Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 2: Today we're talking about apprenticeships, how to earn and learn
Speaker 2: simultaneously with Ryan Craig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the notion that an individual could earn a
Speaker 1: living while simultaneously learning how to do their job is
Speaker 1: such a foreign concept, you know, Like, that is not
Speaker 1: how we do things here in America. It takes money
Speaker 1: to make money, baby, That's how we do it here.
Speaker 1: You've got to go to the most expensive college. You
Speaker 1: got to take on boat loads of student loans, saddle
Speaker 1: yourself with years of debt if you want a decent job.
Speaker 1: These days, some of the most man selective universities, they're
Speaker 1: quickly approaching the one hundred thousand dollar mark for a
Speaker 1: single year of college. And while we are fans of
Speaker 1: investing in yourself, like, it just definitely looks like we're
Speaker 1: approaching a tipping point. Nothing literally has risen faster than
Speaker 1: the price of college over the decades. But what if
Speaker 1: there was another way? And we're joined by education and
Speaker 1: workforce expert Ryan Craig, who says that there are alternatives.
Speaker 1: His book Apprentice Nation explores how a modern apprenticeship system,
Speaker 1: how that will allow students and job seekers to jumpstart
Speaker 1: their careers by learning while they earn, leading to greater
Speaker 1: workforce diversity and geographical mobility. So Ryan, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us today on the podcast to talk about this.
Speaker 3: Great to be here. Matt in Jill appreciate it. And
Speaker 3: you know, to your point about one hundred thousand dollars college.
Speaker 3: The New York Times just wrote a piece a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago calculating that Vanderbilt University is the first
Speaker 3: where if you add the room board and fees to tuition,
Speaker 3: and then you add in the cost of a couple
Speaker 3: flights a year to and from school, you're over one
Speaker 3: hundred grand built.
Speaker 1: There, you go.
Speaker 2: Sounds cheap to me, Ryan On, I mean, what's the
Speaker 2: big fuss come on a bit of money?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Is it grows on trees?
Speaker 2: I just pick it out in my backyard. The first
Speaker 2: question we ask everybody who comes on the show, by
Speaker 2: the way, Ryan, is what their craft beer equivalent is.
Speaker 2: Matt and I spend more money than some people think
Speaker 2: it's sane on craft beer. But we're day, we're doing
Speaker 2: the right stuff at the same time, saving and investing
Speaker 2: for a future. So what's that for you, what's your
Speaker 2: kind of equivalent splurge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm afraid it's not as going to be as
Speaker 3: interesting as craft beer. I'm a runner, and I don't
Speaker 3: have that much time between my work and my my
Speaker 3: writing and my policy nonprofit work. So I like to
Speaker 3: when i'm running be able to catch up on TV
Speaker 3: shows that I've missed. And so even though I live
Speaker 3: in LA I run in my basement on a treadmill,
Speaker 3: and I have the top of the line treadmill.
Speaker 4: That I have splurged.
Speaker 3: So most people will have like a consumer couple of
Speaker 3: thousand dollars maybe treadmill mind costs a lot more than that,
Speaker 3: but I use it and I love it.
Speaker 2: So okay, so you're running in you're catching up on entertainment.
Speaker 2: Does it have some sort of like twelve inch screen,
Speaker 2: like this beautiful display that's automatically.
Speaker 3: Desc beautiful screen. Yeah, big beautiful screen right in front
Speaker 3: of it. Surround sound, it's great.
Speaker 1: Oh treadmill? What's the round sound? Baby? Okay, So what's
Speaker 1: the deal by Dolby? You know, I see these treadmills
Speaker 1: that are curved? Is yours like that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What are those treadmills?
Speaker 4: All? It's not I don't understand that either. That looks looks.
Speaker 1: Painful, Okay, you and me both. I don't know what
Speaker 1: those what those are for, but let's dive into it.
Speaker 1: You wrote a book about faster, cheaper alternatives to college
Speaker 1: before your current book about apprenticeships. But there is obviously
Speaker 1: a clear thread between the two. Why is this area,
Speaker 1: why is this domain so important to you?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I've made my career in higher education.
Speaker 3: My first job twenty five years ago was at Columbia University,
Speaker 3: which has had.
Speaker 4: A difficult, difficult month. I don't say.
Speaker 1: They've been in the news.
Speaker 3: Since then, I have helped build universities, worked at universities,
Speaker 3: worked with universities, build companies that partner with universities, and
Speaker 3: have a love for higher education. The challenge that we have,
Speaker 3: of course, is that we're facing a three part crisis
Speaker 3: in higher education, and that has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: the protests. The first is a crisis of completion. So
Speaker 3: only about half of students who matriculate into a college
Speaker 3: or university actually complete the programm or degree that they
Speaker 3: set out to complete. So that's a problem. We have
Speaker 3: the highest rate of matriculation among developed countries, so we
Speaker 3: have great access, but we have the lowest rate of completion,
Speaker 3: and some community colleges it can be as low as
Speaker 3: fifteen percent. Then we have a crisis of affordability. So
Speaker 3: the one hundred thousand dollars degree is one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a year degree is nigh. But you know, beyond that,
Speaker 3: the average student who takes on student loans, which is
Speaker 3: about seventy percent of all students, if they complete and graduate,
Speaker 3: they're graduating now with about fifty thousand dollars in student
Speaker 3: loan debt. And no other country has that kind of issue,
Speaker 3: settling its young people with that much debt as they're
Speaker 3: trying to launch their careers. And then third is employability.
Speaker 3: You know, if every student graduated into a sixty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a year job, they'd be able to support that
Speaker 3: kind of student loan debt. But Strata just put out
Speaker 3: a new study last month showing that fifty two percent
Speaker 3: of recent grads are underemployed in their first jobs, which
Speaker 3: means that they probably could have gotten those jobs without
Speaker 3: the investment of time and money in those degrees. And
Speaker 3: we know that if you're underemployed in your first job.
Speaker 3: Two thirds of the time you're underemployed for five years later.
Speaker 3: Half the time you're under employed a decade later. Right,
Speaker 3: careers are path dependent, and so something is not working.
Speaker 3: And I think that the fundamental change is that the
Speaker 3: economy has been transformed. Digital transformation has changed the economy,
Speaker 3: changed the jobs we all do. We're all using technology
Speaker 3: in our jobs. Many of us are actually working in.
Speaker 4: The tech sector.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the programs of study, if
Speaker 3: you go and you go back to your alma mater
Speaker 3: and you look around, it looks almost identical to the
Speaker 3: way you know. Yes, maybe students have phones, and maybe
Speaker 3: there's a data science program, but by and large, same program,
Speaker 3: same departmental structure as when you attended.
Speaker 4: And something is not working.
Speaker 3: And what's not working is that employers are having an
Speaker 3: increasingly hard time finding the skills that they're looking for.
