Colleges Think 3-Year Degrees Fix This. The World Disagrees. (Degree Free #204)

Speaker A [00:00:00]:
Welcome back everyone. Today it is really you that came prepared, so I'm gonna let you take it away.

Speaker B [00:00:05]:
Today we're doing Degree Free Mr. Worldwide. So today we're basically gonna talk about the degree-free movement internationally. Thank you for laughing at my Pitbull reference. Really dating myself here, but that's okay. That's okay. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about the whole world because there is a lot of degree-free movement around the whole world right now in the UK, in Korea, honestly in China and India too. We just don't talk about them a whole lot.

Speaker B [00:00:30]:
There's some big moves going on in China with the removal of degree requirements. I think that this is really going to give people too a full picture of how this is not just a uniquely U.S. problem. This is a global problem. There's too much paper and there's too many people buying it, and there's not enough jobs that require it in order to make it worth it. And that is not just an American problem. And I want to give parents especially this picture because I want them to see that this is not just us. This is a systemic problem because this does not work.

Speaker B [00:00:59]:
Sending more people to buy paper than there are jobs that require that paper is never going to work. And other countries are suffering from the consequences of this too, especially the UK is a few years ahead of us. I think they're about 5 years ahead of us. So they're really in dire straits and they're now flailing around trying to figure out their apprenticeship programs, but they're also suffering from something that we're going to talk about, which is the government. So the government in the UK has been trying to figure out the apprenticeship thing, but when they do that, it does not work. Only when private employers do apprenticeship does it actually work. And when the government tries to do this with small business, the cost of compliance is too high. So the only answer to this is going to be private businesses and going back to an old-school model of parents helping their kids find apprenticeships early that are not government-sponsored because they're too hard for small businesses to actually be able to fulfill the requirements for.

Speaker B [00:01:47]:
But the first thing I want to talk about was the fact that China has revoked or suspended 12,000— over 12,000 undergraduate programs. They have removed— they've cut 30% of their degree programs. People are not understanding the speed at which this is moving because AI itself is the reason why so many of these degree programs are now null. They're not useful, and China has realized that. So between 2021 and 2025, 30% of their undergrad programs they have cut, demolished, and they've added in not 4-year degrees necessarily, but AI and robotics training programs that are not necessarily college degrees. Huge difference, huge difference. And so from a central planning perspective, it really shows that the old model, the one that the US is using, is not going to fit in the future. And no matter how much academics thrash, no matter how much they whine about wanting public money, no matter how much they talk about how important the humanities is when they're not even teaching that, it's not going to fit the future.

Speaker B [00:02:43]:
And that the longer we try to hold on to that model, the slower our country is going to be. and also the worse off our young people will be because they're the ones paying the price.

Speaker A [00:02:52]:
When you say 12,000 degree programs, that's not 12,000 different majors, right? That's 12,000 different programs within the university system in China?

Speaker B [00:03:01]:
That's correct. So like, for instance, a communications program at a specific college, yes, they've cut 30% of those programs in their country, which is pretty wild. Similar to the US, even the biggest colleges in China don't have more than 100 majors. Like in the United States, the biggest colleges, not more than 100 majors. So it's impossible for there to be thousands of them simply because there's only so many flavors of degree that you can buy.

Speaker A [00:03:23]:
It's awesome that they're including these new training programs. I wonder if these training programs are gonna go the same way that all of these programs went, which is before the administrators put pen to paper, they're already outdated. But I just think about right now in AI, if you read a book about AI that's 3 years old, and maybe not necessarily about how it was first made, like nothing historically, but currently how to use it, because these are the types of programs that they're doing, right? It's like, how do we implement it right now so that they can go into the workforce and be productive human beings and being, you know, like a net positive for our economic system? And so I wonder if these are going to suffer the same fate that all of these 12,000 programs did was like, why are they getting cut? Well, they're getting cut because they're not useful. They're not bringing any economic value, or at least they're not seeing it. And then by the time that these university people, I mean, because it is still within the university system, by the time that they put pen to paper, by the time that they make a syllabus, by the time that they like, okay, here are the things that you're going to do, is it outdated already?

Speaker B [00:04:33]:
I think that that's probably likely. It reminds me a little bit of the For Dummies books where you would buy a Microsoft 2016, you know, Microsoft Word 2016 for Dummies. by the time that you read that, it's already out of date. And so if you think about how out of date the internet tutorial books were, AI is 100x that. So day to day, you're going to be outdated on your skillset already. It's just the speed of the technology itself. It's just the nature of the technology itself is much faster than the internet was. So similar to reading books about how to use specific types of software, that's how I feel these degree programs, I feel like that's an equivalent To these degree programs.

