Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with krol Messer and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Well, some of you may find this surprising, others may
Speaker 1: not be so surprised. About fifty two percent of recent
Speaker 1: college graduates are working jobs that do not require a degree.
Speaker 1: And this is what's referred to as under employment. And
Speaker 1: for those who find themselves underemployed after graduation, it can
Speaker 1: be difficult to get get career earnings back on track.
Speaker 1: In fact, after a decade, forty five percent of graduates
Speaker 1: are still stuck in jobs that do not require a
Speaker 1: college according or do not require college, I should say,
Speaker 1: according to report by the Burning Glass Institute and the
Speaker 1: Strata Education Foundation that looked at data related to educational attainment, employment,
Speaker 1: and career trajectories, more than sixty million workers. Perhaps that
Speaker 1: is why there seems to be a growing course of
Speaker 1: people questioning whether or not the high cost of college
Speaker 1: is worth it. Our next guest says it is worth it.
Speaker 1: Jim Keys is the former CEO Blockbuster in seven to eleven.
Speaker 1: He's also the founder of the nonprofit Education Is Freedom Foundation.
Speaker 1: His new book is Education is freedom. The future is
Speaker 1: in your hands. He's here with us in the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Interactive Brokers studio. Jim, so great to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. We did a little bit of a setup
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's so much of a debate
Speaker 1: that's out there when it comes to education, your own
Speaker 1: experience with education, How important was it to you to
Speaker 1: where you got?
Speaker 2: Ultimately it was critically important. And I can't stress enough
Speaker 2: that education is such a fundamental unlocking opportunity, not just jobs.
Speaker 2: But the name of the book is literally, education is freedom.
Speaker 2: It's really about freedom. It's about the ability to move
Speaker 2: from role to role, from career to career if you choose,
Speaker 2: or even just to have a more fulfilled life. The
Speaker 2: more you learn, the more you can do.
Speaker 1: You don't think anything in terms of education, because it's interesting.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of conversations in the newsroom, your book,
Speaker 1: and just in general about this space about when I
Speaker 1: started out an undergraduate did open a lot of doors
Speaker 1: for me, but I didn't need a master's or anything.
Speaker 1: I was just doing it. Today it feels like I
Speaker 1: hear from my own daughter, She's like, Mom, I've done
Speaker 1: the undergraduate, but I'm going to need a master's to
Speaker 1: go on. Is there a balance though, between going out
Speaker 1: and doing it versus just kind of continuing on with education?
Speaker 1: Help me out here?
Speaker 2: There is. In fact, most business schools encourage you to
Speaker 2: get a couple of years of experience before going back.
Speaker 2: It helps you when you get back into graduate school
Speaker 2: to be able to have had that real life experience.
Speaker 2: But fundamentally, those tools that you get, the more you
Speaker 2: enrich the bag of tools that you have, the more
Speaker 2: you can do. And so it's all about flexibility and opportunity.
Speaker 1: What about though, when we stay stats, Like I talked
Speaker 1: in the introduction Forgive Me, I was kind of running
Speaker 1: through them because I wanted to.
Speaker 2: Get to you.
Speaker 1: But you have graduates in college, graduates who are feeling
Speaker 1: like they're stuck in a job that doesn't require college education,
Speaker 1: and it feels like that's a pretty magnificant number. We're
Speaker 1: talking about forty five percent. So what's your take on
Speaker 1: something like that? It's one data point, I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just had to respond to an article that
Speaker 2: that was in the Wall Street Journal recently about Walmart
Speaker 2: not requiring a college degree anymore for certain jobs. But
Speaker 2: you've got to Remember, we're in a unique bubble right
Speaker 2: now with three and a half percent unemployment, and there
Speaker 2: are a lot of jobs out there that don't require
Speaker 2: a college degree, that are very well paying jobs. The
Speaker 2: question is where will we be when we have seven
Speaker 2: eight percent unemployment? Because of course, these things are cycles
Speaker 2: and it will happen at some point in the future,
Speaker 2: and that degree will help you differentiate yourself. Think of
Speaker 2: it as your brand. At some point you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to raise money, You're gonna have to apply for a job,
Speaker 2: and not having that degree will make it difficult to
Speaker 2: compete with others who do all right.