Speaker 3: They're looking for discrete combinations of digital skills, business skills, knowledge,
Speaker 3: role knowledge, and colleges and universities, I think are doing
Speaker 3: as good a job as they've ever done on the
Speaker 3: sort of core cognitive skills, critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills,
Speaker 3: but they're not doing anything around the specific skills that
Speaker 3: employees are looking for in addition, and that's contributing to
Speaker 3: the underemployment. And those skills are actually harder to learn
Speaker 3: in a classroom than they are by doing so that's
Speaker 3: maybe the bridge to sort of earning and learning.
Speaker 2: Is part of the problem that the workplace is the
Speaker 2: nail and college has been seen as the hammer. It's
Speaker 2: like we've essentially made it a one size fits all solution,
Speaker 2: even though in actuality it's not working out that way,
Speaker 2: and we've pushed everybody in that direction. And yet, like
Speaker 2: in your last book that you released in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: you talk about other solutions that are superior to the
Speaker 2: current for your meth that's even before we get into
Speaker 2: like in depth talk about apprenticeships, Like what are some
Speaker 2: of those other routes that are superior that we're just
Speaker 2: like neglecting completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean, you know, we coined the term
Speaker 3: fast last mile training to reflect sort of what employers
Speaker 3: are looking for, these digital skills, business skills, business knowledge
Speaker 3: that colleges aren't aren't providing. And there's a whole industry
Speaker 3: now of alternative boot camps and online credentials and industry
Speaker 3: recognized certificate programs that may take you as little as
Speaker 3: a few months, and you have a credential that an
Speaker 3: employer will value and hire you on without regard to
Speaker 3: whether you have a degree in many cases, So the challenge,
Speaker 3: and as you're right, my last book was sort of
Speaker 3: a guided tour of that emerging last mile training landscape,
Speaker 3: which is the direct result of those three crises that
Speaker 3: we're seeing in higher education, particularly around employability. But those,
Speaker 3: you know, those programs are still what I would call
Speaker 3: train and prey programs, which is to say, there's no
Speaker 3: guarantee of a job right you graduate from you know,
Speaker 3: the most well intentioned coding boot camp. You know, employer
Speaker 3: is not going to know what that program is, necessarily
Speaker 3: what skills you've gained, and it's certainly not going to
Speaker 3: close what is emerging as perhaps the biggest problem facing
Speaker 3: new grads, which is this experience gap where employers are
Speaker 3: increasingly explicitly or implicitly demanding six, twelve, eighteen, twenty four
Speaker 3: months of real, relevant, paid, sometimes even full time work
Speaker 3: experience and jobs that used to be entry level jobs.
Speaker 3: And AI is going to completely turn that experience gap
Speaker 3: into a chasm because the bargain that employers have always
Speaker 3: made with their entry level workers is you don't need
Speaker 3: skills or experience, you just need kind of you know,
Speaker 3: the potential and the interest. You'll, yeah, exactly, and you'll
Speaker 3: do you know, kind of some grunt work menial work
Speaker 3: while you learn the ropes and become productive well with AI.
Speaker 3: That grunt work and media work is going to go away.
Speaker 3: You know, no investment banking analyst is going to be
Speaker 3: spending you know, fifty hours a week building PowerPoint.
Speaker 4: Slides for decks.
Speaker 3: They're going to be due to spending an hour on
Speaker 3: that using AI, and they'll be expected to spend the
Speaker 3: other forty nine hours doing higher value client work, product work,
Speaker 3: you name it. But the problem is that that higher
Speaker 3: value work is not going to be possible without experience.
Speaker 4: And so you're going to.
Speaker 3: See employers demanding years of work experience for jobs that
Speaker 3: used to be entry level jobs. And it's really going
Speaker 3: to pull the ladder up and away from young Americans
Speaker 3: who've gone down this tuition, tuition based, debt based career
Speaker 3: launch pathway, which is really unfortunate because among all developed countries,
Speaker 3: we're first on tuition based, debt based career launch infrastructure.
Speaker 3: We're last on earn and learn infrastructure.
Speaker 1: And that's the problem with those sort of those smile
Speaker 1: training boot camps or online certifications. It seems like what
Speaker 1: you're saying too, is that the employers they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: trust that because they've got no idea, they don't have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of experience. They're as opposed to if
Speaker 1: they were on site, if they had the ability to
Speaker 1: learn firsthand what it is that they needed to do.
Speaker 1: And that kind of leads us to apprenticeships. And this
Speaker 1: might be kind of a weird question, but like, how
Speaker 1: do you define an apprenticeship, right, because I think you've
Speaker 1: said that it's not workforce training, like you are actually
Speaker 1: earning some money. So can you kind of drill down
Speaker 1: on that and explain to listeners kind of what that
Speaker 1: apprenticeship can look like.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, an apprenticeship quite simply is a full time job
Speaker 3: that has a couple of distinct characteristics. One is that
Speaker 3: you're not expected to have the skills or experience coming in.
Speaker 3: Two is that you're being provided with formal and informal
Speaker 3: training as part of that part of that job. So
Speaker 3: the formal training is actually you're going to be in
Speaker 3: a classroom for the equivalent of kind of a day,
Speaker 3: a week or perhaps as long as a year or
Speaker 3: sometimes two years, and you're actually learning everything you need
Speaker 3: to know about the job. And then there's an informal
Speaker 3: on the job training component to it, where your supervisors,
Speaker 3: your managers who you're working for, are supposed to sort
Speaker 3: of continue to train you on the on the job.
Speaker 3: And then after a period of time one year, two years,
Speaker 3: three years, you're just going to transition to become a
Speaker 3: regular employee. You don't have to apply for a new job.
Speaker 3: You just sort of continue. You're no longer an apprentice.
Speaker 3: You're you know, a regular, a regular employee. So that's apprenticeship,
Speaker 3: if you know, there's confusion around it because there are
Speaker 3: other terms like pre apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship, those are those
Speaker 3: are if you're not a full time employee, you're not
Speaker 3: an apprentice, period end of story.
Speaker 2: Because internships, some people confuse internships and apprenticeship sometimes too right,
Speaker 2: it's it's like potential onboarding, but you're also not a
Speaker 2: full time employee. You're yeah, cut leg go at any
Speaker 2: time after the well, yeah.
Speaker 4: An internship.
Speaker 3: Internship is like apprenticeship turned on its head because you're
Speaker 3: an apprentice is a full time worker who's doing training
Speaker 3: as part of his or her job. An intern is
Speaker 3: someone who's engaged enrolled in an educational typically post secondary
Speaker 3: program college program where during the program, whether it's over
Speaker 3: the summer or during during a term, they're engaging and
Speaker 3: usually part time, sometimes full time work over the summer,
Speaker 3: sometimes paid too often unpaid, which makes it kind of inequitable.
