Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing is college worth it? It's college
Speaker 1: worth it? Man? That is a controversial question, wouldn't you
Speaker 1: say so? Yeah? I think in today's day and age,
Speaker 1: so people are like college for some folks at the end,
Speaker 1: all be y'all, it's necessary. How could you even think
Speaker 1: about not going to college? But then we've also seen
Speaker 1: what it's done to people. It's almost with mounting student
Speaker 1: loans and stuff like that, and it's become a burden
Speaker 1: on a lot of people's backs. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's almost the sacred cow where it's like,
Speaker 1: don't you dare question college? Like you know that there's
Speaker 1: benefit to it. And that's the thing. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: say that there isn't a benefit with going to college, right,
Speaker 1: But the question that we're going to try to answer
Speaker 1: is is it actually worth it? Because there are some
Speaker 1: drawbacks it comes to going to college, we're gonna cover
Speaker 1: those and we're gonna mention some factors to consider when
Speaker 1: you aren't trying to decide whether or not to go
Speaker 1: to college, whether or not to pursue that higher degree
Speaker 1: and we know that our audience is in all fifteen
Speaker 1: and sixteen year old Matt, So this episode is going
Speaker 1: to be applicable for people thinking about going back and
Speaker 1: getting another degree, yeah, nba, yeah, getting some higher education, like,
Speaker 1: well is that meaningful? Will that actually help me? Or
Speaker 1: for parents of kids who are looking to steer their
Speaker 1: kids towards an intelligent decision. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff we're gonna cover here is gonna be good
Speaker 1: food for thought as you're having those discussions, because that's
Speaker 1: one thing that a lot of parents have a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble doing, is starting that conversation with their kid
Speaker 1: or letting them down when it comes to hey, actually
Speaker 1: that's gonna cost too much and it's gonna be bad
Speaker 1: for you in the end. But hold up, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about that actually later on too. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: all right, so but before we get to that, Matt,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to see this thing I got in
Speaker 1: the mail for my Niecean Leaf. It was just this
Speaker 1: quick little mailer, and dude, it was kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 1: This ominous looking mailer that is trying silly looking. It
Speaker 1: kind of silly looking, and really, ultimately, what is trying
Speaker 1: to do, is is trying to sell me an extended
Speaker 1: warranty from my car, And it says, in this kind
Speaker 1: of legally sort of type, this notice is to inform
Speaker 1: you that your niece on leaf is in need of
Speaker 1: vehicle protection in order to ensure it's continued safe operation.
Speaker 1: It says, our records indicate that you have not contacted
Speaker 1: us to have your auto warranty activated. By neglecting to
Speaker 1: activate your coverage today, you assume responsibility for paying repairs
Speaker 1: in full out of pocket. Call Now it's it's just hype,
Speaker 1: and it would be enough to scare a lot of
Speaker 1: people into calling the number, paying the money and getting
Speaker 1: some sort of who knows whether it's even a good
Speaker 1: car warranty. It could be some third party trying to
Speaker 1: sudd me something that's complete trash. Almost guarantee it's to
Speaker 1: not be a good policy based on their marketing tactics.
Speaker 1: The way it's written, it almost makes it sound like
Speaker 1: that literally, like the tires are gonna fall off from
Speaker 1: car right if you don't mail that thing back to them. Yes,
Speaker 1: safe operation of your vehicle isn't gonna happen if you
Speaker 1: don't call us number, like your brakes might give out
Speaker 1: if you don't send us back. Who knows. And I
Speaker 1: know most of us are used to getting less and
Speaker 1: less stuff in the mail and something like that. We
Speaker 1: most of us see that and we kind of know
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous. But that's the kind of stuff that's that's
Speaker 1: the kind of over the top ways that people are
Speaker 1: trying to sell you things these days, and in particular,
Speaker 1: something that's completely unnecessary or potentially completely worthless. And we
Speaker 1: haven't really talked about car warranties on the show before Matt,
Speaker 1: and it's something that we should cover at some point,
Speaker 1: but for the most part in particular, third party car
Speaker 1: warranties are almost always worthless. Yeah, man, you know what
Speaker 1: it makes me think of as well is private mortgage
Speaker 1: life insurance. So if you've ever purchased a home, right
Speaker 1: after you close on your home, no kidding, like a
Speaker 1: week later, you'll start receiving these mailers and they'll have
Speaker 1: the logo of your lender or the bank that you
Speaker 1: went with, and you think, oh, this looks like something
Speaker 1: I need to definitely look at, and they're basically trying
Speaker 1: to sell you life insurance and it's crappy. Life insurance
Speaker 1: is because it's life insurance that's typically way overpriced, and
Speaker 1: it's a policy that directly goes towards the lender. Actually, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: bypasses your family and it just takes scare of the
Speaker 1: bank so that your family, I guess they can in
Speaker 1: the house because the home will be paid for at
Speaker 1: that point. Right, but typically, but it's terrible. But basically
Speaker 1: you are paying money every single month to ensure the lender,
Speaker 1: not yourself, and it's I mean, it's just absurd insurance.
Speaker 1: But you get all these the same thing. It's final notice,
Speaker 1: and it's totally that fear marketing where they're praying on
Speaker 1: you not knowing exactly what's going on, and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I can afford to pay a couple
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month just so I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about this thing anymore. Well, that's not something that
Speaker 1: we would at all recommend. So make sure that you're
Speaker 1: paying close attention to what's showing up in your mailbox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when in doubt, throw it out and just put it
Speaker 1: in the trash recycling. Is that a saying okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard of the round filing cabinet, right, like the
Speaker 1: trash can. Oh yeah, it's like classic office talk. Let
Speaker 1: me just file that in the round the color file there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: circular file tells you how long it's been since I've
Speaker 1: been in a corporate environment. You don't make those jokes
Speaker 1: to yourself when you're working alone every day. Nope, not
Speaker 1: at all. Kate's like, why is he giggling in there?
Speaker 1: You must have told himself in the funny jokes. I
Speaker 1: think Matt's at the water cooler by himself. All right,
Speaker 1: let's mention the beer that we're having on the show today.
Speaker 1: The kind folks at Saint Archer Brewing out of California
Speaker 1: have sent us a couple of beers to have on
Speaker 1: the show, and this one is their Mexican lagger. So
Speaker 1: I'm excited to try this one. This is most definitely
Speaker 1: a style that we've never had on the show before,
Speaker 1: most associated with beers like Corona, right right. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: there are some good Mexican loggers out there, man, And
Speaker 1: if I had to think that some good ones, if
Speaker 1: I had, if I had to pick my favorite right
Speaker 1: off top of my head, Negro Modelo. That is such
Speaker 1: a good Mexican logger. I'm a huge fan. But it's
Speaker 1: just not something to be in the mood for it though, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, But yeah, I'm excited to have a Mexican
Speaker 1: logger because it's not a style that we try often.
Speaker 1: And you know what, you and I we've been getting
Speaker 1: more and more into laggers, because that is true. They
Speaker 1: do have a completely different feel on your palette. And
Speaker 1: we're usually drinking just incredibly hopped up or fruited up
Speaker 1: beers or bourbon merril aged. I was like, they're drinking
Speaker 1: another hazy I p a right boy. Right, So you
Speaker 1: know we're dialing back, going a little more chill today
Speaker 1: with this beer variety. It's important. It's the spice of life,
Speaker 1: That's what they say, all right, Joel, you want to
Speaker 1: kick off the topic for this episode. Yeah, onto the
Speaker 1: subject at Handmatt. We're talking about is college worth it?
