
Speaker 1: about some people have called it a crisis, like is
Speaker 1: is student loan debt a crisis? Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know, I've got some pretty strong opinions on all. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's a crisis, but yet it to me, it's a
Speaker 3: student loan debt crisis. But it's also a student loan
Speaker 3: debt scam because young seventeen eighteen year old kids are
Speaker 3: being presented with only one option to go to college debt.
Speaker 3: And actually I interviewed a girl in my book and
Speaker 3: she told me the story. She said, when I went
Speaker 3: to the orientation session at her university, they set her
Speaker 3: down and they said, you have three options. These are
Speaker 3: your options to pay for school, Option A, B, and C.
Speaker 3: All the options were debt. Those are the only options
Speaker 3: that she was presented. And she said, Jason, if my
Speaker 3: dad wasn't in the room with me, he grabbed my
Speaker 3: arm and dragged me out of the room, or else
Speaker 3: I would have just signed one of these contracts. I'm
Speaker 3: taken debt out now. To your point, Joel, we're looking
Speaker 3: at seventy percent of students take out loans to help
Speaker 3: pay for colleges. That's a tremendous amount.
Speaker 1: Sounds low to me. Oh, you're thinking it's higher. I
Speaker 1: was thinking it would be more even like that, But
Speaker 1: that's still a lot.
Speaker 3: It's significant. And the big problem, guys is the people
Speaker 3: that I feel for the most is that we have
Speaker 3: in our country forty percent of all college students never graduate.
Speaker 3: They drop out for whatever reason, they run out of mind,
Speaker 3: any life happens, you know, maybe they start a family
Speaker 3: or whatever. There's lots of reasons why people don't make
Speaker 3: it through college. But those are the people that have
Speaker 3: gone through taken out debt, but never.
Speaker 1: Got the degree.
Speaker 3: So those are the people that are really suffering the
Speaker 3: most with the student loan debt.
Speaker 1: Crist I agree, those people are behind the a ball
Speaker 1: to the biggest extent because no degree, no increased earnings
Speaker 1: oftentimes to show for the work, but they saw the
Speaker 1: debt alongside it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a double whammy in effect. So given that,
Speaker 2: given the fact that there are a lot of folks
Speaker 2: who aren't even graduating, so they're not you know, they
Speaker 2: don't have the fruit from their labor to show for it.
Speaker 2: So that's one. That's one group of folks. But even
Speaker 2: for the folks who are graduating, who do get the degree,
Speaker 2: who have the potential for increased earnings, do you feel
Speaker 2: that the value proposition has changed considering the drastic inflation
Speaker 2: that we've seen with higher education, specifically with going to college.
Speaker 3: So you mean, like, are we talking to Roli?
Speaker 2: Yeah, is it worth the money because they're worth for generations,
Speaker 2: I mean decades.
Speaker 1: Like I was.
Speaker 2: The thing I was ever told as a little kid
Speaker 2: growing up, is like you better go to college. And
Speaker 2: I know my parents enough and they loved me no
Speaker 2: matter what. And if I had not gone to college,
Speaker 2: they certainly would have continued to love me, but they
Speaker 2: would have been disappointed. They would have really been upset.
Speaker 2: I think if I chose not to unless I had
Speaker 2: a really great plan something else on the horizon. But
Speaker 2: for a lot of like a lot of students have
Speaker 2: been told that they're like, you've got to do this,
Speaker 2: no matter the cost. But with the high costs of college,
Speaker 2: I think there are some folks who are starting to
Speaker 2: question whether or not it's worth it.
Speaker 3: I think you're spot on, guys, And I'm a little
Speaker 3: bit older than you two, but we're kind of in
Speaker 3: a similar age range that from our generation. This is
Speaker 3: one of the American dreams, you know, home ownership, college degree.
Speaker 3: But let me tell you what. There's only about thirty
Speaker 3: seven percent of Americans even hold a bachelor's degree. So
Speaker 3: think about that for a second, and only about a
Speaker 3: let I think it's thirteen percent, Only about thirteen percent
Speaker 3: have a master's or higher degree, so it's a it's
Speaker 3: a minor, right, and people might not realize that. So
Speaker 3: here's the thing the ROI is it is college worth it?
Speaker 3: That's that's the question now. And really what you have
Speaker 3: to do is you have to really do your due
Speaker 3: diligence and your research on specific degree courses. What does
Speaker 3: it relate to in the job market. And one of
Speaker 3: the pieces of advice that I give people is like, hey,
Speaker 3: student and parent, go go sit down, Go hire a
Speaker 3: career coach. These guys are going to be the ones
Speaker 3: that can These are the experts that can help you
Speaker 3: match up a degree program with a career industry. Is
Speaker 3: it worth it? Is this degree going to translate to
Speaker 3: a high pain or rewarding career or is this degree
Speaker 3: going to lead to, you know, a thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: you know salary, And that's what you have to weigh out. Hey,
Speaker 3: if you're paying for college on your own and you
Speaker 3: go debt free and you want to work in nonprofit
Speaker 3: and make thirty thousand dollars a year, that's you're totally
Speaker 3: fine because you're not leaving school with eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: A student loan debt.
Speaker 1: But you don't want to get the degree and still
Speaker 1: be a barista at the end of the day, right,
Speaker 1: and take on the debt at the same time. Right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna saddle you down for years to come, but
Speaker 1: not have the increased income to go. I love that
Speaker 1: advice of going talk to an expert about that. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about your story, because you got two debt free degrees,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about like how you went
Speaker 1: about that. But but what made you initially like see
Speaker 1: the importance of avoiding debt in order to take on
Speaker 1: a higher education in the first place, Because, like you said,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, like the girl you highlighted, would
Speaker 1: just sign, oh, I'm seventeen, I'm eighteen. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well why not if this is the only way, the
Speaker 1: only options that are being presented, I guess I'll do it.
Speaker 1: What made you see that there was another path that
Speaker 1: you needed to take.
Speaker 3: That's such a good question. I get that debt question
Speaker 3: a lot, Joel. And so I went to undergrad and
Speaker 3: started in nineteen ninety three. Okay, so mid to late nineties. Now,
Speaker 3: back then, you're not hearing about a student loan, even
Speaker 3: though there was this student loans was going on, but
Speaker 3: you don't hear it in the news back then about
Speaker 3: a student loan debt crisis or anything like that. So
Speaker 3: for me, I was just raised. My parents raised me
Speaker 3: a certain way to you know, avoid debt, to for
Speaker 3: you can't buy it unless you can afford it right now.
Speaker 1: Such an antiquated way of right with the times, Jess,
Speaker 1: come on, come on now now.
Speaker 3: My parents they didn't really like sit me down and
Speaker 3: teach me about money, like here's how you, you know,
Speaker 3: balance a budget, here's how you do a check ledger.
Speaker 3: I just learned from watching them. I never saw my
Speaker 3: dad go out and buy, you know, a brand new
Speaker 3: car and drive it home on a whim. I never
Speaker 3: saw my parents come home on a Friday afternoon, Hey,
Speaker 3: we're all going to Hawaii next week for nothing like that.
Speaker 3: There were no big splurges, there were no you know,
Speaker 3: frivolous spending. And my parents were both very frugal people.
Speaker 3: They were very smart with their money, they were savers,
Speaker 3: and so I just kind of took on that mentality.
Speaker 3: So when I entered undergrad school in the mid nineties,
Speaker 3: debt was really not an option for me because I
Speaker 3: was always taught if you can't pay for it, you
Speaker 3: can't do it. So that was, you know, my mentality.
Speaker 3: So I never even thought about taking out a loan.