Speaker 3: But you return then from it's time limited and then
Speaker 3: you return to you know, finishing your program of study,
Speaker 3: so you know, a thumbnail apprenticeship. Apprentices are workers who
Speaker 3: have training built in in terms or students who are
Speaker 3: doing a sort of temporary work experience.
Speaker 2: So tell me what's the benefit for the employer, because
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about this from the perspective of somebody who
Speaker 2: employees people, spends money for hopefully productive labor. And you
Speaker 2: hire somebody and not only are you paying them a
Speaker 2: salary you know, probably not commensurate to the people obviously
Speaker 2: that have been around for five ten years or something
Speaker 2: like that and are highly productive. But I'm having to
Speaker 2: pay the salary of someone and teach them at the
Speaker 2: same time. That requires like a commitment, dedication. What sort
Speaker 2: of commitment are they getting in return? So what are
Speaker 2: the stakes like for these employers who participate in apprenticeship programs.
Speaker 3: Well, depending on how you define it, too high or
Speaker 3: too low, meaning that you know your average employer is
Speaker 3: not going to do it.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the secret of apprenticeship is that
Speaker 3: where apprenticeships thrive around the world, whether it be in
Speaker 3: you know, Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, or here in the
Speaker 3: US in the building trades. They're not thriving because employers
Speaker 3: in those countries or sectors are more benevolent or more
Speaker 3: far sighted. They're thriving because there are intermediaries who are
Speaker 3: doing the work of setting up and running these programs.
Speaker 3: And these intermediaries are doing so because they're either required
Speaker 3: to do so by law or they're incentivized to do
Speaker 3: so by the government. And so in Germany, the reason
Speaker 3: that you know, the German apprenticeship program is a system
Speaker 3: is the kind of the gold standard is that you
Speaker 3: have these massive, powerful chambers of commerce across every industry
Speaker 3: that are required by law to work with unions and
Speaker 3: run these programs for the benefit of employers, and they're
Speaker 3: funded to do so you know, I kind of laugh
Speaker 3: every time I see some report of a state junket
Speaker 3: going over to Germany to drink the reaseling and eat
Speaker 3: the schnitzel and look at their apprenticeship programs. It's not opposite.
Speaker 3: We don't have that infrastructure. We can't, we can't, we
Speaker 3: can't do that. But what's interesting is that the UK
Speaker 3: and Australia and France thirty years ago looked a lot
Speaker 3: like the US in terms of having a very small
Speaker 3: apprenticeship system, like almost all in the building trades, like
Speaker 3: we do today. And today in those countries there are
Speaker 3: eight to ten x where we are in terms of
Speaker 3: apprentices as a percentage of the workforce. And it's very
Speaker 3: common in those countries to launch careers in finance, tech,
Speaker 3: healthcare as an apprentice. And how did that happen. It's
Speaker 3: because governments recognize that employers don't do it themselves. Certainly,
Speaker 3: colleges and universities don't set up and run these programs
Speaker 3: for the benefit of employers. It requires a concerted effort
Speaker 3: to incentivize and establish a robust ecosystem of intermediaries who
Speaker 3: are doing this work of setting up and running programs
Speaker 3: for the benefit of employers. And so now in the
Speaker 3: UK you have this ecosystem of twelve hundred apprenticeship service providers.
Speaker 3: These are nonprofit organizations and more often former staffing companies
Speaker 3: HR services companies that have launched businesses as apprenticeship service
Speaker 3: providers because there's government funding and incentive to do so,
Speaker 3: and so they're now running around the country knocking on
Speaker 3: doors of every employer offering to set up and run
Speaker 3: apprenticeship programs across every sector.
Speaker 4: So you won't find a.
Speaker 3: Larger mid sized employer in the UK that hasn't been
Speaker 3: approached by a half dozen of these apprenticeship service providers.
Speaker 3: It's the opposite here. You know, you won't find any
Speaker 3: employer who's been approached by any you know company or
Speaker 3: organization offering to set up and help them run an
Speaker 3: apprenticeship program. If you know, the idea occurs to you know,
Speaker 3: an HR leader or a CEO at an American company,
Speaker 3: the assumption is, well, we'd have to do it ourselves,
Speaker 3: and for exactly the reasons you stated. The math doesn't
Speaker 3: work because you're you're not only paying for the training,
Speaker 3: but you're paying and you're hiring and paying an unproductive
Speaker 3: worker a worker who's not going to be productive for
Speaker 3: an extended period of time, So it doesn't work without
Speaker 3: smart policy.
Speaker 1: Help help us get get an understanding of I guess
Speaker 1: what apprenticeships can because you mentioned some of the different
Speaker 1: building trades in Europe. But you also point out though
Speaker 1: in your book, that apprenticeships they're not just for blue
Speaker 1: collar jobs as well, right, Like, can you talk about
Speaker 1: I guess the vast variety of what apprenticeships and what
Speaker 1: different industries that you can find those types of opportunities in.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, apprenticeships are you know, sort of informal
Speaker 3: apprenticeships exist everywhere, right, and you know, think about investment,
Speaker 3: banking or consulting. You know there's sort of those top
Speaker 3: firms or hiring candidates in with potential but without the
Speaker 3: skills or experience, and they're they're delivering that to them.
Speaker 3: Think about Hollywood and the classic you know, going to
Speaker 3: work in the CIA mail room for example. That's you know,
Speaker 3: kind of an informal apprenticeship apprenticeship model. But broadly speaking,
Speaker 3: apprenticeships work in the trades because they're really good ways
Speaker 3: to learn how to use tools, right, And they work
Speaker 3: well in the trades because even though you may not
Speaker 3: know what you're doing on day one, you can still
Speaker 3: kind of hold the tools and you know, help right,
Speaker 3: even if you don't know what you're what you're doing.
Speaker 3: With the digitization of the economy, everyone needs to know
Speaker 3: how to use tools. Now, those may not be tools
Speaker 3: that you know require you know, muscle and dexterity. They
Speaker 3: may be tools that require understanding how to use certain
Speaker 3: software platforms. And that's where we're seeing huge growth in
Speaker 3: apprenticeship programs and apprenticeship models in areas like software development,
Speaker 3: data analytics, healthcare I, cybersecurity, discrete tech ecosystems like Salesforce, workday, SAP.
Speaker 3: You know, these are all areas where you know, higher
Speaker 3: education is not you know, preparing and delivering work ready
Speaker 3: graduates and apprenticeships are really useful for you know, there's
Speaker 3: seven hundred thousand unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the country right now,
Speaker 3: and the experience gap in cybersecurity has just exploded over
Speaker 3: the last five years. It used to be that a
Speaker 3: college grad with some technical acumen could access a job
Speaker 3: as a Tier one analyst and a security operations center.