Speaker 1: The price of college has gotten steep and the return
Speaker 1: on investment isn't as clear cut as it was decades ago,
Speaker 1: So it does beg the question. I feel like we
Speaker 1: have to discuss this topic. Is college worth it? Is
Speaker 1: getting a degree from a traditional academic institution the best
Speaker 1: course for high school kids going forward? Well, I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nuance in the conversation, Matt that
Speaker 1: needs to be had, Like we touched on at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show, and we'll touch on some of
Speaker 1: those important things that you need to consider before you
Speaker 1: decide to go back to school or as you have
Speaker 1: that conversation with your high school or employers even see
Speaker 1: how bad it is, Matt. I just saw an article
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal saying that in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, basically the number of employers offering student
Speaker 1: loan assistance has doubled. Essentially, they see the problem that's
Speaker 1: happening with their employees and it's affecting how they do
Speaker 1: their jobs, even having higher levels of student loan debt.
Speaker 1: And so employers are incentivizing their employees to pay down
Speaker 1: their student loans by contributing more to their retirement accounts
Speaker 1: if they will up the amount that they're paying towards
Speaker 1: their student loans. There are cool ways that employers are
Speaker 1: helping tackle this problem. But it is a problem, right
Speaker 1: And if you just look at a simple inflation chart
Speaker 1: over the past twenty or thirty years, you'll see so
Speaker 1: many things have gone down in price in our country.
Speaker 1: The price of groceries or the price of TVs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Consumer goods have have fallen off a
Speaker 1: cliff really in large part, but the cost of healthcare
Speaker 1: in particular and college have risen just immensely and it's
Speaker 1: almost become unaffordable for a lot of people. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it is insane. And let me tell you another insane number.
Speaker 1: The total outstanding student loan debt totals now over one
Speaker 1: point six trillion dollars. Do you just think of the
Speaker 1: staggering effect that this is having on our generation. Folks
Speaker 1: are possibly delaying marriage or you know, buying a home
Speaker 1: and even having kids. It's crazy to think of the
Speaker 1: financial sort of ramifications that it's having on just sort
Speaker 1: of our lifestyle. Yeah, it's had a massive cultural influence because, yeah,
Speaker 1: the debt that people have taken on, it just basically
Speaker 1: prolongs adolescence and moving into adulthood is something that will
Speaker 1: lot of people want, right they want to own their
Speaker 1: own home, or they want to start a family, or
Speaker 1: they want to get married, but they feel like, because
Speaker 1: of the student loan debt, that they're riddled with their
Speaker 1: unable to do that. Yeah. Yeah, essentially it makes it
Speaker 1: even more difficult to kind of move on to that
Speaker 1: next stage in life. And as bad as that situation is,
Speaker 1: let me tell you just like an even worse case scenario,
Speaker 1: which is the student loans without a degree to show
Speaker 1: for it. That can put you in a really difficult
Speaker 1: position of having loan payments without that increased income possibilities.
Speaker 1: So a quick word to the wise, make sure that
Speaker 1: you are working hard while you're in school and don't
Speaker 1: drop out. Yeah, yeah, that is literally when you look
Speaker 1: at the biggest issues with student loans that people are having,
Speaker 1: the people that are most affected by increased student loan
Speaker 1: debt are the people that don't have a degree and
Speaker 1: don't have increased income to go along with that, but
Speaker 1: they do have the student loans, but they have the
Speaker 1: student loan still, so they're still typically stuck making a
Speaker 1: lower wage, but they're also saddled with more monthly debt payments.
Speaker 1: So it's really tough. But let's get onto some good news, Matt.
Speaker 1: The stats also show that college is worth it for
Speaker 1: most people. A college degree will typically result in higher
Speaker 1: lifetime earnings. The median income of someone with a high
Speaker 1: school degree is only forty bucks, while it's seventy eight
Speaker 1: thousand for someone with a college degree. So even with
Speaker 1: these massive student loan debt payments, the discrepancy clearly means
Speaker 1: that a college degree is helpful in your lifetime earning power,
Speaker 1: and the more you earn, the more you can save
Speaker 1: and invest. So I think that's something really important to note.
Speaker 1: Is we're not going to be bashing college here, and
Speaker 1: I think ultimately we're gonna come down somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: But it's really important to note that if you do
Speaker 1: complete the degree and it helps you find a better
Speaker 1: paying job, that going to college can be worthwhile for
Speaker 1: for lots of folks. Yeah, and another reason we're not
Speaker 1: going to bash college is because you won't even have
Speaker 1: a shot at many jobs without getting a college degree.
Speaker 1: If you have hopes and dreams of a specific career,
Speaker 1: make sure that you know what sort of education that
Speaker 1: career requires, you know, if any, before taking expensive courses.
Speaker 1: That being said, even with the planning, almost three out
Speaker 1: of four graduates they work in a field completely unrelated
Speaker 1: to their degree, and so in this case, you'll need
Speaker 1: to decide for yourself if the sort of secondary benefits
Speaker 1: of higher education are still going to be worth it
Speaker 1: to you. You know, we'll get to some of those
Speaker 1: intangible you know what we'd call like sort of bonus
Speaker 1: benefits a little later on in the show. Ultimately, once
Speaker 1: you know the career path you'd like to pursue, be
Speaker 1: sure and keep that end goal in mind. If you
Speaker 1: don't do well in school and you graduated at the
Speaker 1: bottom of your class, that can make it more difficult
Speaker 1: to get into grad school if that's your ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: And even if it just takes you a little bit
Speaker 1: longer to graduate, well, you're accruing more debt along the
Speaker 1: way while you're in college, and then you're delaying the
Speaker 1: benefits of having that degree at the same time. So
Speaker 1: if it takes you five or six or seven years,
Speaker 1: which is not uncommon these days, to graduate from college,
Speaker 1: you're accruing more debt along the way, you're adding to
Speaker 1: your student loan debt burden, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're delaying the start of your career, which is the
Speaker 1: time where you're gonna be able to start paying that
Speaker 1: debt off. So it's important to stay focused while you're
Speaker 1: in school because the quicker you can get that agreed,
Speaker 1: that's gonna help get you on the road, get you
Speaker 1: to that place of essentially starting a career. Well, that's
Speaker 1: going to make a huge difference, because the longer you take,
Speaker 1: the less it makes sense to actually go to school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to prove that we're not hating on college completely, Joel,
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. Do you regret going
Speaker 1: to college. I do not regret going to college. I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm so glad I did proof, but I will
Speaker 1: say I will say I might have a different spin
Speaker 1: if I had a hundred thousand dollars and student loans
Speaker 1: on my back, and I was I was fortunate. I
Speaker 1: went to a private school for the first two years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you know, it wasn't a really great private school.
Speaker 1: Pretty much anybody can get in there. But you know,
Speaker 1: I racked up about thirteen dollars worth of student loan
Speaker 1: debt there and I decided on purpose to come back
Speaker 1: to my home state because there was In Georgia, we
Speaker 1: have the Hope Scholarship, and other states have something similar.
Speaker 1: You're out of state, Yeah, we talked. We talked about
Speaker 1: this before Tennessee, New York. Other states have these awesome
Speaker 1: benefits for for folks to get a college degree for free,
Speaker 1: and the Hope scholarship still offered in the state of Georgia.
Speaker 1: I think it's changed a little bit since I went,
Speaker 1: But basically I could go to school for free, and
Speaker 1: uh and so I came back and I decided that,
Speaker 1: you know what, thirteen thousand dollars was all I was
Speaker 1: going to accrue and got the rest of my education
Speaker 1: for free. But I might feel different about my education
Speaker 1: if I had a hundred thousand dollars in student loan
Speaker 1: debtor or some or anywhere close to that. What about
Speaker 1: you know, I don't regret it at all, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally worth it. This is the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: maybe when I was younger, I would have said that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't need to go to college, Like in your youth,
Speaker 1: you say things where you regret because you've gotten older
Speaker 1: and wiser. Teenage ast yeah, well not teenage, but I
Speaker 1: mean in your twenties, you know, like early twenties I was.