Speaker 1: So then how do you know the stories about the
Speaker 1: amount of student death that's out there, and kids who've
Speaker 1: gotten college degrees, they're indebted and it's taking them years
Speaker 1: to pay it back because they have been gotten necessarily
Speaker 1: a job that has made it easy to manage that debt.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to give you a classic business example.
Speaker 2: You would never invest in a company based on today's returns.
Speaker 2: You basically run a net present value of future earning
Speaker 2: streams and discount it back for today's dollars. And if
Speaker 2: you look at I'm not sure why we don't look
Speaker 2: at our at college as an investment in ourselves because
Speaker 2: it's not going to pay back in today's dollars, but
Speaker 2: it will pay back over time if you look at
Speaker 2: all of the statistics about having a degree versus not
Speaker 2: having a degree. Now, this doesn't hold for every degree
Speaker 2: that you get or every job that you have, but
Speaker 2: on balance, that degree does give you far more earning
Speaker 2: power over your life. And here's the way I like
Speaker 2: to look at it. Getting a college degree is an
Speaker 2: investment in yourself that pays dividends for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life. Right, So think of it as a business
Speaker 2: investment in yourself.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you are so all in on education.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1: It's interesting when you've got schools now that are sixty
Speaker 1: seventy eighty ninety thousand dollars a year that automatically make
Speaker 1: it kind of problematic for some people to afford them,
Speaker 1: and that again they have to tack on a pile
Speaker 1: of debt that doesn't go away so easily.
Speaker 2: I had to address the same thing because I've had
Speaker 2: people Now I'm out there on social media, I've got
Speaker 2: kids going, Yeah, it's easy for you to say, boomer,
Speaker 2: you know, you had it easy. College was cheap, so
Speaker 2: I ran the numbers, and when I graduated from college,
Speaker 2: my tuition was seven five hundred dollars a year. In
Speaker 2: today's dollars is fifty five thousand a year. So yes,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit more today, but not extraordinarily higher.
Speaker 2: And this is a really important point. Endowments have been
Speaker 2: massively improved today versus twenty thirty, forty fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: And college discount rates, this is a really important factor
Speaker 2: that no one takes into consideration, are as high as
Speaker 2: forty five, fifty, sometimes sixty percent discount written in other words,
Speaker 2: the amount of scholarship money that they provide. So beware
Speaker 2: being intimidated by the sticker price because the actual price
Speaker 2: may be significant.
Speaker 1: The thing I will say about scholarships having gone through
Speaker 1: the college route with my own daughter, and that there's
Speaker 1: not a ton of academic scholarships anymore. There's a lot
Speaker 1: on the sports side of things, and then there's a
Speaker 1: lot on depending on your economic well being or not
Speaker 1: so well being that and I'm so glad it's there
Speaker 1: for that, but there's a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: middle that kind of get stuck with that debt load.
Speaker 2: There is the middle is tough, and it's always been tough,
Speaker 2: and I guess if you look back at history, this
Speaker 2: is not unique to today. We've always had that challenge
Speaker 2: of the kids that really can't afford it are in
Speaker 2: a much better position to get scholarships. The kids who
Speaker 2: can afford it almost doesn't matter. Is that middle group
Speaker 2: that are challenged. But again, I can't stress enough from
Speaker 2: two perspectives. From the individual's perspective, it's critically important to
Speaker 2: differentiate yourself down the road and make that investment. But
Speaker 2: for a corporation, you know, you remember from from my bio,
Speaker 2: I ran two fortune five hundred companies, right, we had
Speaker 2: a hard time in employing an educated workforce at that
Speaker 2: at that store manager level, and that's even more challenging
Speaker 2: today with three and a half percent unemployment. So if
Speaker 2: we're going to be competitive, if our corporations are going
Speaker 2: to be competitive twenty thirty forty years from now, we
Speaker 2: better step up and recognize the importance we'll go there.
Speaker 1: Because I do feel like before the pandemic, and very
Speaker 1: much so after the pandemic, the role of the corporation
Speaker 1: and kind of taking care of employees. What do you
Speaker 1: think should be the role of employers when it comes
Speaker 1: to helping to educate their workforce.