Speaker 3: But today, because of automation, tier one analysts have basically
Speaker 3: gone away, and the entry level position is what used
Speaker 3: to be a Tier two analyst, which demands a CISSP certification,
Speaker 3: which is three to five years work experience. So how
Speaker 3: do you break into cyber. Well, we need apprenticeship infrastructure
Speaker 3: in that space. We need incentives for companies and more
Speaker 3: likely intermediaries to hire you know, tens or hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of young Americans, deliver them the skills are experience,
Speaker 3: and kind of serve them up on a silver platter
Speaker 3: to the ultimate employers who'll be glad to take them
Speaker 3: and put them into those now level you know, tier
Speaker 3: two positions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it also seems like a just a more optimized,
Speaker 2: efficient approach, hopefully allowing a lot of individuals to forsake
Speaker 2: some of the diletorious effects of having significant amounts of
Speaker 2: student loan debt, especially with the stat you cited something
Speaker 2: like forty percent of which those people who even get
Speaker 2: the degree find themselves underemployed, not using that degree. So
Speaker 2: it's a really really expensive item that you hang on
Speaker 2: the wall that's not really paying off in the way
Speaker 2: that you hoped.
Speaker 1: Ryan, we've got more than we want to talk about.
Speaker 2: We specifically want to talk about the college verse apprenticeship,
Speaker 2: and like are these mutually exclusive? Get to some questions
Speaker 2: with you on that. Right after this, we are back.
Speaker 1: For the break, still talking with Ryan Craig about apprenticeships,
Speaker 1: and right, like, can you basically just share with us
Speaker 1: like an elevator pitch for an apprenticeship versus going to college,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I think there are a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who might be you know, they're kind of they're hearing
Speaker 1: you extol the benefits and how that could get you
Speaker 1: placed in a position where you're going to earn a
Speaker 1: lot of money while simultaneously not incurring a whole lot
Speaker 1: of student loans. But yeah, help somebody to do a
Speaker 1: paradigm shift're used to it. Yeah yeah, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so somebody who might be grappling with us, I would
Speaker 1: love to hear the elevator pitch for the apprenticeship.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The elevator pitch is that obviously college for all isn't
Speaker 3: working for all right now, given the affordability and employability
Speaker 3: challenges that we're seeing, an apprenticeship model or an earn
Speaker 3: a learned model is a more equitable model right where
Speaker 3: we're not asking students to take a financial risk we're
Speaker 3: not asking to take an employment risk because you're hired
Speaker 3: and you're being paid from day one. You're being delivered
Speaker 3: the skills and experience that you're going to need to
Speaker 3: at least start to launch your career now. It doesn't
Speaker 3: an apprenticeship is not necessarily exclusive from a college model.
Speaker 3: You can do an apprenticeship and then perhaps return and
Speaker 3: earn a degree or some kind of certificate or post
Speaker 3: secondary credential. But I think that a model where we
Speaker 3: have as many apprentice jobs as we have places in
Speaker 3: freshman classes around the country so we can give high
Speaker 3: school graduates a real choice. Do you want to invest
Speaker 3: now in tuition and student loans, or do you want
Speaker 3: to take a less risky pathway, earn and learn for
Speaker 3: a few years, develop a better sense of what your
Speaker 3: interests are, what your capabilities are, and then perhaps either
Speaker 3: continue to work or return and be a more informed
Speaker 3: consumer of post secondary education. I mean, think about it.
Speaker 3: Other than buying a house. It's probably the most significant
Speaker 3: investment that most people make in their lives, and most
Speaker 3: young people are doing it at the age of eighteen
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty with very little information about what their interests are,
Speaker 3: what their capabilities are, and specifically how effective the schools
Speaker 3: are and programs that they're planning to or considering it.
Speaker 3: Those schools are to help them achieve the achieve their.
Speaker 2: Goals, and those schools aren't really held to a standard
Speaker 2: of being forced to tell incoming students about what they
Speaker 2: are likely to learn. Hey, here are the stat like.
Speaker 2: You can find some of those things, but they're opaque,
Speaker 2: they're hard to find, They're hard to figure out, especially
Speaker 2: when you're a seventeen year old. Eighteen year old applying
Speaker 2: to a bunch of different schools, you're not equipped to
Speaker 2: figure out the ROI of that college degree. I will say, though,
Speaker 2: you made it sound like apprenticeships are a superior choice
Speaker 2: for a whole lot of people. I'm curious to hear
Speaker 2: you take because I'm sure you get flogged with the
Speaker 2: statistic every time you're interviewed about the fact that college
Speaker 2: grads make a million dollars more over their earning lifetime
Speaker 2: than the typical high school graduate. Why, in your opinion,
Speaker 2: is that misleading when we're kind of including apprenticeships in
Speaker 2: the conversation.
Speaker 4: I love this.
Speaker 3: In a year's long debate with the progenitors of that
Speaker 3: status to the Georgetown Center of Education and Workforce. A
Speaker 3: couple of problems with that. One is those are aggregate numbers.
Speaker 3: Those numbers come from graduates who may have graduated twenty thirty,
Speaker 3: forty years ago, sort of prior to digital transformation. So
Speaker 3: it's not reflective of what's happened to grads in the
Speaker 3: last five or ten years, or what's going to happen
Speaker 3: to this year's class or students who are matriculating in
Speaker 3: college for this year.
Speaker 4: So that's one thing.
Speaker 3: The bigger problem is that there's a huge self selection problem.
Speaker 3: So we know for a fact that people who young
Speaker 3: people who successfully run the gamut and a complete college
Speaker 3: overcoming all of these challenges come from wealthier, more stable,
Speaker 3: and frankly whider backgrounds than the typical the typical American
Speaker 3: and those those characteristics are also characteristic of people who
Speaker 3: are going to earn more without regard to what educational
Speaker 3: program they pursue or if they even pursue one. And
Speaker 3: obviously they you know, not only that, but they they've
Speaker 3: demonstrated these are people who you know, have the clearly
Speaker 3: have the capability to persist, you know, on a difficult
Speaker 3: pathway four year pathway, life hasn't gotten in the way
Speaker 3: they've completed college. Those are also characteristics of people who
Speaker 3: are going to make more money. So I have never
Speaker 3: seen a study that is somehow correcting for that self
Speaker 3: selection bias. And I suspect that I do think there
Speaker 3: is a college premium. I don't think it's a million dollars.
Speaker 3: I think it may be a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: And I think I think it's shrinking.
Speaker 2: So you might say we're comparing apples to cabbage or
Speaker 2: something like that, right, Yeah, No, I.
Speaker 4: Think that's I think that's right. I think that's right.
Speaker 3: I think that you know the idea, and of course
Speaker 3: you know the what what whatever? The number is a
Speaker 3: couple you know, maybe it's half of half a million.
Speaker 3: That is, you know, kind of a rounding error relative
Speaker 3: to the differences between majors that we see. So if
Speaker 3: you're going to major in engineering or computer science, uh,
Speaker 3: and you and I and you tell me that you're
Speaker 3: going to complete that program, I don't care where you go.