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this before. I think I was kind of
Speaker 1: brain damaged until I turned twenty three years old. But
Speaker 1: even around twenty three and twenty six, I remember thinking, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't need to go to college, like what I
Speaker 1: am doing now. I didn't go to school four necessarily
Speaker 1: it was somewhat related, but it was along a very
Speaker 1: different path than what I had gone to school. Four,
Speaker 1: Like we said earlier, three out of four graduates are
Speaker 1: you know, working in the field completely unrelated to the
Speaker 1: you know what they got their degree. And that's where
Speaker 1: I was. I was in my mid twenties. I was
Speaker 1: doing something that I felt I could have done actually
Speaker 1: straight out of college. But with there being more time
Speaker 1: between then and now, I've learned that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of additional benefits, a lot of things that I learned,
Speaker 1: a lot of things I gained through college other than
Speaker 1: that specific bachelor's degree that I received. Yeah, you know, sometimes, Matt,
Speaker 1: I feel like college acts as like one of those
Speaker 1: gates that you pull your car up to. You gotta
Speaker 1: insert the ticket, you gotta pay your money, the gate
Speaker 1: opens up in your you can take your car out
Speaker 1: of the parking garage. I feel like college is often
Speaker 1: something kind of similar. It's it's not that you don't
Speaker 1: learn useful skills, and it's not that you don't make
Speaker 1: useful connections. That's certainly true in college. I I think
Speaker 1: I learned useful things, But at times it can feel
Speaker 1: like it's some of the things that I actually needed
Speaker 1: to learn though to do my current job. I learned
Speaker 1: upon my internship, like that was actually more of an
Speaker 1: education for me than my college classes at times. And
Speaker 1: so I think sometimes it can feel like it's just
Speaker 1: that gate. You have to pay the money in order
Speaker 1: to get through this hurdle so that you can apply
Speaker 1: for certain jobs that are otherwise off limits to you.
Speaker 1: So I think that's one aspect that needs to be
Speaker 1: mentioned in regards to college, that sometimes it is like
Speaker 1: just this barrier to entry and if you don't have
Speaker 1: the degree, well you're not going to get into that
Speaker 1: career that you're aspiring to. But really, Matt, the costs
Speaker 1: are at the heart of this. That is a huge
Speaker 1: part of it. The shows how the money we talk
Speaker 1: about money and the costs associated with going to school
Speaker 1: are a huge thing that needs to be considered in
Speaker 1: this debate. Is college worth it? And we'll get to
Speaker 1: that right after the break. All right, Joe, we are
Speaker 1: back from the break, and we're asking the question is
Speaker 1: college worth it? And e t s to the cost
Speaker 1: of college? That is an important consideration. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the money. Now, going to college doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you have to graduate up to your eyeballs in debt.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different options than taking on
Speaker 1: massive amounts of student loan. You can go to a
Speaker 1: community college for the first two years. You can scour
Speaker 1: the web and apply for dozens of different scholarships and
Speaker 1: even choosing a lower cost in state option. Uh. Those
Speaker 1: can all be crucial in the college cost benefit analysis.
Speaker 1: And you know what, don't forget about grants that are
Speaker 1: up there as well. What you really need to do
Speaker 1: is just look at you know what your state has
Speaker 1: to offer. We talked about this a second ago, Joel.
Speaker 1: You mentioned how Georgia, how you've got the Hope Scholarship.
Speaker 1: Tennessee they offered two years of college for free to
Speaker 1: all high school graduates. Right now. New York they have
Speaker 1: a tuition free program that is available to lots of
Speaker 1: people called the Excelsior Scholarship. There are a ton of
Speaker 1: different tactics that you can sort of employ in order
Speaker 1: to get the cost of college down. Joel. We're planning
Speaker 1: a full episode on ways to do that, Ways to
Speaker 1: minimize the cost of college coming up in the next
Speaker 1: couple of months. But just know that the first step
Speaker 1: that you can take to make college worth it is
Speaker 1: to actually get a deal, try to try to get
Speaker 1: the cost down. I completely agree. Yeah, I think if
Speaker 1: you're spending too much, like I said, like, is my
Speaker 1: degree worth it? Well, it depends on the number I
Speaker 1: paid for it. And if the student loanedbt on my
Speaker 1: back is a hundred thousand dollars, then no, my degree
Speaker 1: wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth that. But if the
Speaker 1: amount of debt on my back when I graduated was
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars, then then yeah, it was a slam dunk.
Speaker 1: It was a great deal. And so you mentioned cost
Speaker 1: benefit analysis, man, I think that is such a key
Speaker 1: thing to to think about in this debate, and it's
Speaker 1: important to run the numbers. It's important to consider, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are the costs and what are the benefits associated
Speaker 1: with with getting this degree? And I think it's just
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people, maybe it hasn't even
Speaker 1: entered their brain, hadn't even entered their radar to to
Speaker 1: do one of those with their kids or for themselves
Speaker 1: when they're thinking about going back to school, because that
Speaker 1: can be make or break, that can be the yes
Speaker 1: or no, that can be the primary factor, right, the
Speaker 1: actual costs associated with it in making a wise decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds a little heartless on us, right to be like,
Speaker 1: all right, what's this gonna be worth? You know, like
Speaker 1: how much of my putting in? How much am I
Speaker 1: getting out? It's like a mechanism almost because college college
Speaker 1: feels like hopes and dreams, you know, like it's like
Speaker 1: I want to achieve this, but even still you have
Speaker 1: to take this into account. Yeah, exactly. I think there's
Speaker 1: a balance between finding ways to monetize college, right, like
Speaker 1: you're actually looking at how much you're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to make, but like finding a balance between that along
Speaker 1: with like where do I really want to go to school?
Speaker 1: Like wherever I had my dreams my hopes would have
Speaker 1: said on you know, like if you only are thinking
Speaker 1: about your hopes and dreams, well, shoot, you could end
Speaker 1: up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars paying out the
Speaker 1: nose going to you know, one of the ivys or
Speaker 1: at the other end of the spectrum, if you're only
Speaker 1: looking at the dollars and cents, well that's not at
Speaker 1: all enjoyable. It kind of feels like, you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, kind of heartless. I think there's a balance
Speaker 1: that we can strike where we are being money conscious,
Speaker 1: but we're also really excited about the school that we
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to attend. Yeah, I completely agree. On
Speaker 1: top of being thoughtful about the the actual specific university
Speaker 1: we go to, I think it's really important to talk
Speaker 1: about which degree we choose. All college degrees are not
Speaker 1: created equal and Matt when we had Christie Shannon, I
Speaker 1: believe that was episode one eighteen, and Christie mentioned her
Speaker 1: her brilliant strategy for thinking about which degrees are worth
Speaker 1: it or not, and she called it a pot score
Speaker 1: or pot what you know what, whichever you prefer. But
Speaker 1: it's like pay over tuition. Basically, she's creating like a score,
Speaker 1: like a ratio in order to gauge the cost of
Speaker 1: going to school versus what that degree is going to
Speaker 1: end up paying. Yeah, it's so important to actually be
Speaker 1: realistic about the potential salary you can earn based on
Speaker 1: the degree that you're getting and also based on the
Speaker 1: amount of debt and the amount of time that it's
Speaker 1: going to take you to get that degree. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the most interesting things in that particular
Speaker 1: part of the conversation with Christie She was saying that
Speaker 1: even like the jobs of doctors and lawyers, they don't
Speaker 1: really rank highly on the pot score because they cost
Speaker 1: so much and they take so much time to get
Speaker 1: those degrees that you're better suited going in other directions
Speaker 1: in order to kind of maximize your earning potential. That
Speaker 1: that's not to say that like, if you really want
Speaker 1: to be a lawyer, you can't do well, but it's
Speaker 1: just something to keep in mind. And you have to
Speaker 1: be even more conscious if you choose something like that
Speaker 1: about the costs and about the debt that you're accruing
Speaker 1: along the way while you're getting one of those degrees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to make sure that you're passionate about that, right,
Speaker 1: because it's not all about the money, because if you
Speaker 1: are only looking at the dollars and cents, well, that's
Speaker 1: where the plumber and the electrician. The master electrician pot
Speaker 1: score is, you know, better than that of a doctor.