Speaker 3: That never even crossed my mind. It was just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: well how am I going to pay for this? Let
Speaker 3: me go work, let me get I was working three,
Speaker 3: you know, three part time jobs. I was, you know,
Speaker 3: getting scholarships. I was doing all kinds of stuff resourcefulness,
Speaker 3: just to make my way through. I was going to
Speaker 3: school part time because that's all I could afford. I
Speaker 3: was just kind of pay as you go kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So so those are some of the things I did.
Speaker 3: But that was my mentality was It was just like
Speaker 3: I can only do what I can.
Speaker 1: Afford, which forces you to become creative. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was just talking to a buddy and we were
Speaker 2: talking about like leadership, and he said something along the
Speaker 2: lines of oftentimes great leaders have like gosh, I wish
Speaker 2: I could remember the term, but it's like a subconscious
Speaker 2: competence where you don't even realize it. And it sounds
Speaker 2: like that you had that to a certain extent when
Speaker 2: it came to your finances. You were subconsciously competent. You
Speaker 2: were subconsciously on the right track. But I like that
Speaker 2: you did take some some specific tactics in order to
Speaker 2: ensure that you were not taking on debt. Like can
Speaker 2: you share some of the some of the different creative
Speaker 2: ways that you were able to find it not finance
Speaker 2: but literally paid cash for your college education.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I was in school, I was working. I
Speaker 3: actually this was to the detriment of my GPA by
Speaker 3: the way, I worked three part time jobs simultaneously, but
Speaker 3: they were all it was very convenient. So I had
Speaker 3: two on campus jobs, which I recommend people to do
Speaker 3: because a lot of on campus jobs they'll they'll pay,
Speaker 3: you'll get a tuition waiver, and I'll get you a stipend.
Speaker 3: Now I didn't get those in mind, but I just
Speaker 3: got paid like an hourly rate or whatever. But I
Speaker 3: was the at the time, I wanted to get into
Speaker 3: sports broadcasting, so I was actually the sports editor for
Speaker 3: the student newspaper, and then I worked in the sports
Speaker 3: information department with the athletic department. I was doing a
Speaker 3: lot of work with them, working for all the athletic teams.
Speaker 3: And then I also worked a retail job at town
Speaker 3: Center Mall, which was literally almost across the street from campus.
Speaker 3: I worked in like a sports apparel shop and you know,
Speaker 3: made a whatever the minimum wage was at the time.
Speaker 1: Everything sports related there. Yes, there's a common theme. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was.
Speaker 3: My first passion, my first love. Now, on top of
Speaker 3: just working and you know, kind of paying my way through,
Speaker 3: I also got scholarships. Later on, I actually worked. I
Speaker 3: went and worked for Chick fil A. Now, Chick fil
Speaker 3: A has a really good scholarship program now, but back then,
Speaker 3: when I was at Chick fil A, I had to
Speaker 3: be there for two years and I had to work
Speaker 3: two thousand hours, and then they gave me a thousand
Speaker 3: dollars scholarship. Now that might not seem like much in
Speaker 3: today's age, but back then, you know, I'm so old.
Speaker 3: We were on the quarter system. I went to Kennesau
Speaker 3: State here just north of Atlanta, and we were on
Speaker 3: the quarter system. So a thousand dollars check paid.
Speaker 1: For two quarters.
Speaker 3: So that paid for seventy five percent of my year
Speaker 3: pretty much. So that was a huge help. And then
Speaker 3: so what happened was I was working in the athletic department,
Speaker 3: and most of that was you got a scholarship.
Speaker 1: You were the first non athlete to get a scholarship
Speaker 1: from the athletic ppartment.
Speaker 3: I got to tell that story. So I was working
Speaker 3: in the athletic department. They had no budget. You know,
Speaker 3: at the time, they were at Kinnesaull State. You know,
Speaker 3: it started out as like a junior college and they
Speaker 3: were like a in AIA school. Then they were INCAA
Speaker 3: Division two. So they've they've really come a long way.
Speaker 1: Hey, we made it to the tournament last year, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we played, we had value and effort.
Speaker 3: Was it was it the Owls State Owls. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: made it the first time ever. Last year they made
Speaker 3: it to the NCAA Men's Ball Yeah, the tournament March Madness. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the first time ever. So their division one there at
Speaker 3: the highest level. Now, so back in my day, there
Speaker 3: was no budget. They couldn't pay me. So what I
Speaker 3: did was I I kind of used it as internship credit,
Speaker 3: so I got school credit for working out with them.
Speaker 3: But they did pay me to work games. So whenever
Speaker 3: there was a game, you know, I would work a
Speaker 3: game and you know, do the announcing or whatever, they
Speaker 3: run the scoreboard, and I think they paid me like
Speaker 3: five or ten bucks a game. So I certainly wasn't
Speaker 3: getting rich off that. But what happened was the athletic director,
Speaker 3: I think, in his creative way of compensating me because
Speaker 3: I was always, you know, putting in hours of free labor.
Speaker 3: So my junior year he put me on a book scholarship.
Speaker 3: So my junior year of college, I had all my
Speaker 3: books paid for by the athletics department and that was
Speaker 3: a huge, huge help. So then I came back for
Speaker 3: my senior year and I would is completely shocked to
Speaker 3: find out that they had put they had given me
Speaker 3: an athletic scholar, a full athletic scholarship that paid for tuition, books, everything,
Speaker 3: And uh yes, I was not an athlete. So I
Speaker 3: hope I didn't take a scholarship away from it from
Speaker 3: an athlete. I don't think I did. I think that
Speaker 3: was just their creative way of compensating me because instead
Speaker 3: of you know, writing me a check that might to
Speaker 3: come out of a budget or whatever, they're just like, hey,
Speaker 3: we'll just you know, we'll waive your tuition in your books.
Speaker 3: But that was life changing for me, getting a whole
Speaker 3: year my senior year, a whole year paid for, So
Speaker 3: that was that was a huge huge help to me.
Speaker 1: That is huge.
Speaker 2: Well, and so you mentioned books too, because I mean
Speaker 2: books aren't cheap, and so there are different paths, different
Speaker 2: routes you can take when it comes to books, Like
Speaker 2: there are more places you can rent books as opposed
Speaker 2: to going to the own campus bookstore and buying it
Speaker 2: brand new, you know, like that spying. Yeah, the spine's
Speaker 2: never been cracked before. Like what yeah, what what's your
Speaker 2: take on some of the different ways to cut the
Speaker 2: cost there?
Speaker 3: Now, Now that's a good You've made some good points there,
Speaker 3: because back in my day, none of those were options
Speaker 3: you couldn't rent. But so much has changed now that
Speaker 3: you can really cut down the costs. Back in my day,
Speaker 3: it was a huge racket. It was a scam, and
Speaker 3: you would have to you would be forced to buy
Speaker 3: the new book for the class, and then you would say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I'll just sell it back at the end of the quarter.
Speaker 3: And then you couldn't sell it back because the next
Speaker 3: quarter they were moving to a new book exactly, and
Speaker 3: so your book was worthless. So you had to pay
Speaker 3: whatever one hundred bucks for a book and then you're
Speaker 3: stuck with it.
Speaker 1: Right, So those books are more than that now and
Speaker 1: you certainly alludes to the scam portion of the and
Speaker 1: you got it higher education.
Speaker 3: And now you can go on Amazon or eBay or
Speaker 3: all these you can go sell them online. You couldn't
Speaker 3: really do it that, you know, in the early nineties,
Speaker 3: that wasn't really an option either. So so now, back then, yeah,
Speaker 3: you were, you were held hostage by these book book companies.
Speaker 3: But now, like you said, Matt, you can actually rent books.