Speaker 3: If you know that you're going to complete a program
Speaker 3: in those areas, you're almost always better off doing that
Speaker 3: than even perhaps an apprenticeship program that's a good investment.
Speaker 3: But if you but if you tell me that, maybe
Speaker 3: you even want to do that, but you're going to
Speaker 3: be crowded out because you know, the public colleges and
Speaker 3: universities that the vast majority of Americans attend, they have
Speaker 3: limited enrollment in those programs, and most most students who
Speaker 3: want to major in those areas are actually shunted off
Speaker 3: into less remunerative programs in majors. So if you tell
Speaker 3: me that you're going to major in psychology or sociology
Speaker 3: or unfortunately in the humanities, I'm very skeptical that there's
Speaker 3: any college premium right now, and you're probably better off
Speaker 3: pursuing some kind of earn and learned pathway, becoming a
Speaker 3: more informed consumer of post secondary education, and likely achieving
Speaker 3: a higher return on investment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like a part of that one
Speaker 1: million more over your lifetime problem as well is the
Speaker 1: fact that, like, of course, this is sort of like
Speaker 1: you said, it's it's aggregated, Like the data is based
Speaker 1: on previous years worth of data, and over the decades
Speaker 1: you see more and more students, more and more graduates
Speaker 1: from college, and so like if you just look at
Speaker 1: the simple supply and demand. If you look at simple economics,
Speaker 1: are there's more supply of grads, and so that premium
Speaker 1: is going to in my mind, it's only going to
Speaker 1: continue to decrease, you know, with the additional potential process
Speaker 1: supply of plumbers and then they're getting exactly Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think that we're saying that like that's what everyone
Speaker 1: should do, but like, of course you've got to take
Speaker 1: the financial considerations into account. But so going back a
Speaker 1: little bit, like you mentioned other countries like Germany, right,
Speaker 1: there are systems in place, so there is an infrastructure.
Speaker 1: What are the gears behind successful apprenticeship program? Like, what
Speaker 1: does it take in order for something like this to
Speaker 1: get off the ground.
Speaker 3: So I mean it starts with employers, right, There is
Speaker 3: no apprenticeship program unless you have an employer willing to
Speaker 3: hire an apprentice. Now, the problem is, as I said,
Speaker 3: employers need help in order to say yes to apprenticeship
Speaker 3: and yes to hiring apprentices. And that's what we've seen
Speaker 3: in other countries as well. So the question is how
Speaker 3: do we create this robust ecosystem of intermediaries apprenticeship service
Speaker 3: providers who can actively sell apprenticeship and apprentice jobs to
Speaker 3: employers and in many cases kind of provide a turnkey
Speaker 3: solution so that all the employers doing is saying yes
Speaker 3: to a trained new employee and paying the intermediary for
Speaker 3: that resource. That's actually what my day job is. My
Speaker 3: firm is Achieved Partners. We're the leading private equity firm
Speaker 3: in workforce and we build apprenticeship infrastructure. We buy business
Speaker 3: services companies and sectors where there's a talent gap and
Speaker 3: we transform them into apprenticeship service providers and talent engines
Speaker 3: for these talent starved talent starve sectors. But to do
Speaker 3: it broadly, to do it at the level of the
Speaker 3: UK or Australia or France, we need to invest. And
Speaker 3: today we spend over five hundred billion dollars taxpayer money
Speaker 3: federal and state on accredited colleges and universities. We spend
Speaker 3: less than three hundred millions, so less than one one
Speaker 3: thousandth that that amount on earn and learn pathways. Other
Speaker 3: countries on a per capita basis are spending you know,
Speaker 3: almost two orders of magnitude more on earn and learn pathways,
Speaker 3: So that's a huge Like the UK is it about
Speaker 3: forty billion on a per capita basis a relative to
Speaker 3: our three hundred three hundred million, so it's a and
Speaker 3: of course that money is making it much easier for
Speaker 3: an attractive for intermediaries to enter the market, build this
Speaker 3: infrastructure that we're missing and begin running around to employers
Speaker 3: offering to set up and doing the work of actually
Speaker 3: running apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeship programs are not easy to run.
Speaker 3: There's about ten different things that need to happen that
Speaker 3: an employer is not doing today, and most of the
Speaker 3: most important and hardest of which, again is employing and
Speaker 3: paying an unproductive worker for a period of time. So
Speaker 3: the best the best scenario for the employer, as I say,
Speaker 3: is what if you have an.
Speaker 4: Intermediary that's offering.
Speaker 3: To do all that and actually employ and be the
Speaker 3: employer of record of that apprentice until they become productive.
Speaker 3: And those are the kinds of models that we're seeing
Speaker 3: grow rapidly in the US, but only in sectors where
Speaker 3: the demand is just so the gap is just so
Speaker 3: large that clients are willing to pay for it. We
Speaker 3: need investment so those earn and learned pathways can flourish
Speaker 3: across the economy.
Speaker 2: Ryan I could hear some of the limited government types saying,
Speaker 2: hold on, wait a second, you want to use tax
Speaker 2: dollars to pay for some of these apprenticeship programs. Look
Speaker 2: at the national debt, look at the deficit. We can't
Speaker 2: afford something like this. What would your response be to that?
Speaker 2: And I mean, can you help us understand how much
Speaker 2: money is being spent in the higher education system in
Speaker 2: general at the federal levels. I don't know, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: these are funds that are better spent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's exactly it.
Speaker 3: So five hundred billion federal and state taxpayer dollars on
Speaker 3: colleges and universities, three hundred million today on earn and learn.
Speaker 3: If you compare a college student with an apprentice, and
Speaker 3: you ask how much public support are they wedding? For
Speaker 3: every dollar of public support that an apprentice receives, college
Speaker 3: students getting fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So I don't know whether the right ratio is one
Speaker 3: to one or two to one or ten to one,
Speaker 3: but I'm pretty sure it's not fifty.
Speaker 4: To one or a thousand.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So we I mean, you know, all we're
Speaker 3: saying is we need a more balanced approach. And there
Speaker 3: are states like California that have gone ahead and begun
Speaker 3: investing in that infrastructure before even before you beginning to
Speaker 3: rebalance away from traditional colleges and university. So, California last
Speaker 3: year launched one hundred and s twenty five million dollar
Speaker 3: initiative to help build this earn and learn infrastructure and
Speaker 3: it's working. Apprenticeships are growing twenty thirty percent a year
Speaker 3: in California right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some good news out there. There are states
Speaker 1: who are creating this infrastructure, and like there are also businesses.