Speaker 1: And so if your passion happens to be being an electrician, well,
Speaker 1: guess what, you're probably gonna make a pretty good living.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna have a ton of debt. So that's
Speaker 1: why a surprising number of trades actually score higher on
Speaker 1: the pot score than lawyers and doctors. Another thing to
Speaker 1: consider once you are actually in school is to make
Speaker 1: sure that you don't forget about the extracurriculars. The other
Speaker 1: things that you pursue while you're in college can make
Speaker 1: you stand out in an interview situation and can make
Speaker 1: your college experience incredibly worthwhile. Like my intense bad mitten
Speaker 1: skills totally paid off worth it. I brought that up
Speaker 1: in the interview and they were like, sold, you're hired
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, so, you know, maybe it wasn't bad mitton.
Speaker 1: But if you were a president of the college association,
Speaker 1: well that's gonna make you stand out. You know. Did
Speaker 1: you take electives that were beneficial to your career path
Speaker 1: or did you just take history of rock and roll,
Speaker 1: which is what I did. And you know what, you
Speaker 1: don't have to do that because there's podcasts for that. Now.
Speaker 1: You can listen to the History of rock and Roll
Speaker 1: in free podcast form. Don't take the class exactly, and
Speaker 1: so and so I enjoyed it, but and maybe oh
Speaker 1: I thought this was just an example. You actually took
Speaker 1: this class? No, no no, yeah, I actually took the History
Speaker 1: of rock and Roll at Georgia and you know, I
Speaker 1: learned a lot and it was really interesting and I
Speaker 1: think it's made me a more well rounded person. But
Speaker 1: how much did that actually further my career or you know,
Speaker 1: at least the career that I've been in the past
Speaker 1: ten years, Like, how has that helped that? Uh? Maybe none,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it helped out at trivia night, you know,
Speaker 1: here and there just maybe some of that rock and
Speaker 1: roll history. And this isn't to say don't take any
Speaker 1: fun classes at all while you're in school, but make
Speaker 1: sure that you're taking a balanced approach between you know,
Speaker 1: what we'd call maybe personal enrichment courses and courses that
Speaker 1: are going to be more career path options for you.
Speaker 1: Look beyond the bare minimum requirements though to get your degree, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can't just show up, take the basic classes, barely
Speaker 1: get your degree and expect to graduate from college and
Speaker 1: have a job just completely land in your lap. It
Speaker 1: kind of goes back. It's I mean, it's economics essentially,
Speaker 1: Like more and more folks are taking out loans in
Speaker 1: order to go to school, and so there's this flood
Speaker 1: of college graduates in the job market and that makes
Speaker 1: that degree that much less valuable to folks, which is
Speaker 1: why folks are pursuing even higher levels of education, right,
Speaker 1: like higher degrees. But if you are making the most
Speaker 1: of your college experience with extracurriculars, with the classes that
Speaker 1: you're taking, maybe it's a liner ways to make you
Speaker 1: stand out. Well, that's definitely gonna be a way to
Speaker 1: make college worthwhile. Yeah, I agree. And another way to
Speaker 1: really make yourself stand out on the application front, but
Speaker 1: also help you as you're trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: you want to do while you're in school is to
Speaker 1: pick up relevant part time work or do an internship
Speaker 1: over the summer in an industry that you want to
Speaker 1: be a part of. Not only does that experience give
Speaker 1: you a leg up when you're trying to land that
Speaker 1: first job, right seeing work experience is one of those
Speaker 1: crucial things that employers want. And so many people graduate
Speaker 1: from college without any because they never did an internship
Speaker 1: and never took part time work in the field. But
Speaker 1: if you can do that, you've got a leg up
Speaker 1: on most of the people that you're applying against. But also,
Speaker 1: like I said, it allows you to get a fuel
Speaker 1: for that industry before committing for complete years worth of
Speaker 1: tuition towards that degree. How much better would it be
Speaker 1: to realize that you don't really actually want to be
Speaker 1: an industrial engineer right after just your freshman year because
Speaker 1: you did an internship that summer after versus at the
Speaker 1: end of four years of schooling. That is nice to
Speaker 1: know ahead of time. And I know, Matt, for me
Speaker 1: that my internship, I I credit my internship with so
Speaker 1: much in where I'm at in my career. Literally, the
Speaker 1: place where I interned is the place I still work
Speaker 1: thirteen years later. You're a lifer, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been there a long long time now. And the gold
Speaker 1: Watch yeah yeah. Well, and a lot of the skills,
Speaker 1: like I said that I learned that that were necessary
Speaker 1: I learned in the internship. And if I had just
Speaker 1: graduated with a degree, without that history with the company
Speaker 1: and without the skills I picked up during that internship, man,
Speaker 1: I would have been a flop in the job market.
Speaker 1: I really think. I mean that was that was crucial
Speaker 1: for me, and it was completely unpaid. It's not like
Speaker 1: I made any money, but it was still like the
Speaker 1: most valuable thing I've ever done. Yeah, that's one thing
Speaker 1: I'll credit certain tech schools with I went to U
Speaker 1: g A, and so I don't want to credit Georgia
Speaker 1: Tech with anything basically except for being bad football exactly.
Speaker 1: But they their internship programs, like in Georgia Tech and
Speaker 1: just the different technical schools like like Clemson. I know,
Speaker 1: when you can go to school for a semester and
Speaker 1: then intern for a semester. They've got that system where
Speaker 1: you kind of bounced back and forth. That is so
Speaker 1: stink and art man. I think that's just brilliant because
Speaker 1: for all the reasons you said, it just gives students
Speaker 1: an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience in the actual
Speaker 1: field before graduating and before kind of being thrown out
Speaker 1: into the wild, you know, expected to land yourself a job.
Speaker 1: But Joe, I need to admit, while you had an
Speaker 1: amazing internship experience right where you you know, you got
Speaker 1: an internship and that landed you the job you know
Speaker 1: that you've been at for the more than the past
Speaker 1: ten years. I didn't intern and instead I did fun
Speaker 1: things like work at summer camps up in the woods
Speaker 1: of North Carolina. Because that was awesome at the time.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, I don't regret that at all. Well,
Speaker 1: that's honestly, that's good stuff just for building yourself right
Speaker 1: as you're pouring into other people, your your self enrichment
Speaker 1: that we're kind of talking about earlier. If that stuff
Speaker 1: is honestly is is just as good in so many ways.
Speaker 1: On a resume as an internship. I'm saying it's probably
Speaker 1: good idea to do both. Yeah, Well, that that's what
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, is that having that balance, I
Speaker 1: think is incredibly important. While yeah, there's a lot that
Speaker 1: I learned. There's a lot of self enrichments from you know,
Speaker 1: being at this awesome you know boys outdoor summer camp.