Speaker 2: Here's the way I look at it. It's a it's
Speaker 2: a classic kind of turn everything into a classic business problem.
Speaker 2: It's supply and demand, right, Yeah, we're the demand. Businesses
Speaker 2: are the demand for an educated workforce, and yet we
Speaker 2: very rarely make the investment in that education state and
Speaker 2: local government that train's public school kids. And so today
Speaker 2: my recommendation in the book, it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: call to action to corporations to see the need for
Speaker 2: investing and how do we do that through technology? You know,
Speaker 2: we've got such an opportunity to transform education with things
Speaker 2: like AI.
Speaker 1: How we do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, digital learning, there's so much opportunity, But that's not
Speaker 2: going to happen at a state and local government level.
Speaker 1: So who needs to do it? The companies?
Speaker 2: I think corporation should, and ultimately I think they will
Speaker 2: once they've realized that this supply and demand problem is
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised it hasn't moved along post pandemic where
Speaker 1: I really thought everybody like, Okay, we got it, this technology,
Speaker 1: we can do it. Look at how we all worked
Speaker 1: from home. I feel like the educational space has lagged
Speaker 1: in terms of embracing technology more effectively.
Speaker 2: It hasn't. But you know what, it's a bit misleading
Speaker 2: because I think COVID actually helped accelerate by maybe ten
Speaker 2: or twenty years, right, because if you think about the
Speaker 2: lack of just fundamental Wi Fi hotspots, lack of access
Speaker 2: to laptops with kids, companies like AT and t IBM, Dell,
Speaker 2: all Apple all stepped up and now there's a massive
Speaker 2: improvement in at least availability.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to our guest with us
Speaker 1: as Jim Keys. He is the former CEO Blockbuster in
Speaker 1: seven eleven. He's also the founder of the nonprofit Education
Speaker 1: Is Freedom Foundation. His new book is Education Is Freedom
Speaker 1: The Future is in Your Hands. And he's still with
Speaker 1: us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. I'm going to
Speaker 1: kind of go back to some of the stuff you
Speaker 1: and I were just talking about on air. Peter Thiel,
Speaker 1: who has said, yeah, you don't have to go to college,
Speaker 1: you're wrong. If Peter was here right now, what would
Speaker 1: you say to him?
Speaker 2: I would say, please stop. And here's why. If you
Speaker 2: give a young person an excuse and say you don't
Speaker 2: need to go to college. They're gonna take it. They're
Speaker 2: gonna take it. So just step back from this and
Speaker 2: think about global competitiveness. The United States since about twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: fIF has gone from high fifties and graduates post secondary
Speaker 2: graduation rates down to forty. Now COVID contributed to that decline,
Speaker 2: but we're going in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, China has
Speaker 2: gone exactly opposite. They have gone from the forty percent
Speaker 2: range up to nearly sixty and climbing. They're doubling down
Speaker 2: on the importance of an educated populist and an educated workforce.
Speaker 2: And this issue is critically important to corporate America if
Speaker 2: we dial forward and our ability to sustain competitiveness will
Speaker 2: depend on an educated workforce demand for the supply that
Speaker 2: is lagging right now.
Speaker 1: What's the answer? And I think about I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: one of seven kids and my parents it was all
Speaker 1: about getting a college education. That was so important. My
Speaker 1: dad came out of World War two a GI GI
Speaker 1: bill went to like this was from the get go,
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want after you go to
Speaker 1: college was kind of the mission here. How have we
Speaker 1: gotten away from it in your view? And how is
Speaker 1: it when there is so much education, but we see
Speaker 1: our public education it feels like failing us NonStop.
Speaker 2: Here. Yeah, we're in this weird bubble of the availability
Speaker 2: of technology but not the application of technology. And some
Speaker 2: of it comes down to how are we funded, state
Speaker 2: in the local governments the challenges of that.
Speaker 1: So we spend a lot of money, and we.