Speaker 3: You can buy books. I bought now when I went
Speaker 3: back to school for my grad program, which I'll tell
Speaker 3: that story in a second too, but you know, this
Speaker 3: was more recent. I had the option to rent books
Speaker 3: to buy books by use books. I bought all my
Speaker 3: books used off Amazon for dirt cheap, and ironically, it
Speaker 3: was cheaper for me to buy a book than rent it,
Speaker 3: or it would either be the same price, like so
Speaker 3: it would be like I could buy the book for
Speaker 3: a fifty bucks or I could rent it for fifty
Speaker 3: bucks for the semester. But hey, I'll just buy the
Speaker 3: book and then hope to sell it, hope to get
Speaker 3: half my money back. That was my strategy. So that's
Speaker 3: kind of how I handled it. But it really just
Speaker 3: depends on the class or the book. In some cases
Speaker 3: it is a lot cheaper to rent it. It might
Speaker 3: be ten bucks to rent a book versus fifty bucks.
Speaker 3: Then yeah, then it would make more sense to do that.
Speaker 3: But there's so much more options now for sure, in
Speaker 3: the digital age that we and now you know a
Speaker 3: lot of classes the teachers will just email you a
Speaker 3: PDF and you can just download the digital version and
Speaker 3: not have to pay a thing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can ask the teacher, hey, do you teach
Speaker 1: to the book? Do you use the book or or
Speaker 1: is it all based on lecture? And so they might
Speaker 1: have one in the syllabusity you might be able to
Speaker 1: get by without having the book at all. Just depends
Speaker 1: on the class, right. But you also, one of the
Speaker 1: tactices you took with to go part time to school,
Speaker 1: so it took you longer to get your degree, but
Speaker 1: it allowed you then to have some of those part
Speaker 1: time jobs. Did you like run a cost benefit analysis
Speaker 1: on that or do you feel like you missed out
Speaker 1: on potential years of increased income growth because it took
Speaker 1: you longer to get your degree, Like what was your
Speaker 1: thought process on that? And do you think going to
Speaker 1: school part time makes sense for more people?
Speaker 3: Well, Joel, those are excellent questions, but when I was
Speaker 3: twenty years old, I certainly wasn't there that strategically, to
Speaker 3: be honest with you, I actually had some health situations
Speaker 3: in college that kind of caused me to fall behind
Speaker 3: and caused me to go part time. So actually, you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of follow that statistic of like I think
Speaker 3: it's like sixty four percent of students take longer than
Speaker 3: four years. So that's another thing that people have to
Speaker 3: budget for, is that most students take over four years
Speaker 3: on average to graduate. But for my story, I ran
Speaker 3: into some health issues that kind of derailed me a
Speaker 3: little bit. But also, yes, my strategy was, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: only going to, you know, go to school for I
Speaker 3: can afford. I can afford two classes this quarter, or
Speaker 3: one class or three classes, whatever it may be. That's
Speaker 3: where I can afford, just because I didn't want to
Speaker 3: go into any debt and I didn't want to fall behind.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to drop out either, Like I didn't
Speaker 3: want to be like, oh, well this quarter, I you know,
Speaker 3: it would be great if I just worked and just
Speaker 3: skipped a quarter. Because I saw what happened was I
Speaker 3: saw a lot of my peers doing that, and then
Speaker 3: now they would I'll never see him come back to school.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like you stop the habit, you stop going
Speaker 1: to class, and then you're like, ah, maybe i'll take
Speaker 1: another quarter off too, and then after a little while,
Speaker 1: you just stop.
Speaker 3: Going to school, right, So like for me, you know,
Speaker 3: And another thing was I got so far behind. I
Speaker 3: actually had to go to summer school three years in
Speaker 3: a row, just it took me about five and a
Speaker 3: half years to graduate. So my last three years I
Speaker 3: was going to school, I was going to summer school.
Speaker 3: Actually I was going to school year round for my
Speaker 3: last three years of school, just so I could graduate
Speaker 3: in five and a half years. But no, I didn't
Speaker 3: really think of lost income or anything like that, because
Speaker 3: at the time that I graduated, you know, I wanted
Speaker 3: to get into the sports industry, and evidently it's extremely
Speaker 3: difficult to get into the sports industry because everybody wants
Speaker 3: to work in sports. It's highly competitive. So it actually
Speaker 3: took me about a year to land a full time
Speaker 3: job in the sports world. So so I kind of
Speaker 3: knew that I was facing that as well.
Speaker 2: You know, that's this is actually one of the reasons
Speaker 2: I'm such a fan of different tech schools that have
Speaker 2: like the co op programs where to I don't know
Speaker 2: it exactly, I didn't live it myself, but you know,
Speaker 2: you go to school for a semester, you work for
Speaker 2: a semester, but you're actually earning an income, and I
Speaker 2: think that the ability for you to use some of
Speaker 2: that income to pay for your schooling is pretty huge.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna continue our conversation with you, Jason. We're
Speaker 2: gonna continue to talk about how it is you can
Speaker 2: get these debt free degrees, not just how, but also
Speaker 2: why that is so important to do.
Speaker 1: We'll get all that right after this. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're still talking about debt free degrees with the guy
Speaker 1: who is the expert of this, Jason Brown, and he's
Speaker 1: live in studio with us here in the How To
Speaker 1: Money Clubhouse. So Jason studio audience, Oh if only, if
Speaker 1: only we have just Matt, can you play the clap
Speaker 1: sounder right now? So? Yeah, I think this is so
Speaker 1: important now as like student loans are our repayments are beginning,
Speaker 1: and a whole lot of people are like they feel
Speaker 1: stuck because the student loans. Why is it such a
Speaker 1: passion of yours to convince folks to get a degree
Speaker 1: with without taking on any debt at all, like taking
Speaker 1: it off the table.
Speaker 3: It's it's so disheartening to see what's happening to you know,
Speaker 3: forty five plus million Americans that are are really struggling
Speaker 3: with these student loans because they were sick whatever seventeen eighteen,
Speaker 3: nineteen years old, and they didn't understand, you know, what
Speaker 3: they were signing. They didn't understand how interest rates work.
Speaker 3: They didn't understand, like, you know, each year the cost
Speaker 3: of college goes up. So they're looking at expenses for
Speaker 3: year one and they're just say, oh, ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year, okay, so that time's four is forty thousand dollar.
Speaker 3: That's all I'm gonna Oh when they realize, when they
Speaker 3: don't think, oh, it might take me five or six
Speaker 3: years to graduate, and oh every year the cost of
Speaker 3: college probably goes up by at least ten percent. So
Speaker 3: those are things that people don't really you know, aren't
Speaker 3: really aware of.
Speaker 1: I guess. So forty turns into fifty five, and.
Speaker 3: It quickly, yeah, it quickly you know, gets out of
Speaker 3: hand and like me, like, hey, I graduated my undergrad
Speaker 3: and it took me almost I was living at home
Speaker 3: and looking for a job for almost a year, working
Speaker 3: part time jobs, you know, folding clothes at retail at
Speaker 3: the mall.
Speaker 2: And were you one of the gap guys that would
Speaker 2: stand there, you know and like greet people as they're
Speaker 2: walking in.
Speaker 1: Oh, he's abercarme and Fitch.
Speaker 3: Come on, I actually work, that's close. I actually worked
Speaker 3: at a store called Galleons, which was bought out by Dicks.
Speaker 3: So if you know Dick's Sporting Goods, I basically worked
Speaker 3: at a Dicks and I worked in men's apparel. So
Speaker 3: I was sitting there forty shirts I was folding. I
Speaker 3: wasn't greeting people, probably because I'm too tall and I
Speaker 3: would scare people off. But I was kind of in
Speaker 3: the back folding all the shirts. So like guys like you,
Speaker 3: like yourself. You guys would come in up all the shirt,
Speaker 3: all these shirts, right, let me mess up the rack
Speaker 3: and then I have to come behind you and put
Speaker 3: everything back on the hangars.
Speaker 1: We actually did that as a way to help people
Speaker 1: get employed, like yourself. Like it was like, hey, if
Speaker 1: we mess up more shirts, there's more jobs for people
Speaker 1: to fold shirts, right, it's.