Speaker 1: There's a lot that you learned, you know, if when
Speaker 1: it comes to leadership and just like life skills and
Speaker 1: like survival skills being in the woods, like backpacking with
Speaker 1: these third graders, but taking a more balanced approach because
Speaker 1: I got to the end of my senior year and man,
Speaker 1: I didn't really have a plan. Whereas my roommate he
Speaker 1: had interned that I think the previous two summers, uh,
Speaker 1: both times in New York within the advertising industry, and
Speaker 1: guess what, man, he had a job lined up ready
Speaker 1: to go, and I remember thinking, crap, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go back up to North Carolina for another summer and
Speaker 1: have a blast. But after that, I've got no clue
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna be doing. And so, like so many
Speaker 1: things in life, and like so many things we say
Speaker 1: on this podcast, I think taking a balanced approach to
Speaker 1: that is the most important thing to do. On that note,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're looking for kind of some guidance,
Speaker 1: if you're not sure what it is that you want
Speaker 1: to do, if if you're lacking a little bit of direction,
Speaker 1: I think he can be helpful to to meet with professors,
Speaker 1: to actually go to their office during office hours. How
Speaker 1: many students completely disregard that they don't even think about
Speaker 1: going to see a professor to ask some questions. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you can get hooked up with so many different
Speaker 1: things and that can be such an enriching experience, not
Speaker 1: only relationship building, but they have access to internships, jobs,
Speaker 1: so many different things on campus that could be beneficial
Speaker 1: to you in in growing your resume and growing your
Speaker 1: possible future career. So yeah, meeting with professors that you
Speaker 1: feel connected to, that you feel like can be really
Speaker 1: helpful in that process. And also, don't forget to visit
Speaker 1: your college's career services department, and don't wait until your
Speaker 1: senior year. Be thinking about your future employment while you're
Speaker 1: in the process of getting your degree. And if your
Speaker 1: college has a career services department, that can be so
Speaker 1: helpful in helping you to assess potential possibilities. And Joel,
Speaker 1: so you just mentioned senior year. Now imagine you're kind
Speaker 1: of in that final semester you're looking towards job opportunities, right,
Speaker 1: Be careful though, of that first job that you take
Speaker 1: after graduation. Oftentimes your most recent job experience right out
Speaker 1: of school, that can be defining and it can hurt
Speaker 1: job opportunities moving forward. More than graduates take a job
Speaker 1: that doesn't require a degree, and one in five of
Speaker 1: those are still in that boat ten years later, you know,
Speaker 1: And maybe you love your job, and so you don't
Speaker 1: have any plans to leave that job even if it
Speaker 1: didn't require a degree. But just be aware that a
Speaker 1: lot of times that first job that can sort of
Speaker 1: set the course of your career. Yeah, man, And and
Speaker 1: it's not even just in regards to pay, it's in
Speaker 1: regards to what you want to do. And so my
Speaker 1: first job out of school was for another radio station
Speaker 1: down the street that I worked at for a while,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, it was part time and it
Speaker 1: wasn't for very much money. But I was like, this
Speaker 1: is what I want to do that. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: to get my foot in the door. Do it. Within
Speaker 1: two weeks, the morning show radio producer quit and I
Speaker 1: was this green, like twenty one year old kid, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I can do it. I'll do it.
Speaker 1: And I probably did a terrible job, but I learned
Speaker 1: so much and I still got paid very little, but man,
Speaker 1: it was like this perfect thing to have on my resume.
Speaker 1: It was this perfect growth opportunity. And I could have
Speaker 1: settled for something that made me more money in a
Speaker 1: field that I just didn't care about, or that still
Speaker 1: used my degree, but it wasn't what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: But that first step was so important and it doesn't
Speaker 1: take long. Man. Sometimes you gotta pay your dues and
Speaker 1: it's kind of and you might have to spend a
Speaker 1: year or two kind of work in that morning show
Speaker 1: shift that sucks and completely ruins your your sleep habits.
Speaker 1: You might have to do something like that in order
Speaker 1: to kind of get where you want to go. And
Speaker 1: for for me, it was totally worth it. What time
Speaker 1: did you have to get up for for that show? Gosh,
Speaker 1: so it was the show was on from five to eight,
Speaker 1: but I had to be there at like three fifteen.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I probably would have been fired because
Speaker 1: I would have rolled in at like four or five,
Speaker 1: thinking I was there earlier. But it's like no, man,
Speaker 1: like the show started, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're fired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so early. And you know we mentioned advanced degrees, right,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing, they are even a bigger gamble.
Speaker 1: Pursuing an m b A. Getting your masters or doctorate
Speaker 1: can be expensive and often it doesn't result and that
Speaker 1: higher salary that you hoped it would. Obviously, you're likely
Speaker 1: to see that bumping salary if you're getting your m
Speaker 1: d or you know, your j D going to law school.
Speaker 1: But for the rest of the advanced degrees out there,
Speaker 1: make sure and know that you'll be making more. If not,
Speaker 1: and you still want that degree, just accept the fact
Speaker 1: that you're going to get that degree for yourself. It
Speaker 1: might be worth it to you, right, but it's not
Speaker 1: gonna be worth it from a dollars and cents standpoint. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that is a difficult thing to weigh. Right. If
Speaker 1: you know you're taking on a lot of student loan
Speaker 1: debt and you're gonna have to be paying on that
Speaker 1: for for quite a long while, then how do you
Speaker 1: justify the value proposition if it's something you're doing for
Speaker 1: personal enrichment and that is something that you kind of
Speaker 1: have to figure out for yourself. I mean, really, we're
Speaker 1: kind of talking more about the nuts and bolts of
Speaker 1: spending money to make money when it comes to college.
Speaker 1: But there are certainly some people who decided to go
Speaker 1: back and get a degree because it's really really meaningful
Speaker 1: to them, and that I completely understand. But in that
Speaker 1: vein mat I would also tell people to to think
Speaker 1: about investing in themselves through some awesome free avenues out there.
Speaker 1: It doesn't always take going back and paying to get
Speaker 1: a forty or fifty education. There's so many ways that
Speaker 1: if you're just doing it for personal enrichment, that you
Speaker 1: can get access to that information elsewhere and avoid the
Speaker 1: fty price tag. Yeah, Juel, you may not have you
Speaker 1: know those letters by your name by taking courses online,
Speaker 1: some courses online for free, but a lot of times
Speaker 1: you will have the you know, those gained skills like
Speaker 1: the increased skill set for free by taking classes online.
Speaker 1: I just made up my own letters and put them
Speaker 1: next to my name, and people are like, oh, like
Speaker 1: I must be smart. It works out really well. How
Speaker 1: do money, jewel ABC? It's like, well that those are
Speaker 1: the first three letters I thought of X Y if
Speaker 1: I'm down. Something I am excited that we're gonna discuss
Speaker 1: too is whether or not a degree is necessary for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get to that right after the break.
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, we're back and we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship here in just a second. Do folks that want
Speaker 1: to be entrepreneurs need a degree? That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: But first, Matt, let's talk about the intangible benefits of college.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's something that we know deep down
Speaker 1: in our head that the college experience wasn't all about
Speaker 1: the degree. It was about the friendships we made. It
Speaker 1: was about all these other intangible things that are kind
Speaker 1: of hard to put your finger on, especially when we're
Speaker 1: talking about a cost benefit analysis. Right, These benefits that
Speaker 1: it's it's really hard to put on paper. It's really
Speaker 1: hard to assign a dollar amount of value with are
Speaker 1: are still beneficial are still really important in your college experience, right, So,
Speaker 1: so one is the connections that you end up making,
Speaker 1: the friends in the network that you make while you're
Speaker 1: in school, Well, they're not only fun. You're not only
Speaker 1: creating lifelong friendships from your college experience, but those connections
Speaker 1: can have employment ramifications immediately after school and then further
Speaker 1: down the road in life. And in my mind, man,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the number one intangible of college.