Speaker 1: I mean, so even though we've got a long ways
Speaker 1: to go, there are some opportunities out there. Can you
Speaker 1: highlight some of the most interesting apprenticeship opportunities that are
Speaker 1: currently in existence in the US?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we're seeing this higher trained deploy model,
Speaker 3: which is truly these sort of turnkey apprenticeship programs where
Speaker 3: business services companies are adding this as a new element
Speaker 3: of their value proposition there. You know, for example, we
Speaker 3: have a company that is a Salesforce solutions business and
Speaker 3: they launched the first registered apprenticeship program for Salesforce and
Speaker 3: now they're able to deliver Salesforce talent to their clients
Speaker 3: in addition to Salesforce solutions. And it's made a world
Speaker 3: of difference for for the company and for their clients.
Speaker 3: And so we see talent as a you know, really
Speaker 3: exciting new you know, for every problem comes up an opportunity.
Speaker 3: We have a we have a talent problem, we have
Speaker 3: a problem with a sort of unbalanced education workforce system.
Speaker 3: But that that can that can create opportunities for companies
Speaker 3: in sectors where there is a talent gap. And that's
Speaker 3: exactly what our firm, Achieved Partners does, is we partner
Speaker 3: with founders and we help build these new apprenticeship models
Speaker 3: and sectors like cybersecurity, workday SAP, supply chain, even some
Speaker 3: healthcare sectors as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, how would a resurgence of apprenticeship programs change the
Speaker 2: way the high school's done? Because typically the put at
Speaker 2: least the high school I went to, it was college
Speaker 2: track all the way, baby, And if you weren't the
Speaker 2: kind of person who was going to go get a
Speaker 2: four year degree, I think you were left to your
Speaker 2: own devices, like you didn't really know what to do
Speaker 2: because everybody was supposed to be on this four year
Speaker 2: college track. How would more apprenticeship programs impact high schools?
Speaker 2: And kind of maybe some of the incentives or some
Speaker 2: of the ways, especially that high school seniors are led
Speaker 2: to think about their future.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, i'd say forty fifty years.
Speaker 3: Ago, that wasn't the case in high schools had you
Speaker 3: had two tracks. You had a college track, and you
Speaker 3: had a career in technical education or vocational track as well. Today,
Speaker 3: thanks to decades of college for all, there is only
Speaker 3: one track. And you know it's it's demonstrated no better
Speaker 3: than the fact that, especially now without required standardized testing,
Speaker 3: the only quantitative metric that colleges can evaluate as your
Speaker 3: GPA and AP and honors classes, which is sort of
Speaker 3: the pathway to selective colleges, are weighted on a five
Speaker 3: point scale, whereas every other class is on a four
Speaker 3: point scale. So you decide to take a CTE class
Speaker 3: in high school, some sort of vocational class, you're penalizing.
Speaker 1: You're screwing yourself over basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly, And so ct has withered on the
Speaker 3: vine as a result. But if you can imagine a
Speaker 3: world where we have as many apprentice jobs as there
Speaker 3: are places, and there are apprentice programs across the economy,
Speaker 3: then there truly is a destination for high school grads.
Speaker 3: Other than college. And I think that's the key to
Speaker 3: rejuvenating CTE at high school, at the high school level,
Speaker 3: and that's really exciting, and that's actually an issue as well.
Speaker 4: I mean, you want one.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're familiar with the work of
Speaker 3: Richard Reeves, who's talked about the particular challenges that our
Speaker 3: education system is having for young for boys and young
Speaker 3: young men, and how they're underachieving, and how there are
Speaker 3: some colleges now that are you know, almost two thirds.
Speaker 2: Female young women thriving in the higher education system as
Speaker 2: it's currently constructed, young men less.
Speaker 3: So yeah, at every level though, I mean met young
Speaker 3: you know both boys at every level, boys are behind
Speaker 3: the system is not set up for them. You know,
Speaker 3: there needs to be a more an option for boys
Speaker 3: and young men that's more immediately engaging for them where
Speaker 3: they can see the result in the rationale for attending
Speaker 3: and engaging and doing work and succeeding in their in
Speaker 3: their programs. And CTE is clearly clearly has TOULD should
Speaker 3: play a part in that. But again, you can't rejuvenate
Speaker 3: ct unless there's a destination for them. I wrote a
Speaker 3: piece after the book call saying it's called college or Chipotle.
Speaker 3: And that's basically the choice that we're giving young people today. Right,
Speaker 3: you can go to college or you can work a
Speaker 3: frontline job at Chippotle. And that's that's it. Right.
Speaker 4: There's really nothing in between.
Speaker 2: Which is crazy because we know there are like millions
Speaker 2: of jobs that fall somewhere in between on the spectrum.
Speaker 2: It's a spectrum of a career workforce opportunities. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be that bold and that crummy of a dichotomy.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And other countries are doing a much
Speaker 3: better job of that than we are, And all we
Speaker 3: need to do is look at what they're doing and
Speaker 3: begin to replicate some of their policies. But the good
Speaker 3: news is that we're making some progress. I mentioned California.
Speaker 3: There was some some positive news in the minibus that
Speaker 3: funded the federal government six weeks ago that directed the
Speaker 3: Department of Labor to begin changing the way they're funding apprenticeships,
Speaker 3: which is going to be really beneficial starting in twenty five.
Speaker 3: So things are things are moving in the right direction here.
Speaker 3: And the other piece of good news is that everyone agrees. Right.
Speaker 3: I speak to progressive democrats, I speak to conservative Republicans.
Speaker 3: Everyone's in favor of this, so it will it will happen.
Speaker 3: We'd like it to happen.
Speaker 1: Quicker love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is it that Churchill says about America that
Speaker 2: we finally picked the right thing after exhausting every other
Speaker 2: viable opportunity. That feels like this for.
Speaker 1: Apprenticeships as well, taking.
Speaker 3: The slow round, And I will say that, you know,
Speaker 3: the challenges on college campuses are are also going to
Speaker 3: help accelerate it. You know, traditional colleges are are kind
Speaker 3: of at a probably historic low in terms of public
Speaker 3: opinion and public and marketing.
Speaker 1: So okay, well, yes, seaking of high school students and
Speaker 1: helping folks to understand the ration now behind the career
Speaker 1: paths that they're taking. We've got a few more questions
Speaker 1: for you right after the break, along the lines of
Speaker 1: maybe guiding younger generations and making the right decisions for
Speaker 1: their future. We'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 2: We're back. We're still talking with Ryan Craig about apprenticeships
Speaker 2: a cool way to earn money. While you're learning, you're
Speaker 2: growing in your skills, but you're also growing your net worth.
Speaker 2: You're avoiding the college debt. And ran we talked about
Speaker 2: this just a little bit. You mentioned a couple of
Speaker 2: kind of specific degree choices. Hey, if you're going to
Speaker 2: go be an engineer, that's great. Apprenticeships might not be
Speaker 2: the best route for you. Go get the four year degree.