Speaker 2: The broken windows theory. If we smash all these window
Speaker 2: somebody's got a.
Speaker 3: Like your favorite place, you're basically creating jobs for us. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's very kind of you guys.
Speaker 2: Really stimulating the economy as much as we can. Well, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, what of the ways you can get a
Speaker 2: degree without spending? Uh Like, let's just talk about I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about specifically. We had an ask how to money
Speaker 2: question and a listener she's up in South Carolina and
Speaker 2: her employer one of the benefits they offered was to
Speaker 2: cover her grad school. She was going back to get
Speaker 2: an MBA. How popular are these different programs becoming the
Speaker 2: ability to You're basically increasing how much it is that
Speaker 2: you can earn at your employer's expense, basically.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm so glad you brought that up, Matt, because
Speaker 3: that's actually wanted to touch on that a little bit
Speaker 3: because I went back to grad school a kind of
Speaker 3: uh A. Graduated in twenty eighteen, so not too too
Speaker 3: long ago. But this is what I did. So I
Speaker 3: actually was an employee. I went back to my alma
Speaker 3: mater and was an employee at Kannessau State. So as
Speaker 3: an employee, they have a it's called a TAP program
Speaker 3: with STANS with tuition assistance program, and so as an employee,
Speaker 3: they covered all my tuition. Now I still had to
Speaker 3: pay for books out of pocket. So I started grad
Speaker 3: school KSU paid for my tuition. I had to pay
Speaker 3: for my books. So then I actually changed jobs. I
Speaker 3: went back to the private sector. And then when I
Speaker 3: changed jobs, I was preparing me and my wife were
Speaker 3: preparing to pay out of pocket for the rest of
Speaker 3: my schooling and I was looking at about twenty seven
Speaker 3: hundred bucks a semester. Luckily, I was toward the end
Speaker 3: of my I only had like two semesters left, so
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, you know, we can do this.
Speaker 3: But when I was hired by my new job, I
Speaker 3: was going through all the benefits package and I noticed
Speaker 3: tuition reimbursement program. Wait a minute, what is this sign
Speaker 3: Let me sign up. That's the first thing I did
Speaker 3: on the first day. I was saying, Hey, give me
Speaker 3: the application for this tuition reaber.
Speaker 1: How does this work?
Speaker 3: Let me sign up for But here's the thing. This
Speaker 3: is such an amazing trend that we're seeing now with
Speaker 3: all these companies are offering tuition reimbursement or or like
Speaker 3: some sort of assistance, even if it's not one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: it might be fifty percent or whatever it may be.
Speaker 3: And especially like for me, you know, I'm a writer,
Speaker 3: so I went back to school and got a professional
Speaker 3: writing degree. So if it's related to your position, your
Speaker 3: company is more than likely going to want to help
Speaker 3: you with that because it's going to make you a
Speaker 3: better employee for them, and it's going to make you,
Speaker 3: you know, a more well rounded and it's going to
Speaker 3: increase your skill set. So you know, we see you know,
Speaker 3: all the big name companies in the news, you know,
Speaker 3: Target Publics, Costco, Starbucks, Starbucks, all the big name companies,
Speaker 3: the big brands they get they're the ones that get
Speaker 3: all the headlines for doing this, and there's a lot
Speaker 3: of them now. But this is an exciting trend to
Speaker 3: see a lot of people are kind of jumping on
Speaker 3: this bandwagon to offer tuition you know, reimbursement or tuition
Speaker 3: assistant as an employee. And that's so that's so great
Speaker 3: to see. So I'm going to tell your audience, Hey,
Speaker 3: if you guys are like looking to change jobs or
Speaker 3: maybe you know or you're in the job market or whatever,
Speaker 3: and you never finish your degree, or you want to
Speaker 3: pick up an extra degree, maybe go back to school,
Speaker 3: get a master's or something. Make sure that that company
Speaker 3: that you're looking at hiring or looking at interviewing with,
Speaker 3: make sure that they offer a tuition reimbursion worker. That's
Speaker 3: a huge benefit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we always talk about total compensation. It's not
Speaker 1: just the headline salary number. There's all those other benefits
Speaker 1: that you want to take into consideration, because you might
Speaker 1: be willing to get paid eight thousand dollars less because
Speaker 1: oh wait, there's a better match and oh wait, they'll
Speaker 1: pay for me to go back to school, and oh wait,
Speaker 1: they'll do more flexibility, like all of his other things
Speaker 1: add up, right, And so we should make a decision
Speaker 1: about where we work based on the abundance of benefits,
Speaker 1: not just the salary. Talk to me about like where
Speaker 1: we choose to go to school, because that makes a
Speaker 1: difference in the price too. And I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that we've done to a lot of young kids,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, go go to the school that makes
Speaker 1: your heart flutter or something like that, Right, it's like
Speaker 1: go to your dream school. Well, how would you talk
Speaker 1: to a teenager who's thinking about where they go to
Speaker 1: where they go to school. They kind of dream school
Speaker 1: versus a practical, cheaper alternative. It's a financial and an
Speaker 1: emotional conundrum. How do you help people think through that?
Speaker 3: Yeah that when you ask me that question, I think
Speaker 3: about my own kids. I have three boys, So when
Speaker 3: they get of age, you know, what would I tell them?
Speaker 3: That's exact question you said, what would I say? So
Speaker 3: our world is changing and there's so many alternatives to
Speaker 3: traditional college now. But the first thing, the number one
Speaker 3: thing that I tell people is if you make one decision,
Speaker 3: just one, just make one decision, and if you want
Speaker 3: to go to college, go to an in state public school.
Speaker 3: If you go to an in state public school, you
Speaker 3: will save tens of thousands of dollars just by making
Speaker 3: that one decision. But regarding alternative now, see, we live
Speaker 3: in this digital technology age where there's so many alternatives
Speaker 3: to school. There's online college, which is so much less expensive.
Speaker 3: There's you can go to technical or it's called you know,
Speaker 3: technical or trade school, sometimes still called vocational school. There's
Speaker 3: that route that you can go which is much less
Speaker 3: expensive and much and a lot of times a fraction
Speaker 3: of the time too, So you got to look at
Speaker 3: the financial commitment and the time commitment. So and there's
Speaker 3: so many other opportunities, Like there's apprenticeship pro you talked
Speaker 3: about co ops, Matt, and that's kind of similar to
Speaker 3: like an apprenticeship program. There's apprenticeship programs. I have friends
Speaker 3: that have taken gone to like culinary apprenticeship schools where
Speaker 3: it's like a nine month program and they pay ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, and but they're getting placed in like you know,
Speaker 3: high end restaurants, they're getting placed in catering companies. They're
Speaker 3: getting placed you know, they're learning how to launch a
Speaker 3: lot of these guys go on and launch a food
Speaker 3: truck business, or they launch a catering business, or they
Speaker 3: become you know, renowned chefs. So and they're going to
Speaker 3: school for nine months and paying ten thousand dollars to
Speaker 3: do that versus you know, a traditional college route, which
Speaker 3: is so much more expensive.
Speaker 1: So there's so.
Speaker 3: Many more options out there now. I mean, I hear
Speaker 3: stories about people just going on YouTube and watching videos
Speaker 3: for free. There's a lot of free online courses too,
Speaker 3: if you're just interested, and this is a great way
Speaker 3: to like kind of process of elimination, Like, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: kind of interested in social media, but you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if I want to really pay to go
Speaker 3: get a digital marketing degree. Well, hey, there's probably a
Speaker 3: free digital marketing course, like an intro course or a
Speaker 3: fundamental course that you can find online. Take it and
Speaker 3: see if that's you know, your cup of tea, see
Speaker 3: something that you want to pursue.