Speaker 1: As you grow your friend group in school, you're also
Speaker 1: kind of creating your first network really of folks that
Speaker 1: you might reach out to later on or that might
Speaker 1: reach out to you. It's funny. I work with a
Speaker 1: couple of people that I went to college with actually
Speaker 1: at the station that we're getting the degree. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I was these are friendships to kind of
Speaker 1: stick with you. There are people that you're gonna see
Speaker 1: throughout your career as you work in the same field.
Speaker 1: And those are just meaningful, important relationships that are forming.
Speaker 1: And if you don't go to college, you don't get that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know that that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: colleges often tout right, like they're always talking about the
Speaker 1: alumni network. I'm constantly getting things from Georgia basically trying
Speaker 1: to get everyone to stay connected. And it's so true,
Speaker 1: right like, even from an entrepreneur standpoint, not a job opportunity,
Speaker 1: but as the business owner man, so many of the
Speaker 1: initial jobs that we received were because of the friendships
Speaker 1: that we had made, right, these connections, And so it
Speaker 1: doesn't just apply to you know, the corporate world where
Speaker 1: you're looking, you know, for someone to make an introduction
Speaker 1: to their boss, you know, for a position that's opening up,
Speaker 1: but it also applies to you if you're gonna hang
Speaker 1: your own shingle, they might actually hire you because of
Speaker 1: those relationships, and that obviously is incredibly valuable. Yeah, another
Speaker 1: kind of intangible benefit of going to college is the
Speaker 1: secondary skills that you learn. College can teach you interpersonal skills,
Speaker 1: it can teach you work ethic, and it can teach
Speaker 1: you how to wake up early. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: mat those A A M classes they were a pain.
Speaker 1: Were they're prepping you for that four am wake up call? Uh?
Speaker 1: They didn't quite prep me for that. It took a
Speaker 1: lot of just inner strength really to get me through that.
Speaker 1: But seriously, what time are you going to bed in
Speaker 1: order to get up at three in the morning. Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was terrible. I would try to go go to
Speaker 1: bed at ten uh and and wake up at at
Speaker 1: like two, but still like five hours of terrible. I
Speaker 1: would have to take a nap every day, a couple
Speaker 1: hour nap every afternoon. It was just the worst schedule
Speaker 1: for your health. Man, It's it's not healthy. I felt
Speaker 1: like a zombie most of the time. But but those
Speaker 1: secondary skills, man, I feel like those expand your horizons
Speaker 1: and they can help teach you how to learn, which
Speaker 1: is such a crucial skill for future growth. We do
Speaker 1: learn how to learn as kids and teenagers, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot different when you're without your parents, without your
Speaker 1: high school teachers who are getting after you to study
Speaker 1: and do well. When you're in college, you're in a
Speaker 1: hundred person lecture hall, you quickly learn whether your motivations
Speaker 1: have been internalized or whether they're purely external. And so
Speaker 1: I think, Matt, you're kind of putting yourself to the
Speaker 1: test in college in this way, and not that not
Speaker 1: be doing the same thing if you skip college and
Speaker 1: you go straight into kind of a forty hour work week.
Speaker 1: But there's this element where you are able to develop
Speaker 1: these these secondary skills as you're going to school, not
Speaker 1: just the primary reason you're going of of of learning,
Speaker 1: of getting a degree, but it's those secondary things that
Speaker 1: that are kind of growing you as a person at
Speaker 1: the same time. And let's not forget to mention that
Speaker 1: college it's fun, right, Like fun is a terrible reason
Speaker 1: to take on just a boatload of debt, but that
Speaker 1: college experienced. Man, This college years are so memorable, right,
Speaker 1: But something to consider though, is like a gap year
Speaker 1: spent traveling and working abroad that could give you something
Speaker 1: really similar or maybe even better. But Matt, I completely
Speaker 1: resonate with this note. College was so much fun. I
Speaker 1: feel like I was always going out on the weekend
Speaker 1: with some friends to go for a hike, or play
Speaker 1: some really really crappy golf course, or play some disc golf,
Speaker 1: or just the ridiculous stuff that you do, you know,
Speaker 1: between classes. Completely like, I'm looking back now and I think, man,
Speaker 1: life was so easy back then. Once you get into
Speaker 1: the real world and you have responsibilities in a job
Speaker 1: where you're waking up at two forty five on the
Speaker 1: morning to go to work, you think, man, I was
Speaker 1: such a wuss for thinking in eight am class was early, right,
Speaker 1: because that's the boat I was in. Man, I didn't
Speaker 1: sign up for any eight am classes after my freshman
Speaker 1: year because I had such a difficult, such a hard
Speaker 1: time getting to them, so spoiled. But a lot of
Speaker 1: that has to do with the fun experiences that you
Speaker 1: do have, and so I don't want to discount those
Speaker 1: countless hours of of having a blast, all right. Best
Speaker 1: example for me of having fun in college with my
Speaker 1: with my friends was one time it's snowed on campus.
Speaker 1: My buddy Travis had a pair of skis. So what
Speaker 1: we did was we had a fifty ft electrical cord.
Speaker 1: We slammed one end in the back of my trunk,
Speaker 1: we held the other end, put the skis on, and
Speaker 1: we drove my old school Toyota Cameray all the roads
Speaker 1: around campus and we did skiing at like and it
Speaker 1: was it was so much fun. It's that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that like only happens in college, that kind of
Speaker 1: like ridiculous stupid creativity. Yeah, man, I would have been
Speaker 1: right there with you if I was at the same
Speaker 1: school as you, and I've got a similar story. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe unfortunate that both of our memorable
Speaker 1: stories have to do with an automobile mixed with something
Speaker 1: that should not be associated with an automobile. Do we
Speaker 1: need to insert a disclaimer here? Yeah, I used to
Speaker 1: do this thing again, going back to the early classes.
Speaker 1: I would sleep right up until like a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes before my class would start. And I lived really
Speaker 1: close to campus, and I lived up hill from campus,
Speaker 1: and so what I could do is literally roll out
Speaker 1: of bed, throwing our shirt, grab my bag, stumble outside,
Speaker 1: half asleep, get on my bike, and start peddling in
Speaker 1: the direction that I know I needed to go. But
Speaker 1: so what I learned was that my roommate he was
Speaker 1: also going to class at the same time, but he
Speaker 1: had to drive because he had a class, you know,
Speaker 1: on the complete other side of campus. It just worked
Speaker 1: out better for him, and we got into the habit
Speaker 1: of doing this thing where I would ask him for
Speaker 1: what I would call a toe, and he would roll
Speaker 1: down the passengers side window in his car and I
Speaker 1: would grab onto the side of his car and he
Speaker 1: would take off and we would go zooming down the
Speaker 1: hill and we would hit thirty miles per hour, and
Speaker 1: that momentum would pretty much take me all the way
Speaker 1: to the student learning center without having a pedal, So
Speaker 1: that will also wake you up really quick, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and get the journaline flowing. I would show up at class,
Speaker 1: you know, with that one blown Look. It was great
Speaker 1: Now that we're in our mid thirties, were so much wise,
Speaker 1: But we would never do something stupid like that, or
Speaker 1: would we? Man? Back then, I wasn't even wearing a
Speaker 1: helmet either like that. That's another thing that was so dumb. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: that's the thing when you're in your like late teens,
Speaker 1: early twenties, like you just make a lot of stupid decisions.