Speaker 2: Are spending a lot of money, but we can spend
Speaker 2: it far more efficiently. I don't think the solution will
Speaker 2: happen leaving it up to state and local governments. I
Speaker 2: hope that corporations will see that they are ultimately the
Speaker 2: demand and want to step up because the technology is
Speaker 2: available today to completely transform the way we teach and
Speaker 2: the way we learn. We saw a little you know
Speaker 2: and I were talking about, you know, during cold pandemic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: during the pandemic wasn't so great for some, It wasn't
Speaker 2: so great for some. But here's what happened. It was
Speaker 2: a massive improvement in the availability and access that wasn't there,
Speaker 2: particularly for the underprivileged. It's there now. What we haven't
Speaker 2: done is integrated those platforms, upgraded the user content to
Speaker 2: make it eye popping. So those kids that were hating
Speaker 2: their online class with them play video games for four
Speaker 2: or five hours. Right, So you can make school just
Speaker 2: as engaging. That's the challenge and that will come. That's
Speaker 2: our next step.
Speaker 1: But do we have to be careful about technology? Yay, great, right, Jim.
Speaker 1: But I mean I also think about the importance of
Speaker 1: part of school is social skills, learn to communicate, like.
Speaker 2: Exactly what's the balance here? Well, and that's too. You
Speaker 2: just made my point. That's why a formal education still
Speaker 2: is and will be important for quite some time because
Speaker 2: it's more than just learning. You can learn online virtually anything, right,
Speaker 2: But it's those meta rights. Yeah, yeah, but it's those
Speaker 2: meta skills, it's those soft skills that I've outlined in
Speaker 2: the book, things like curiosity, creative, creativity, critical thinking. Those
Speaker 2: skills are things that you hone a in a classroom
Speaker 2: working with others.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing, one thing you could change, or
Speaker 1: one step that you think and I'm assuming it sounds
Speaker 1: like what you're saying is it's on the side of
Speaker 1: corporations to really step up here. What would be the
Speaker 1: step that the world needs to take to improve this?
Speaker 2: Well, the first step I think is we've got to
Speaker 2: get beyond fear, because I think fear is the big
Speaker 2: culprit here right about that in the book, right about
Speaker 2: a whole chapter on fear and a chapter on confidence,
Speaker 2: because confidence is so important for learning and preparation. But
Speaker 2: fear is the killer because we're afraid of so much.
Speaker 2: We're afraid of some of us are afraid of teachers, unions.
Speaker 2: We're afraid that kids are being indoctrinated. We're afraid of
Speaker 2: you know, this and that and this and that, all
Speaker 2: these horrible things that are buzzing around, and it's contributing
Speaker 2: to this narrative that maybe you don't even need school. Well,
Speaker 2: if we can reverse that fear, and you think about
Speaker 2: the antecdote to fear its knowledge. So if we can, ironically,
Speaker 2: if we can reverse the fear replace it with not
Speaker 2: knowledge and understanding and confidence, then I believe that will
Speaker 2: help us recognize the opportunity because we are there right
Speaker 2: on the cusp of being able to completely transform the
Speaker 2: way we teach and learn.
Speaker 1: If we don't do this, what do you think is
Speaker 1: the outcome or the impact in our country?
Speaker 2: I am concerned both for our corporations and global competitiveness
Speaker 2: of America, but also for the country itself all the
Speaker 2: way back to Jefferson. Alexis Dtopville came from France and
Speaker 2: said with Jefferson that the sustainability of a democracy depends
Speaker 2: on an educated populace.
Speaker 1: And you get into this, this whole idea of the
Speaker 1: polarization that we see. You believe that this is going
Speaker 1: to be the way that we get rid of some
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Right, I do. I believe it's ultimately the solution because
Speaker 2: so much of this polarization is fear and going back
Speaker 2: to FDRs and doctrination speech all we have nothing to
Speaker 2: fear of but fear itself, right, and we are in
Speaker 2: the grips of fear, and it's just taking us down.
Speaker 2: It's just distracting us from so much potential to move
Speaker 2: forward as a people.
Speaker 1: I'd be remissed. And we have about three and a
Speaker 1: half minutes left to not talk about your background. It's
Speaker 1: an incredible background. As we said, as at Blockbuster former
Speaker 1: CEO of Blockbuster and seven eleven. You came into both
Speaker 1: of those at difficult times. Blockbuster that was in July
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, I believe you took over, yes,
Speaker 1: and then seven eleven, I think it was just before
Speaker 1: was it the great financial.