Speaker 1: What your whistle just a bit kind of like dip
Speaker 1: your toe in and then decide, oh, don't want to
Speaker 1: keep going on in.
Speaker 2: This direction exactly exactly well, I mean, and that's one
Speaker 2: of the things when it comes to staying in state
Speaker 2: and paying the in state tuition rate finding maybe a
Speaker 2: local community college, is that you are able to do
Speaker 2: some of this discovery process at a much reduced price.
Speaker 2: And the problem is is when a lot of times
Speaker 2: kids are going, like they do, have their heart set
Speaker 2: on a private, out of state school, and during the
Speaker 2: first two years, that's when they're kind of figuring out
Speaker 2: what it is that they love. Boh, not to mention
Speaker 2: that they're paying, you know, fifty thousand dollars a semester
Speaker 2: while they're all so racking up other expenses because cost
Speaker 2: of living might be higher in some of those in
Speaker 2: some of those cities. But so you actually, a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes ago you mentioned your wife, Okay, and you
Speaker 2: so you got your degrees debt free, and you're talking
Speaker 2: about when you went back to grad school that this
Speaker 2: is something that you and your wife are you know,
Speaker 2: it's a decision that y'all were making together. She wasn't
Speaker 2: so fortunate when it came to the degree and the
Speaker 2: price that she paid for. How did you approach your finances, Like,
Speaker 2: did y'all combine your money? Did you see, because we
Speaker 2: talked about this recently with the rad coaches about combining
Speaker 2: your finances? How did you view the sixty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: that was essentially now yours after you were being so
Speaker 2: diligent and careful with your finances.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's such a good, good question man. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I have a unique kind of perspective in that I
Speaker 3: was fortunate to earn two debt free degrees, and then
Speaker 3: when I got married, my wife had had an undergraduate
Speaker 3: bachelor's degree. We actually went to the same school at
Speaker 3: different times, but she cared about sixty thousand dollars a
Speaker 3: student loan debt, So Basically what we did was that
Speaker 3: we got real aggressive and paying that off. And I
Speaker 3: basically told her my story of like, hey, I had
Speaker 3: a debt free journey before, like when I was single,
Speaker 3: I paid off thirteen thousand, five hundred dollars in credit
Speaker 3: card debt, making only twenty three thousand dollars a year
Speaker 3: and did that in thirteen months. So I told her
Speaker 3: that whole story about how I got on a budget stuff.
Speaker 1: But she's like, oh, yeah, she does. She really she
Speaker 1: took to it.
Speaker 3: Man, she was really like okay, you know, and she
Speaker 3: started writing things down and taking notes and stuff. But
Speaker 3: I will say, here's the thing. When we first got
Speaker 3: married and this you guys are both married. This is
Speaker 3: gonna be a fun question. What are the top two
Speaker 3: questions that people at right when you get married? The
Speaker 3: top two things that everybody starts asking you this kids?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why. Big one.
Speaker 3: When are you going to have kids?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you know what? The other one? Well, what
Speaker 1: is the other one that you would ask someone who
Speaker 1: just got married?
Speaker 3: Just got married? What are two major life you know?
Speaker 1: Just where are you going to live? Right?
Speaker 3: More specifically, when are you going to buy a big house?
Speaker 3: When are you going to buy a house. Oh, when
Speaker 3: are you guys going to buy a house, because we
Speaker 3: were living in a condo. When are you guys going
Speaker 3: to buy a house. When are you guys going to
Speaker 3: have kid? Like we just got married, like five minutes, saigo, man,
Speaker 3: give us a chance to go on our honeymoon. So
Speaker 3: those are the big questions, and we answered every single
Speaker 3: one of those people with not until we get out
Speaker 3: of debt, not until we pay off this student loan debt.
Speaker 3: We're paying off this debt first. So that was our
Speaker 3: goal and we were. My wife was twenty eight at
Speaker 3: the time, and she made a very aggressive proclamation. She says,
Speaker 3: I'm paying off this debt by the time I turned
Speaker 3: thirty the thirtieth birthday, so she gave herself two years.
Speaker 3: She said, but what a time I turned thirty, I'm
Speaker 3: having this debt paid for. I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if we're going to do it. You know, we
Speaker 3: weren't making that much money at the time. We were
Speaker 3: each making thirty k a year. We had a combine
Speaker 3: you know, oh, your finance question, We did combine finances
Speaker 3: for that question. So we were making a combined sixty
Speaker 3: thousand a year so that's basically and we did it.
Speaker 3: We paid it off in two years.
Speaker 1: So how did you do that? Because that sounds crazy. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're making sixty k of mind we paid off sixty
Speaker 1: k worth it day in two years. What tactics did
Speaker 1: you use?
Speaker 3: We we well, first of all, we were in the
Speaker 3: position to delay. You know, we didn't have any kids,
Speaker 3: so we put off having kids, we put off having
Speaker 3: buying a house, we put off you know, big vacations.
Speaker 3: We didn't really eat out that much, you know, all
Speaker 3: the all the normal stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, Just did you grow up in the Midwest?
Speaker 2: Like I feel like so much of what you're saying,
Speaker 2: Like like we were saying earlier, it goes contrary to
Speaker 2: the I hate to say this, but sort of like
Speaker 2: the entitlement attitude of like, well we're gonna do that,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get the thing now, we're gonna buy it now,
Speaker 2: we're gonna pay for it later.
Speaker 1: But that's not at all the approach all took. It's
Speaker 1: the B and pl mindset, the buy now, pay later
Speaker 1: mindset that's so prevalent these days.
Speaker 3: Right, So we just you know, we got on a budget,
Speaker 3: but we did you know, we did a lot of
Speaker 3: crazy things. Like my wife actually was working as a
Speaker 3: nanny at the time, So when you work as a nanny,
Speaker 3: you get a lot of opportunities to babysit or like
Speaker 3: to do overnight you know, stuff like babysitting stuff. So
Speaker 3: she picked up any extra workshit that she could in
Speaker 3: that realm, and then you know we did We did
Speaker 3: all kind of stuff. We did garage sales. I was
Speaker 3: selling stuff online eBay and Craigslist and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: I was doing manual labor side jobs. People are hiring
Speaker 3: me to help them move and stuff. And you know,
Speaker 3: I was doing like car detailing people's cars, all kind
Speaker 3: of random stuff to make money. Of course, we any
Speaker 3: tax return money we got, we would save that and
Speaker 3: throw it towards the debt. Another thing we did that
Speaker 3: that was really lucrative was all these like a you
Speaker 3: guess with like these marketing studies or focus groups, like
Speaker 3: some of these pay big money. And uh, my wife
Speaker 3: and I combined, I think we made like eight thousand
Speaker 3: dollars over the course of a couple of years. Like
Speaker 3: just doing like taste tests or mock juries are big.
Speaker 1: I'll do it. I'll do the taste test one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jason the Human Science Experiment.
Speaker 3: But I want to tell you guys, the craziest thing
Speaker 3: that we did this was when you reflect that it's
Speaker 3: this is really embarrassing, Okay. That that we did to
Speaker 3: try to make extra money was we started my wife
Speaker 3: has a diet coke addiction. Okay, So I started noticing
Speaker 3: like all these diet coke cans, you know, piling up
Speaker 3: in the track. It's like, now, wait a minute, we
Speaker 3: could probably recycle these and you know, make some money.
Speaker 3: There's a you know, one of those metal recycling shops,
Speaker 3: you know, not far from our house. So I said,
Speaker 3: let's just start saving up the cans and you know,
Speaker 3: we'll run them down there. And and so we got
Speaker 3: we we kind of went overboard with it. We were
Speaker 3: like taking you know, we live in a complex, so
Speaker 3: they have their little recycling center.
Speaker 1: So we would go.