Speaker 1: And those were a couple of ours. But you know
Speaker 1: what good memories we made it through. Yeah yeah, all right, Matt,
Speaker 1: let's talk about win college doesn't make sense. I think
Speaker 1: it barely made sense for us based on the stories
Speaker 1: that we just felt him right, right, But I think
Speaker 1: it must be said if you're Bill Gates or your
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, that in college doesn't make sense for you
Speaker 1: for sure, Right, just keep tinkering in your parents garage
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But for real, most people aren't going
Speaker 1: to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. You're not going
Speaker 1: to start the next behemoth tech company. But there are
Speaker 1: some reasons to bypass a college degree, and let's talk
Speaker 1: about those now, Matt. One is if you really want
Speaker 1: to pursue entrepreneurship in particular, I think it makes a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense if you take a gap year
Speaker 1: and you give yourself a little bit of an opportunity
Speaker 1: to see where that year takes you before you decide
Speaker 1: to enroll in higher education. So if you're taking that
Speaker 1: year after school and you're using it as an ability
Speaker 1: to kind of let your creative mind flow and give
Speaker 1: yourself an opportunity to start something, I think that can
Speaker 1: be a really interesting way to at least see whether
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship is a better idea for you than going to school.
Speaker 1: I completely agree and resonate with that. Right, Like, we
Speaker 1: are so oftentimes so booked that we don't have the
Speaker 1: time to be creative and to like sort of allow
Speaker 1: our minds to wander where we can pursue something that
Speaker 1: we're really excited about. But you know, you you just
Speaker 1: mentioned Steve Jobs and and Bill Gates. They didn't know
Speaker 1: that they were going to create these massive companies, right,
Speaker 1: But what they did know, though, is that they loved
Speaker 1: electronics and computers, and that became their focus. When you
Speaker 1: have such a clear vision of what it is that
Speaker 1: you want to do, it may not be necessary to
Speaker 1: spend the time and money in undergrad exploring your options
Speaker 1: and learning something that you might already know how to do.
Speaker 1: Those guys are outliers. But for every Steve Jobs, there
Speaker 1: might be thousands of folks who know that they want
Speaker 1: to say, get into real estate. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be really smart, you don't have to be
Speaker 1: a genius to to get into real estate. Hey, take
Speaker 1: it from true non geniuses. You are in real estate,
Speaker 1: dable in real estate. And for every Mark Zuckerberg out there,
Speaker 1: there are gonna be countless of folks who already know
Speaker 1: how to take amazing photos, or they know how to
Speaker 1: sell a cool innovative product, or they know how to
Speaker 1: build great websites. Right, and you can do all of
Speaker 1: those things without a degree. So I guess what we're
Speaker 1: sort of getting out here is that, like, you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily need to have a degree in order to be
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, You don't need a degree if you already
Speaker 1: have focus. Yeah, man, I completely agree. I think you
Speaker 1: know it would be interesting to bring our friend Grant
Speaker 1: Sabatier back on the show. We had him on quite
Speaker 1: a while back, and he wrote a great book called
Speaker 1: Financial Freedom. But I've heard him tell the story about
Speaker 1: starting to make websites for a law firm I believe
Speaker 1: it was, and he just he made one and they
Speaker 1: liked it, and they paid him like way too much
Speaker 1: money to make a second one, and so he just
Speaker 1: kind of was like, oh, wait, this is a really
Speaker 1: good place for me to be this is a good
Speaker 1: space for me to be in just making websites for people.
Speaker 1: He kind of learned it on the fly and decided
Speaker 1: to and after doing one he started to develop the
Speaker 1: knack for doing it well. And it's just kind of
Speaker 1: one of those things where if you do allow that time,
Speaker 1: if you do give yourself an opportunity, if you search
Speaker 1: for that opportunity, entrepreneurship, that word has kind of taken
Speaker 1: on a lot of baggage, I think over time. Really
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur is being a go getter and trying
Speaker 1: things out and seeing what sticks. And so yeah, for Grant,
Speaker 1: he tried something out and it's stuck and it ended
Speaker 1: up doing well for him for a long time. And
Speaker 1: I think if you're willing to at least give it
Speaker 1: a shot, than someone who truly desires to take that
Speaker 1: entrepreneur route, well, and they might be better or served
Speaker 1: by not getting a college degree. Also, let's say you
Speaker 1: have a different kind of smarts and skills. If you
Speaker 1: prefer to work with your hands, a trade school or
Speaker 1: apprenticeship might be best for you. You can grow a
Speaker 1: whole lot in your job in those four years that
Speaker 1: your peers are in school. So instead of griding to
Speaker 1: that idea that you have to go to college, look
Speaker 1: at the type of work that you enjoy. Heck, you
Speaker 1: might be like a master plumber or a master electrician
Speaker 1: by your mid twenties and have zero debt hanging over
Speaker 1: your head, making a really good living in the exact
Speaker 1: sort of profession that interests you. It's just all about,
Speaker 1: kind of like what you're into. We're all created differently,
Speaker 1: we all have different things that were Like I'm like,
Speaker 1: I could not be an electrician man if I went
Speaker 1: over to do this, Like, I would not take this
Speaker 1: advice for myself because it's just not something I'm skilled at.
Speaker 1: I'm not really good with my hands. I have a
Speaker 1: little better with my mouth, like, that's just kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's what I was gifted with, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna use what's the radio path? Yeah, there
Speaker 1: we go. So that's like the that's that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use. But I think it is important to to
Speaker 1: assess your own smarts, your own skills, like what are
Speaker 1: you good at and kind of let that determine the
Speaker 1: path that you take, because for a lot of folks,
Speaker 1: college makes the most sense, but for for a lot
Speaker 1: of other folks it doesn't. And one other time that
Speaker 1: a college degree may not make sense for you is
Speaker 1: if your degree costs too much money. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: be graduating with more debt than you can hateal, you
Speaker 1: should reconsider student loan debt can haunt you. You can't
Speaker 1: get rid of it even in bankruptcy, So make sure
Speaker 1: that you are proceeding with caution, and a good rule
Speaker 1: of thumb to consider is to not take out a
Speaker 1: debt load that is going to be higher than you're
Speaker 1: expected to first your salary, and make sure that you're
Speaker 1: being realistic as well, right, like, don't set yourself up
Speaker 1: for failure by you know, envisioning the most optimal high
Speaker 1: salary that's sort of out there. And so for instance,
Speaker 1: like a journalism major, they make them out thirty eight
Speaker 1: thousand dollars on average. So make sure that you're not
Speaker 1: taking out more than thirty eight thousand dollars for that
Speaker 1: journalism degree in undergrad Yeah, no matter how fun those
Speaker 1: four years are and no matter how fulfilling the work is.