Speaker 2: The college debt you take on is going to be
Speaker 2: more than worth it in the end. Let's say apprenticeships
Speaker 2: do become more common, and you know, you were just mentioning, Hey,
Speaker 2: the writing is on the wall. Things are looking better
Speaker 2: than they ever have before in this country. On that front,
Speaker 2: how would an individual decide whether that's a better route
Speaker 2: for them than going to get the traditional four year degree.
Speaker 2: It's obviously going to take a lot of years, a
Speaker 2: lot of messaging, a lot of infrastructure to kind of
Speaker 2: start to make these changes and start to point people
Speaker 2: in a different direction. But then how would people know
Speaker 2: which choice is right for them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean I think that the reality is
Speaker 3: that the vast majority would be would benefit from some
Speaker 3: kind of earn and learn option after high school first,
Speaker 3: before college, for the reasons we discussed in terms of
Speaker 3: becoming a more informed consumer of post secondary education. I
Speaker 3: think those that would want to go straight are those
Speaker 3: who are admitted to a you know, selective university where
Speaker 3: it's affordable for them, you know, great, go and have
Speaker 3: that you know, wonderful experience. And those who are you know,
Speaker 3: very confident that they'll be able to complete a you know,
Speaker 3: an engineering or computer science program at any any universe.
Speaker 3: I think that those are those are kind of the
Speaker 3: two categories of please go ahead. But if you're going
Speaker 3: because you can't think of another option and you don't
Speaker 3: know what you're interested in, then you're probably going to
Speaker 3: be better off working for a few years in a
Speaker 3: job that isn't Chipotle, in a job that actually has
Speaker 3: a career path and where there's built in training, and
Speaker 3: where you could continue if you if you so wished
Speaker 3: to earn a living or after a couple of years,
Speaker 3: you could stop, take stock of your interest capabilities, you've
Speaker 3: made some money, You've probably have some savings at that point,
Speaker 3: and decide, you know, what post secondary pathway or program
Speaker 3: makes the most sense for you. I think ninety nine
Speaker 3: times out of one hundred, you're going to make a
Speaker 3: better choice than you would have a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. Yeah, And this is not only for
Speaker 1: students who are trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 1: with their lives. But I mean as a parent, like,
Speaker 1: who wants to see their kid go off and be
Speaker 1: so encumbered by the amount of debt that all these
Speaker 1: and I'm not taking on those parent plus loans to
Speaker 1: help come on, Yes, absolutely not. Yeah, and you to
Speaker 1: want to prevent that for yourself as the parent, but
Speaker 1: you also want to prevent that burden for your kids, yes,
Speaker 1: because yeah, you see the millstone around the neck that
Speaker 1: it is for so many the pain of the decades
Speaker 1: of multiple years of student loan payments.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, even if it does lead to a productive career,
Speaker 2: still like, student loan debt is out of control. So Ryan,
Speaker 2: where right now, given the infrastructure that currently exists for
Speaker 2: people who are listening, whether it's parents or it's those
Speaker 2: upper rage high schoolers, where should they go If they're
Speaker 2: resonating with us and they're saying, yeah, I do want
Speaker 2: to avoid the college debt, and yeah, I didn't think
Speaker 2: maybe that was the best track for me. Maybe an
Speaker 2: apprenticeship would make sense. Where can they go to find
Speaker 2: and land an apprenticeship? Are there any like current resources
Speaker 2: websites that they should be Specific employers, Yes, specific employers
Speaker 2: who specialize in this what should they do next?
Speaker 4: Well, it's funny you asked.
Speaker 3: The directory of my book, Apprenticedation is a list of
Speaker 3: all active apprenticeships in the US where they're actually hiring apprentices,
Speaker 3: where you could apply for a job as an apprentice tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And I'm sorry to say the list isn't longer. They're
Speaker 3: about two hundred or so programs listed, and not all
Speaker 3: of them are hiring large numbers of apprentices. But that's
Speaker 3: the state of where we are today. So you can
Speaker 3: find it in the back of Apprentice.
Speaker 1: Nation, the Apprentice Nation, that's right. Yeah, And of course
Speaker 1: we'll link to your book, Ryan, and we'll also check
Speaker 1: out that article as well, the College or Chipotle article,
Speaker 1: because I think that might help folks to enter into
Speaker 1: the conversation thinking about it in an informed way as well. So, Ryan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time joining us
Speaker 1: today on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Wonderful. Well, you guys are vent terrific.
Speaker 2: Really enjoyed it, Matt, that was a great conversation. And
Speaker 2: I love talking about apprenticeship, So I love talking about
Speaker 2: something that gets so little press, I know, but could
Speaker 2: be I think so game changing for the way we
Speaker 2: do higher education and careers in this country. It's so
Speaker 2: sad that we kind of turned our back. Actually, the
Speaker 2: very beginning of Ryan's book, he talks about how apprenticeships
Speaker 2: were kind of core to the founding of the nation
Speaker 2: and our founding fathers, and we've just kind of like
Speaker 2: the college for all sort of approach. Again, not trying
Speaker 2: to hate on college, but just saying there are a
Speaker 2: different structure different folks.
Speaker 1: We's gone really hard in that direction over the past
Speaker 1: forty fifty years. Yeah. And Johnny Tremaine baby and science,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a white collar worker. He was a silversmith. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again, like the so much comes out, we're
Speaker 2: valueists to you and me. And if your awesome college
Speaker 2: education cost you four thousand dollars, that's one thing. But
Speaker 2: when it cost you four hundred thousand dollars, you have
Speaker 2: to maybe at least consider other alternatives. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I do love too that Ryan pointed out, Hey, guess what,
Speaker 2: there's a long list of potential apprenticeships you could pursue
Speaker 2: in his book, which is definitely worth the read.
Speaker 1: Heck, yeah, is that your big takeaway? Or you still thinking,
Speaker 1: so I got one? You go, you start Okay, so
Speaker 1: my big takeaway is just as individuals the benefit of
Speaker 1: something like an appent I love how he pointed out
Speaker 1: that we will then be able to become informed consumers
Speaker 1: of higher education, which I love and like that just
Speaker 1: resonates so much with how I view the world as
Speaker 1: well as far as like I want my kids, And
Speaker 1: I've even said this very statement before. I might change
Speaker 1: my mind a decade down the road, but I truly
Speaker 1: do think I want my kids to take a gap
Speaker 1: year because you just learn so much by being out
Speaker 1: in the world and not just being immediately shunted pushed
Speaker 1: along the education track. And that's so in the status
Speaker 1: that he pointed to at the early on point to
Speaker 1: that fact, right that the like we're number one and
Speaker 1: the number of students that make it into college as
Speaker 1: far as the immediate accessibility of it, but we're like
Speaker 1: dead last when it comes to actual completion, which tells
Speaker 1: me that there are all the incentives in the world
Speaker 1: to get kids in college, but it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: it's the best thing for all of those two it's
Speaker 1: a leahyesive, you know, yeah, I completely agree. And the
Speaker 1: options that become available when you consider something like an apprenticeship.