Speaker 3: And go take people's cans that they left in the
Speaker 3: recycling We would take their bags of cans. We went
Speaker 3: on a beach trip in Florida and at the end
Speaker 3: of the day we would just walk the beach with
Speaker 3: trash bags, just picking up. They probably thought that we
Speaker 3: were city workers just picking up trash. We're just picking
Speaker 3: up cans, beer cans, go get they forgot their vests.
Speaker 3: But yeah, what are these guys. Oh that's how they
Speaker 3: must be. Uh, you know they must have community service hours.
Speaker 3: Us these guys are prisoners.
Speaker 1: It could, it could very well.
Speaker 3: But so we're picking up cans, you know, we're taking cans.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. I'm embarrassed. I don't even want
Speaker 3: to know how many hours that we we did this,
Speaker 3: and we made a grand total of one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty dollars recycling cans.
Speaker 1: So maybe in retrospect, you didn't all your time enough
Speaker 1: to do in that pursuit. But overall, like you're doing
Speaker 1: everything that you possibly can and you're on the same page.
Speaker 1: It sounds like too, Like I guess I'm curious now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you're quite a few years removed from paying off
Speaker 1: your wife's degree in kind of like record time. How
Speaker 1: do you look back on those years where you were
Speaker 1: like the belt was tight and there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of money to do extra things. How do you think
Speaker 1: about that time?
Speaker 3: To me, like, when you look at our story, I
Speaker 3: just feel like, hey, we made a lot of sacrifices,
Speaker 3: but it was only temporary. It was a two year.
Speaker 3: It was two years. It was a short just look
Speaker 3: at just like when I was in grad school. When
Speaker 3: I started grad school, I felt like I was in prison.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, what have I done
Speaker 3: to myself? I'm never going to get through this. But
Speaker 3: it was really like I just took it one day
Speaker 3: at a time and I just said to myself, you know,
Speaker 3: this is all temporary. You're going to get through it.
Speaker 3: It's a short amount of time in the grand scheme
Speaker 3: of life. Same thing with the debt journey. Hey, you
Speaker 3: can do this. You can make sacrifices. You know, I
Speaker 3: went an entire year without eating out at a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Now it happened to be the COVID year, and we
Speaker 3: also had a big so that helped too.
Speaker 1: But you weren't going to anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I mean you can do it. Like
Speaker 3: it's when you say that, like I'm going to go
Speaker 3: an entire year without going out to a restaurant, fast
Speaker 3: food or restaurant, You're like, that's impossible.
Speaker 1: Most people would say going an entire week seriously.
Speaker 3: So so it's just I want to give hope and
Speaker 3: encouragement to people, to your audience, that's in this situation, like, look,
Speaker 3: it can be done. It takes your baby steps change it.
Speaker 3: It's it's all about changing your mindset. It's all about
Speaker 3: you know, behavior modification, and you can do it and
Speaker 3: just just think it's it's only temporary. You're going to
Speaker 3: get through it. And that that's I love telling people.
Speaker 3: That love encouraging people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love that encouragement, and that encouragement I
Speaker 1: think goes a long way, because Yeah, when you feel
Speaker 1: like it can't be done, when you're hearing the guy
Speaker 1: who did it and he's telling you you can do
Speaker 1: it too. That I mean, there's a reason people want
Speaker 1: to pay money to listen to the best motivational speakers,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a really motivational but it's also
Speaker 1: a practical and reality based message that you're that you're giving.
Speaker 1: All Right, We've got a couple more questions we want
Speaker 1: to get to with you, Jason, and we want to
Speaker 1: ask you about writing books too, so we'll get to
Speaker 1: that right after this. All right, we are back from
Speaker 1: the break talking with Jason Brown about how to get
Speaker 1: that higher education without going into debt. And Jason, I
Speaker 1: love that you're sharing some of the different ways that
Speaker 1: you were. I mean, y'all are just hustling when it
Speaker 1: came to finding ways specifically to pay off your wife's debt.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about duel enrollment because it makes me think
Speaker 1: about I've got a buddy and he he's got four kids,
Speaker 1: but two of his kids are in high school. He's
Speaker 1: got a senior, he's got a junior. His senior literally
Speaker 1: is taking all of her classes at the local university.
Speaker 1: His junior she's literally only taking one class. She didn't
Speaker 1: even get a parking.
Speaker 2: Pass this year at the local high school because she's like,
Speaker 2: what's the point I don't need to go through all of.
Speaker 3: That, don't need to pay for that.
Speaker 2: No, And so talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 2: dual enrollment. I didn't realize that that was something that
Speaker 2: you can do at at a younger age like that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even on my radar at all when I
Speaker 2: was in high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a this is a funny story how
Speaker 3: I found out about this. So I'm sitting in grad
Speaker 3: school at Kansas State University, and I'm in a creative
Speaker 3: writing class and I'm forty years old, Okay, and this
Speaker 3: kid comes into class and he sits next to me,
Speaker 3: and you know, he's in the class and I look over.
Speaker 3: I'm like, he's seven. I'm like, who are you? He
Speaker 3: showed me he's seventeen. You know. To me, he's a kid. Okay,
Speaker 3: he's seventeen. I start talking to him like, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: I introduced myself and I've come to find out he's
Speaker 3: seventeen and he's in high school. And I'm like, I
Speaker 3: turned to him, I'm like, how are you here? And
Speaker 3: he says, oh. He starts talking to me about this
Speaker 3: dual enrollment process.
Speaker 1: His name Doogie Howser.
Speaker 3: I honestly can't say it might have been. So he
Speaker 3: starts telling me about this duel enrollment program and how
Speaker 3: it works and stuff. And I'm sitting there at the time,
Speaker 3: I got a two year old son, and I'm sitting
Speaker 3: there furiously writing notes, writing everything that he's saying because
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out how to enroll my two
Speaker 3: year old into this. So basically his story was he
Speaker 3: was going to a local high school. He had graduated
Speaker 3: a semester early, so he I guess works his schedule
Speaker 3: out as class schedule to where he finished high school
Speaker 3: a semester early. So I guess his last semester in
Speaker 3: high school, he's going to take college classes like at
Speaker 3: my school at KSU. So basically what he was going
Speaker 3: to do was in the fall, he was going to
Speaker 3: go to the University of Alabama, and I think he
Speaker 3: said he was going to study like civil engineering or
Speaker 3: something like that, and he was going to start out
Speaker 3: as a sophomore. So not only has he cut out
Speaker 3: the time, he's cut out a year, but he's also
Speaker 3: cut out the time and the finances. So and this
Speaker 3: is all paid for by the state. And I started asking, like,
Speaker 3: how does this work? How do you qualify for it?
Speaker 3: Do you have to have like a four point zero
Speaker 3: and be like, you know, star student, perfect attendance to
Speaker 3: be a Valatorian?
Speaker 1: That's what I thought.
Speaker 3: He says, no, no, you just He's like, you just
Speaker 3: apply for it. And he says, a state pace for everything.
Speaker 3: They pay for tuition, they pay for your books, everything.
Speaker 3: And then when he goes and starts college, he was
Speaker 3: going to start as a as a sophomore. He was
Speaker 3: going to eliminate that first year of school. And I
Speaker 3: was like, this is unbelievably impressive. I was like, this
Speaker 3: is this and I will say to the audience wherever
Speaker 3: state you're in, because these these programs differ by stage. Sure,
Speaker 3: and even our governor, Governor Kemp, I think he's made
Speaker 3: some changes to it recently. So just google like whatever
Speaker 3: you state. We're in Georgia. So if you google like
Speaker 3: Georgia dual Enrollment program, you'll get all the information UH
Speaker 3: in the state that you're in. But this is a
Speaker 3: tremendous UH program to strongly consider for yourself or your kids.