Speaker 2: Cris Yes, just before I arrived there in eighty five,
Speaker 2: and then the world fell apart in eighty seven.
Speaker 1: To the market, the market qrush in eighty seven. Forgive me, well,
Speaker 1: your timing is impeccable.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, really really tough times.
Speaker 1: What did both of those times teach you? How did
Speaker 1: education help you through it?
Speaker 2: There's an important message I have in the book, and
Speaker 2: it's a whole chapter un change, And I've coined the
Speaker 2: expression change equals opportunity, which is ironically the acronym for CEO.
Speaker 1: Right right, And it's funny.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a coincidence that the role of
Speaker 2: a CEO is to not shrink from change, because change
Speaker 2: is inevitable. And you're right. I lived through two major
Speaker 2: financial disasters and one we came out the other side
Speaker 2: at seven eleven and ended up with a great result,
Speaker 2: and at Blockbuster. Unfortunately, perhaps I got there too late,
Speaker 2: but we couldn't turn it around in time. We did, though,
Speaker 2: successfully take the company through our restructure and sold the
Speaker 2: Tudish networks, which was far better than the alternative of
Speaker 2: a total liquidation, which could have happened during those times.
Speaker 2: We had a billion dollars on the balance sheet. But
Speaker 2: there's so many lessons in that change can be opportunity.
Speaker 2: It's not the change itself, it's how you responded.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like that though when you were in
Speaker 1: the midst of.
Speaker 2: It, Oh, I'm normal.
Speaker 1: I thought, why me? Why am I?
Speaker 2: Why do I have to deal with this?
Speaker 1: I mean really really difficult? And I think about something
Speaker 1: like Blockbuster. I mean we talk about there's generations that
Speaker 1: don't even know, right, But how important that was kind
Speaker 1: of to all of us. I don't know. When you
Speaker 1: look at your time at both of those mpanies and
Speaker 1: you look at kind of where the world is today,
Speaker 1: are there trends today that you just find totally fascinating.
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking about content and how we stream content
Speaker 1: and how much that has come along.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, right now we're in one of those almost
Speaker 2: similar periods. There are people trying to run a company
Speaker 2: that borrowed money at three percent and now they're having
Speaker 2: to pay seven eight nine percent, right, And it's it's
Speaker 2: all about learning. And that's that's really my motive in
Speaker 2: the book, to be able to share many, many years
Speaker 2: of learning through experience and share it with others, to
Speaker 2: not be afraid of change, because change ultimately is going
Speaker 2: to happen. It's at the it's at the core of
Speaker 2: all commerce.
Speaker 1: You're right, right, it's constantly coming ask we know it.
Speaker 1: It happened in our you know, it happens daily in
Speaker 1: a program that we do where just something happens and
Speaker 1: we've got to kind of adapt. How do you hope
Speaker 1: people use this? Just got about thirty seconds left here
Speaker 1: your book?
Speaker 2: Well, my first objective is to have people read it,
Speaker 2: and I think it's applicable. If you're young, it'll help
Speaker 2: you in school. If you're older, it'll help you just
Speaker 2: with life to be able to have a fuller life.
Speaker 2: It's common sense stuff, just a reminder of the basics
Speaker 2: of how to learn, why to learn those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: But what I really hope people will do is see
Speaker 2: this as an opportunity to give this book to someone
Speaker 2: who needs it, because we all know those people that
Speaker 2: are kind of lost. They don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: Should I go to school, should I not?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Should I change careers? I think it's a great gift
Speaker 2: book for those who need a little bit of encouragement
Speaker 2: to realize the opportunity is in their hands.
Speaker 1: Literally love it, love it, and I like you and
Speaker 1: I were talking off air. I feel like education is
Speaker 1: one of those things that needs to continue to be
Speaker 1: disrupted and make it more accessible to a lot more people.
Speaker 1: Jim Keis, thank you so much, great stuff. A new
Speaker 1: book is Education is Freedom. The future is in your hands,
Speaker 1: of course, the former CEO Blockbuster in seven to eleven