Speaker 1: When you get out of school and you start your career, well,
Speaker 1: if you have a job that's gonna pay you around
Speaker 1: thirty eight thousand dollars in your salary is probably gonna
Speaker 1: rise at the rate of inflation. Well, if you have
Speaker 1: nine thou dollars in student loan debt, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: such an albatross or around your neck that it's gonna
Speaker 1: put a stain a blight on those years that you
Speaker 1: were in school and on the actual day to day
Speaker 1: of of what you're doing. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: why that's such an important rule of thumb for people
Speaker 1: to to really heed, to really pay attention to. Don't
Speaker 1: take out a debtload that is higher than you're expected
Speaker 1: first year salary. That's going to keep you in that
Speaker 1: range where you can actually afford the payments on that
Speaker 1: student loan debt and it's not going to have an
Speaker 1: insanely negative impact on your quality of life. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this next point is going to go out to all
Speaker 1: the parents out there, or maybe all the soon to
Speaker 1: be parents, But start having the conversation about, you know,
Speaker 1: the burden that student loans can create, so that your
Speaker 1: kid can make an informed decision. Don't saddle them with
Speaker 1: the expectation of going to college, especially without preparing them
Speaker 1: financially or at least, you know, giving them the financial
Speaker 1: knowledge to know how to approach student loans and to
Speaker 1: look at them, you know, in a reasonable way. Just
Speaker 1: think about like when your kid turns sixteen and they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're looking at cars. Well, if you ask
Speaker 1: them maybe what car that they want, they're gonna say
Speaker 1: some amazing car that might cost a lot of money
Speaker 1: that goes really fast that you know, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a terror idea for sixteen year old. Granted that this
Speaker 1: is a maybe a bad analogy, right because a car
Speaker 1: is not the same thing as a college education. A
Speaker 1: college education you are investing in yourself, whereas a car
Speaker 1: just depreciates. But that being said, we label college and
Speaker 1: higher education as this sort of golden thing that it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter, Like you can forget the costs and
Speaker 1: you know, the cost don't matter. You're investing in yourself
Speaker 1: that sets you for the rest of your life. So
Speaker 1: what we are saying though, is that it is important
Speaker 1: to consider the costs. We need to be reasonable with
Speaker 1: how we're taking on student loans and the financial implications
Speaker 1: that they have on our futures. Yeah. Man, I think
Speaker 1: one thing I would say to the parents in kind
Speaker 1: of the conversations with their kids surrounding college and future
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, if I'm creating a recipe, I
Speaker 1: would say, three quarters of a cup of hopes and
Speaker 1: dreams and one quarter of a cup of let's be
Speaker 1: real about the cost. If you can kind of put
Speaker 1: that in and and mix it in a bowl, that's
Speaker 1: going to be your best recipe for for educating your
Speaker 1: kid and also inspiring them at the same time, helping
Speaker 1: them to see that they can achieve something great, that
Speaker 1: the job they truly aspire to is within their grasp,
Speaker 1: but that there are also just really smart ways to
Speaker 1: go about it where they're not completely mortgaging their future
Speaker 1: in order to do that. But so, yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: three quarters of the hopes and dreams one quarter of
Speaker 1: the dose of reality when it comes to the cost
Speaker 1: of school and talking about the cost benefit analysis of
Speaker 1: what this education is going to mean. In my mind,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a good way to to think about
Speaker 1: your conversations going forward. Nice man, I like your your
Speaker 1: little recipe there. I'm like the Polladine of talking about
Speaker 1: college costs. All right, let's takeet back to the beer
Speaker 1: we had, Mexican Lagger, which is a beer by st
Speaker 1: Archer out in California. What were thoughts on the beer mat? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I've never challenged myself to sort of dissect what sort
Speaker 1: of Mexican style Lagger tastes like. Right, so this is
Speaker 1: certainly the most thought that I think I've ever given
Speaker 1: to a beer in the style. But that being said,
Speaker 1: because it's a Logger, it kind of does have that
Speaker 1: sort of rice aroma, kind of got like a fresh
Speaker 1: pot of rice going on. It just has a certain
Speaker 1: smell to it, And I little up in your house, dude,
Speaker 1: I love rice. This perspects your childhood, it does, but
Speaker 1: it's like this rice aroma and it kind of has
Speaker 1: this dry weedingness, and there's also like this dry bitterness
Speaker 1: as well. That kind of reminds me of like a
Speaker 1: rubbery bouncy ball, you know, like when you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you go to the mall and you kind of
Speaker 1: have those multi colored bouncy balls or face from sort
Speaker 1: of pink to blue, and they bounced super high. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I got in trouble in the aisles playing with those
Speaker 1: things the time. What's the deal? You drop it once
Speaker 1: and it bounced the straight up, but then the second
Speaker 1: bounce always shoots it like forward, and then it bounced
Speaker 1: straight up again, and then it shoots forward again. It's
Speaker 1: something like they just seemed to go like all every
Speaker 1: which one. I can never figure out how it did that.
Speaker 1: I think it was something with a spin, but it
Speaker 1: always fascinated me anyway. But you know the way that
Speaker 1: those balls smelled, that's what Mexican loggers sort of remind
Speaker 1: me of, you know what I'm talking about? Um maybe,
Speaker 1: oh no, I tell't no true. Like I thought, finally
Speaker 1: I was gonna break through and you're gonna agree with
Speaker 1: me on this sort of weird tasting palette. No, man,
Speaker 1: you have you have a palette that is completely unique,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that about you. I did not get that,
Speaker 1: but but maybe it's Honestly, it could be that my
Speaker 1: tongue is completely unrefined. I don't think it's refinement. I
Speaker 1: think I just put everything from my chidhood in my mouth,
Speaker 1: so I know I know what things like as a kid.
Speaker 1: Well that's good to know, how about you? So all right, Well,
Speaker 1: first off, I'm not completely sure what the differences between
Speaker 1: a Mexican logger and an American logger. Actually looked it up,
Speaker 1: and everybody kind of has their own take on what
Speaker 1: the difference is, and it doesn't seem that there's much
Speaker 1: consistency in it. But I thought this was a pretty
Speaker 1: tasty little logger. It was dry, it was clean, It
Speaker 1: tasted like the air south of the border. It um
Speaker 1: it really was, man, it was it was really nice.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. Like we mentioned at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show that loggers or something that we're drinking a
Speaker 1: little bit more of because we are drinking so many big, bold,
Speaker 1: just kind of crazy beers, which I love. I don't
Speaker 1: often get tired of them, but but every once in
Speaker 1: a while, like my neighbor brought me a farmhouse logger
Speaker 1: the other day, and it was just it hit the spot. Man.
Speaker 1: It was so good because it was it just gave
Speaker 1: my mouth kind of like a break, you know. It's
Speaker 1: just really a nice little palate cleanser. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: these little notes in there that I can really appreciate
Speaker 1: without it being over the top and just like putting
Speaker 1: my tongue into like some like stranglehold, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was fun taste, this tongue a nice break
Speaker 1: from the ordinary. So yeah, thanks to the folks at
Speaker 1: st Archer for sending this br away. All right, Joel,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and share some final thoughts and sort
Speaker 1: of in summary, if you do decide to go to college,
Speaker 1: just make sure that you are doing everything you can
Speaker 1: to lessen your eventual debt load while at the same
Speaker 1: time maximizing the impact that higher education will have on
Speaker 1: your career. At times, it might be tough to kind
Speaker 1: of find and strike that balance, but I think if
Speaker 1: you can sort of enter college and complete college with
Speaker 1: that in the forefront of your mind, you're going to
Speaker 1: be in a much much better place financially. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I think if we're asking the question is college worth it, well,
Speaker 1: the answer is actually in every individual's hands. Really because
Speaker 1: the price point, the earning potential in the experience is
Speaker 1: going to be different for every single one of us
Speaker 1: as we're determining where we go and what we want
Speaker 1: to do and what we want to study. So is
Speaker 1: college worth it? Well, the answer is truly in how
Speaker 1: you go about it. Like I said, if my college
Speaker 1: degree came with a much much higher price tag, then
Speaker 1: it likely would not have been worth it. And so
Speaker 1: running a cost benefit analysis and figuring out how you
Speaker 1: can lessen the cost while increasing the value that is
Speaker 1: going to be a recipe that makes college worth it
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks that want to pursue a
Speaker 1: traditional higher education as their path. All right, buddy, I
Speaker 1: think that's gonna do it for this episode, and we
Speaker 1: will have show notes up on our website at how
Speaker 1: to money dot com. We've also got some other articles
Speaker 1: up there, so take a look. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If you want to support our show, we would love
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Speaker 1: When you leave a review, and when you give us
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Speaker 1: us tremendously, and much thanks in advance. Alright, buddy, until
Speaker 1: next time, Best friends asked friends out