Speaker 3: That will save you not only time but money. And
Speaker 3: it's going to get you. Like you were talking about
Speaker 3: Joel earlier about you know, did I feel like I
Speaker 3: was missing out on you know, years of salary. Hey,
Speaker 3: this guy, uh, he's gonna get He's ahead of his
Speaker 3: peers now he's going to be graduating a year early.
Speaker 3: That's one year extra of potential full time salary that
Speaker 3: he's going to be making while his same age peers
Speaker 3: are still toiling away in college.
Speaker 1: Right, makes you thinking about AP classes too. That's another
Speaker 1: way that people can kids. You score high enough on
Speaker 1: the AP exam, which I believe cost you ninety five
Speaker 1: dollars to take an AP exam, and you basically skip
Speaker 1: out on potentially a twenty five hundred dollars class. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 3: That's a very good comparison the AP classes as well.
Speaker 3: I researched this for my book too. Actually, I wrote
Speaker 3: somebody mentioned I had my book done, and somebody mentioned
Speaker 3: the AP. I said, oh wait a minute, I gotta go, right,
Speaker 3: I had a section to my book and I got
Speaker 3: to include this in my book. So the AP thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right, you can take AP classes. You can test
Speaker 3: out of college courses, so then you don't have to pay,
Speaker 3: you don't have to you're skipping the finances and the time,
Speaker 3: so it expedites your college career. Right, very nice. Okay,
Speaker 3: so you mentioned your book and sounds like you pretty
Speaker 3: much had it ready to go before you made those edits.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that.
Speaker 2: Like, so you've self published, what are the pros? What
Speaker 2: are the cons from a financial standpoint? Has it netted
Speaker 2: you know what you thought it would. I'm curious to
Speaker 2: kind of get some of your thoughts there.
Speaker 3: So all I've I've self published three books to Amazon exclusively,
Speaker 3: so I've written two money related books. Like you guys
Speaker 3: mentioned the margin matters, and then its possible, and then
Speaker 3: I actually wrote a non money related book. It's a memoir. Actually,
Speaker 3: it's a co I co authored it with a Hall
Speaker 3: of Fame ncaa softball coach who coached at Kittasauw State.
Speaker 3: He asked me to help him write it. So that's
Speaker 3: a sports related memoir. But all through those books, I
Speaker 3: wrote all through those books, and in about two or
Speaker 3: three years time, I was working them all simultaneously. But yeah,
Speaker 3: they're all self published. The difference is if you self published,
Speaker 3: you're going to get a much higher percent royalties versus
Speaker 3: if you go with a publishing company. But there's pros
Speaker 3: and cons of both, right, so if you sign with
Speaker 3: a publishing company, you're going to get a much smaller
Speaker 3: percent of royalties. There's different ways of doing it. Like
Speaker 3: a lot of our friends of FINCN that I've met
Speaker 3: at the author table, they'll say, hey, this publisher just
Speaker 3: cut us a check. They just gave us whatever. They
Speaker 3: gave us ten thousand dollars to write this book and
Speaker 3: that was it. That was their payment. That there was
Speaker 3: no royalties on the back end or anything. There's different
Speaker 3: ways to do it to set it up. But the
Speaker 3: thing is, so if you go with the publisher. They're
Speaker 3: doing all the work too. They're marketing it, the promoe,
Speaker 3: voting it, doing the public relations, social media, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: They're doing the work, except for.
Speaker 1: In the modern era podcast you if you want your
Speaker 1: book to sell, you still got to get out there
Speaker 1: and be marketing it too. That's right.
Speaker 3: You have to do a lot of work too. You
Speaker 3: have to come on big shows like How to Money,
Speaker 3: quote yourself. You have to be a self promoter.
Speaker 1: We got our fingers crossed that you get you'll get
Speaker 1: that bump, yeah, exactly. But the publishers aren't just putting
Speaker 1: you on the Time Square billboard because you're great.
Speaker 3: I mean no, no, And so when you self published,
Speaker 3: like you're right, Joe, you're doing all of the work yourself.
Speaker 3: You're doing the marketing, the promotion. It's just really it
Speaker 3: just depends on you know, everybody's situation is different. For me,
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't really you know, I was you know,
Speaker 3: these all started out actually as grad school projects. Really
Speaker 3: so I'm getting course credit for this, and I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, I'd really like to publish this.
Speaker 1: So I really didn't have any.
Speaker 3: Connections to you know, big there's not a whole lot
Speaker 3: of big publishing companies anymore.
Speaker 1: And not anymore consolidated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've consolidated, and a lot of people just do
Speaker 3: ebooks because it's cheaper and easier to do. I mean,
Speaker 3: a lot of people publish ebooks to Amazon, and you know,
Speaker 3: you'll see thirty page books that are published on Amazon
Speaker 3: and like this this is a book. They'll sell them
Speaker 3: for ninety nine cents or whatever. But but you know,
Speaker 3: there's different ways of doing it that you can do
Speaker 3: audio books, you can do uh, you know, paperbacks, card backs,
Speaker 3: you can do digital e books, you know, Kindle versions.
Speaker 3: So that's what's cool about the digital age that we
Speaker 3: live in now, too, is you can actually edit, Like
Speaker 3: like if I wanted to go and add a new
Speaker 3: chapter to my book, I can add that chapter and
Speaker 3: re upload it to Amazon, and now I have a
Speaker 3: new version of my book. That's cool as opposed to
Speaker 3: the old the olden days, where you know, you published
Speaker 3: a book and that's it. Like a newspaper. The newspaper
Speaker 3: is published. If there's a mistake in it, oh well
Speaker 3: it's out there. It's out there, and there's nothing that
Speaker 3: we can done. So those are some of the you know,
Speaker 3: I guess comparisons between the two. I have a lot
Speaker 3: of friends that have done both. You know, if you
Speaker 3: if you're with a publisher, you might only be making
Speaker 3: three percent royalty, so that means you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: sell like millions of copies of books to you know,
Speaker 3: even make There's another stat only six percent of published
Speaker 3: authors earn a living. You know, like you're JK. Rowling
Speaker 3: and you're you're James Patterson, you know, Tom Clancy. There's
Speaker 3: very few Stephen King, There's very very few of those
Speaker 3: that are Actually I'm a full time author and that's
Speaker 3: my salary. That's very difficult to to do it.
Speaker 1: Plus I hear all those guys are weird as anyway
Speaker 1: in real life.
Speaker 3: That may be true. That's how they get their stories.
Speaker 2: Uh well, Jason, Man, this has been an enlightening conversation. Obviously,
Speaker 2: folks can go to Amazon. They can you know, we
Speaker 2: can link to your name where they can find your
Speaker 2: author's bio and where they can look at check out
Speaker 2: all the different books that you have written. But is
Speaker 2: there a specific place that folks can go like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's share your website.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, the best place to go is my website
Speaker 3: is your Marginmatters dot com and on my homepage there's
Speaker 3: a link to my books. There's actually have a YouTube channel,
Speaker 3: so if you're frugal like me and you don't want
Speaker 3: to pay for one of my books, you can watch
Speaker 3: all my my YouTube videos for free, because that's all
Speaker 3: the cond it straight out of my books. So I
Speaker 3: have a YouTube channel there, I have a link to
Speaker 3: my books. I've written some blogs on there as well,
Speaker 3: and there's some other resources on there on my website
Speaker 3: that I like to share with people too.
Speaker 1: Well. You also write at how toomoney dot com on
Speaker 1: the rig so people if they're like, oh, I like
Speaker 1: that Jason guy, well you can go to how to
Speaker 1: money dot com and you can read more Jason stuff too.