Speaker 1: I think are are so incredible, And the analogy I
Speaker 1: immediately thought of. I thought about mentioning it in the moment,
Speaker 1: but he said, other than a house, this is the
Speaker 1: most expensive decision that you'd make. And I mean it
Speaker 1: made me immediately think of like a couple or an
Speaker 1: individual who whatever moving to a new city and immediately
Speaker 1: buying a house without doing any due diligence and just
Speaker 1: being like, all right, well, I got to pick a neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've heard something about this, so I'm
Speaker 1: just going to go do that. That is not how
Speaker 1: you go about buying a home. You you rent for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, you get a feel for the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You are able to do your due diligence, and I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that in an apprenticeship
Speaker 1: allows you to do. Just like you would take your
Speaker 1: time in buying a home, I think we should also
Speaker 1: take our time when it comes to committing to a
Speaker 1: path of education and what it is that high school
Speaker 1: grads in particular went to study.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the gap year might not even change
Speaker 2: the course you ought to take, but it gives you
Speaker 2: maybe more courage and belief of the direction you're going in,
Speaker 2: and it might change things up to you a little
Speaker 2: bit and might say like, wait a second, no, no,
Speaker 2: I do want to go in this other path instead.
Speaker 1: And I was going to go to college. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that's not right for me. It's bride as your horizons though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like they at least thought them for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think the apprenticeship gives you experience right on the
Speaker 1: job as you are learning about something. I think what
Speaker 1: a gap year does is that it broadens your horizons
Speaker 1: and it helps you to think through the many different
Speaker 1: options and whether or not this is something you want
Speaker 1: to do at all, and it just helps you to
Speaker 1: see what else is out there.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned I think the quote that I was
Speaker 2: going to call out to the same thing well when
Speaker 2: he said become an informed consumer of post secondary education.
Speaker 2: And I think that ultimately at the it's not to
Speaker 2: say apprenticeships are for everyone, colleges for everyone. The truth
Speaker 2: is there is a broad spectrum of options that you
Speaker 2: can take, and we have boiled it down to one
Speaker 2: thing and made it sound like that's the right choice
Speaker 2: for ninety nine percent of folks and the truth is
Speaker 2: it's not. It is, especially given the high costs of
Speaker 2: college today. So the best thing you can do is
Speaker 2: not make a knee jerk decision just based on this conversation.
Speaker 2: It's just more information to help you be an informed
Speaker 2: consumer and know what your options are. That's every time
Speaker 2: we talk about college, Matt with with whoever we bring
Speaker 2: on the show, whether we're conversations with with and Garcia
Speaker 2: who talks about reducing the cost of college and trying
Speaker 2: to get all the scholarships available to you, right, all
Speaker 2: these conversations we have on the show, it's all about
Speaker 2: helping you make an informed decision. It's not saying this
Speaker 2: is the right path for you. We don't know who
Speaker 2: you are or what you want out of life. And
Speaker 2: I just I think the more options to better and
Speaker 2: that's why we as a country should do a better
Speaker 2: job making apprenticeships available.
Speaker 1: To more and more folks. Yeah, we just want you
Speaker 1: to hit pause and not mindlessly consume whether that's the
Speaker 1: next thing that's that found its way in your Amazon
Speaker 1: car or something that is incredibly expensive, like a higher education.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the nicest college, the best
Speaker 2: college as rated by US News and World Report, which
Speaker 2: is dumb. Anyway, I'm going to go there because they
Speaker 2: accepted me. Well, how much is it going to cost?
Speaker 2: And what's what are you going to major in? And
Speaker 2: what are you going to do with that degree at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. I mean, those are all
Speaker 2: really important questions. And yeah, I think that's that's part
Speaker 2: of the problem is people just go to the college
Speaker 2: of their dreams and then they graduate four years or
Speaker 2: sometimes six or seven years later, or sometimes they don't
Speaker 2: graduate at all, and yeah, they're left in actually sometimes
Speaker 2: a worse spot because of it.
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Speaker 1: but this is another beer by Inner Voice Brewing.
Speaker 2: What were your thoughts, Well, one, I'm curious why they
Speaker 2: gave it this name adjustable Rate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I guess they're just well it says it's
Speaker 1: in collaboration with Magnanimous Brewing. Okay, maybe they do more
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I could never It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: it's necessarily within their branding as much. They're more like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's inner voice, it's more contemplative memory farm, right, like.
Speaker 1: So that's one of their beers that we had on recently.
Speaker 1: But I really like this one.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like a good barley wine. This was
Speaker 2: sweeter than your average barley wine. I think it was
Speaker 2: the orange peel and vanilla combo that led it to
Speaker 2: being just like less abrasive or.
Speaker 1: The overall weight of this beer that it's just a beast.
Speaker 1: It's a beast of a beer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like the balance of this one struck too, because
Speaker 2: I think sometimes barley wines can be too heavy, and yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a big beer, but I think some of
Speaker 2: that sweetness coming from some of the adjuncts that they
Speaker 2: put in makes it more approachable.
Speaker 1: There's almost like a tartness like sharpness that comes from
Speaker 1: the specifically the orange as well, because without I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's I think in the same way that sometimes you
Speaker 1: add like you get the faint Do you ever get
Speaker 1: the fancier chocolates from Trader Joe's or Aldi or whatever?
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, but it's also like with bits
Speaker 1: of orange or whatever, like orange is typically something that
Speaker 1: you include in chocolate, and I think in part it's
Speaker 1: because it's it's to kind of be a foil to
Speaker 1: the sweet softness of the chocolate, where this is just
Speaker 1: like this little sharp zest and I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: picking up on the zestiness of the orange. I feel
Speaker 1: like without the orange in this, it might be just
Speaker 1: as sweet, but it would be not as well balanced.
Speaker 1: That's a good point in my opinion.
Speaker 2: No, I think you're right. I think the orange adds
Speaker 2: a lot to the roundness of the of the flavor
Speaker 2: and just yeah, makes it a multi pronged mouth attack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It looks like it looks like they bred
Speaker 1: this for their second anniversary summit. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that looked like when they all got together, But in quotes,
Speaker 1: it says too big to fail, which is another financial term,
Speaker 1: doesn't referring to the banks back during the Great Recession.
Speaker 1: These guys make good beers. I love it. It makes me
Speaker 1: want to check out around Magnanimous because maybe they're are
Speaker 1: they're broom beers that are super financial, wonky nerdy that
Speaker 1: we might be into rhythm with literal dollar bills or
Speaker 1: pennies in there. Yeah, but yeah, this is a great
Speaker 1: conversation with Ryan Craig and we'll make sure to link
Speaker 1: to his book the article as well that we referenced,
Speaker 1: and you can find that all on the website at
Speaker 1: how tomoney dot com, no doubt. All right, buddy, Until
Speaker 1: next time, best friends out and best friends out,