Speaker 1: So Jason, we're glad to have you as a friend,
Speaker 1: glad to have you write and doing this work alongside
Speaker 1: us as well. And thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3: Man, thanks for having me and I just on a
Speaker 3: personal note, I really appreciate everything that you guys do
Speaker 3: for the money nerd community out there. I know you're
Speaker 3: helping a lot of people and I just want to
Speaker 3: say I really appreciate everything you guys do and keep
Speaker 3: up the good work, don't stop.
Speaker 1: We will do our best. Thanks Jason. Joel.
Speaker 2: All right, so yeah, Jay, we just said by to Jason,
Speaker 2: and of course you've got to take a minute to
Speaker 2: give our big takeaways. By the way, are you and
Speaker 2: are you and Jason going to go close shopping here soon?
Speaker 1: Well, we were just talking about having guys. There's all
Speaker 1: the big intall stores, but what about just like tall,
Speaker 1: skinny weirdos, tall guys. They don't have stores for us
Speaker 1: for something. But yeah, what is your big takeaway from
Speaker 1: our conversation with Jason Brown? For some reason, when early
Speaker 1: on when he was talking about the value proposition of
Speaker 1: a degree and kind of doing some sleuthing before you
Speaker 1: actually like, uh, you decide where you're gonna go and
Speaker 1: what kind of degree you're gonna get, And he said,
Speaker 1: maybe even hire a career coach. Dude, you stole. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I love I'll pivot. No, that was so good because
Speaker 1: an expert can, like that little bit of money spent
Speaker 1: on the front end can help you avoid a massive money.
Speaker 2: Mistake and years it's sort of like just changing like
Speaker 2: imagine like the smallest little pivot like at the axis
Speaker 2: of something over time that has a huge change, like
Speaker 2: as you as you move something right.
Speaker 1: Like a giant ship, changing the coursia of the rudder,
Speaker 1: just to exactly imagine a rudder.
Speaker 2: It seems like such a small little tweak, a small pivot,
Speaker 2: a small change, and then all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: ship is going in an entirely different direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that was gonna I was gonna mention that,
Speaker 2: and just honestly, as parent, I think we can start
Speaker 2: having some of these discussions with our kids earlier, which
Speaker 2: seems kind of ridiculous. I literally remember my dad talking
Speaker 2: about that maybe when I was thirteen or something like that.
Speaker 1: But I think you're supposed to do it in utero. Matt,
Speaker 1: you're too late.
Speaker 2: But you were saying that, like, hey, it's not too
Speaker 2: soon to start thinking about what you want to do.
Speaker 2: And I guess I just didn't take it seriously. And
Speaker 2: there's a certain level of maturity I think that also
Speaker 2: is required for you to maybe take that seriously and
Speaker 2: to start thinking about what you actually want to do.
Speaker 2: But by the time I went to college, luckily I
Speaker 2: had scholarship and I went in state, but I spent
Speaker 2: a couple of years foundering, trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: it was that I wanted to do, and had I
Speaker 2: been able to zero in and focus on my area
Speaker 2: of study, it's okay to even say pay a little
Speaker 2: bit more for college. Certainly try to avoid debt as
Speaker 2: much as you can. It is possible, like Jason proved,
Speaker 2: but it would be worth it if you knew that
Speaker 2: that was one hundred percent the direction that you were
Speaker 2: going to go. But man, going through the process of
Speaker 2: discovery and trying to figure things out, that's an expensive
Speaker 2: way to go about that, especially if you don't have scholarships,
Speaker 2: especially if you're going out of state, constantly changing majors,
Speaker 2: having a retake class. It was literally every year I
Speaker 2: was in a different school. I went from the science
Speaker 2: and then I hopped over to Terry for with business,
Speaker 2: and then Franklin for ours. Like eventually I ended up
Speaker 2: in journalism over at Grady, which honestly kind of ironic
Speaker 2: considering I didn't think I'd end up being a podcaster.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I think that was that was great,
Speaker 2: But I wasn't really a career path at that point, right,
Speaker 2: Nobody could have coached in that direction, certainly was I
Speaker 2: think maybe there were a few those.
Speaker 1: Pipes are amazing. You really going to this not yet
Speaker 1: invented medium. Yeah, yeah, so that was great.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned that. My big takeaway, I'll go
Speaker 2: ahead and also mentioned and the ability ability to duel
Speaker 2: and en roll. I think that's something that should be
Speaker 2: on parents' radars a little bit sooner. I'm a little
Speaker 2: torn between the concept of like rushing through high school,
Speaker 2: you know, and kind of like, I don't know, there's
Speaker 2: a certain element of growing up too fast that kind
Speaker 2: of not rubs me the wrong way. But I'm I'm
Speaker 2: certainly going to be careful about that. But I think
Speaker 2: there are happy medium approach. I want prolonged adolescents, but
Speaker 2: you also don't want to like rush it so much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've graduated at college at the age of nineteen, and
Speaker 2: sure you're not as fully formed as a human and
Speaker 2: you miss out on some of the other experiences at
Speaker 2: college and even just the learning because yes, sure, maybe
Speaker 2: you placed out of certain classes because you're smart, or
Speaker 2: you're able to cram and pass via certain exams and
Speaker 2: placement placement exams, but were you able to actually absorb
Speaker 2: that knowledge where you Is that going to stick with you?
Speaker 2: Are you going to be able to retain that. I
Speaker 2: think that's something to consider. You want to pay attention
Speaker 2: to the financials and be thinking about that, But at
Speaker 2: the same time, we don't want to all try to
Speaker 2: fast track our kids.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to know what our kids are
Speaker 1: capable of. So I think the one other thing that
Speaker 1: Jason said that I thought really struck me was when
Speaker 1: he said, basically said, debt does not have to be
Speaker 1: a part of life, and we've kind of grown accustomed,
Speaker 1: We've noualized it. Yeah, we normalized it so much where
Speaker 1: it's by now pay later. Like fifteen years ago, people
Speaker 1: have been like, what that's going to get in bended,
Speaker 1: That sounds crazy, and now I was like, Ah, it's
Speaker 1: just old hat, and so every day that's how people
Speaker 1: buy stuff and it doesn't have to be You said,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of midwestern, it sounds kind of old school,
Speaker 1: and it does. But what sounds kind of quaint is
Speaker 1: probably the best way for you to be less stressed
Speaker 1: about your money and to be making more progress.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get to our beer. We enjoyed
Speaker 2: a profit maker. This is a dry hop pale.
Speaker 1: Ale by burial. What we were thoughts on this one, Buddy,
Speaker 1: pale ales, they're lighter than IPA's. They're not quite as
Speaker 1: dense and don't have quite as much body, But this
Speaker 1: one still had a bunch of hops, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely like a lighter medium for conveying those hops. So
Speaker 1: it kind of tasted like I've never actually like stuck
Speaker 1: my head in the clouds and stuck my tongue out,
Speaker 1: but it tasted kind of like that.
Speaker 2: If if I were to do that, what I imagine
Speaker 2: it would taste like. It tastes like rain water. It
Speaker 2: tastes like snow. You see snow, and it's like the
Speaker 2: most beautiful thing, Like for some reason you think it's
Speaker 2: going to be sweet, but it's just like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: rainwater that's frozen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No. It certainly had that hoppy presence, grassy, It had
Speaker 2: like a grassiness to it, but with that lighter body.
Speaker 2: It's the perfect kind of pale ale, perfect kind of
Speaker 2: beer to enjoy on a warmer day like today. But yeah,
Speaker 2: glad you and I got to enjoy those today, and
Speaker 2: that is gonna be it. We'll make sure to link
Speaker 2: to where you can learn more about Jason up on
Speaker 2: the website. At howdomoney dot com.
Speaker 1: We would have let Jason give a beer review, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't like beer. He's not a drinker, so yeah,
Speaker 1: he loves coffee and you know what, less on the
Speaker 1: beer friend, we're still his friend. Yeah, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a buddy until next time. Best friend's out, best friends out,