Speaker B [00:05:09]:
I feel like that's a great comparison because by the time these universities figure out what their curriculum is, it's already, it is already outdated. The universities and colleges are just scrambling around trying to like, oh, we're an AI major, we're an AI MBA program. Like they don't know what's, they have no idea what's going on. 'Cause the people that are teaching by and large, with rare exception, are not in the industry. They don't use it for work other than to use, other than to catch their students using AI tools. Right. I think that that's a great comparison that you've made, and I think that's accurate. I think that they're going to quickly arrive to the conclusion, which is one of your points, which is about South Korea, the biggest, I think one of the biggest chip manufacturers in the world, just removed degree requirements for their R&D and their engineering teams in Korea.

Speaker B [00:05:52]:
So China is probably quickly going to realize what Korea has already realized, which is that it's the degree that's the problem and that creating more programs through the university system is just not going to have the desired result. So Trend Hunter is an innovation tracking site, and essentially what they do is they start to track different trends that they see online. And one thing that they have tracked recently has been degree-free. They've been seeing this in the UK. They've been seeing this in South Korea. They've been seeing this globally now used as a term to describe the changes in hiring trends and the changes in workforce development. And what's really cool about this is that you and I created the term and now it's being used mainstream, not just in the US, which has been used for years, But now it's being used globally and Trend Hunter actually tracked this. So in 2026, they're now tracking like degree-free specifically for leadership programs, for specifically for apprenticeship programs that are internationally used.

Speaker B [00:06:44]:
So that was really cool. And then recently this has been used in the UK for that Marks Spencer apprenticeship that we found.

Speaker A [00:06:50]:
Yeah, it's really wild to see the degree-free. I mean, I still get a kick out of it today. When we see degree-free out in the wild, as we're saying, for US companies and for US publications, I mean, literally major, major publications in the US and really in the world have used a word that you and I made up. We made it up in our house. I remember the days and weeks-long sessions where we were like, what are we going to call this movement? What are we going to call it? And the fact that it is literally international now is wild.

Speaker B [00:07:27]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:07:27]:
I mean, really, honestly, it's wild to see, but I'm glad. The thing about it is like, it's not like we were super smart or anything like that. To us it was obvious. I mean, it was just obvious. Like, this is really bad. Like, this is gonna be a landslide. I mean, just look up there, right? Like, look at what's going on, at least in the US. We're not in good shape.

Speaker A [00:07:51]:
Student debt is like out of control. It's out of control seeing that it is a track trend internationally. And then everything that we're talking about here, which we're about to get into, is that degree-free is happening all around the world. It's a problem. Even in Asia, in Asia is like really bad. I mean, if you're, if you're Asian or you know anybody that's Asian, like I guess intimately, you know that like, or I guess even if you know stereotypes, you know that they're all about going to college. It's all go to college, go to college, go to college, become a doctor, become a lawyer. And all of those kids, like majority of those kids that like go to college—

Speaker B [00:08:28]:
You forgot engineer.

Speaker A [00:08:29]:
Yeah. Go to college to do those things. Like those 3 careers, they like go to college to do those things and then they don't end up in those careers because all of those careers are less than 10% of the entire workforce, like the entire employment, at least nationally, at least in the US, like all of these Asians are going to go into these 10% of jobs. Like, what are we doing? What are we talking about? No, that's not going to happen. Chances are they're going to work in marketing.

Speaker B [00:08:54]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:08:54]:
Chances are they're going to go do something, literally any other career but those 3 things. But then you're going to go to college, put them in debt, and then you're going to be— and then their parents are going to be pissed at them that they become bartenders or baristas afterwards. You know what I mean? And they're going to be like, what are you doing with your life? I'm like, I don't know. And then eventually you figure it out and then like, well, okay, I guess. You get married and then you have some kids. It's like, okay, good. At least I have grandkids.

Speaker B [00:09:17]:
Well, you hope that, right? Because unfortunately, if you have student debt, it's actually less likely that you're going to have kids if you have student debt. But yeah, I think that this is— I'm going to be so for real right now. It's so good to be right. I love being right. I love being this right too, because it's We took so much flack for so many years, for so many years, like being just told, oh, you're dumb. They call me Chicken Little. They call me Bubble Boy.

Speaker A [00:09:43]:
They call him Chicken Little.

Speaker B [00:09:45]:
They call him Bubble Boy. Like, just to see, that's my favorite quote. That guy, the character, this is a reference to him, the character with The Big Short, and he's my spirit animal because that's exactly how, for years, for years, especially, you know me, I've said, hey, they're gonna stop hiring college graduates. Hey, and I've always been several years ahead of what's going on. And then everybody says, you're dumb, you're an idiot. And I'm like, uh, okay, well, time will tell. And every single time so far I've been right. And I love being right because I take so much flack for being wrong, but then I'm right.

Speaker B [00:10:11]:
And, you know, we all love that feeling, right? We all love that feeling when, when we see something coming and it's obvious to us and not obvious to everybody else. But then this, this was the most interesting thing I think I found over the last couple weeks is SK Hynix, which is the biggest chip manufacturer, one of the biggest chip manufacturers in our, in the entire world. I'm trying to stress this because it's crazy how the Overton window has shifted. where you would talk about how you don't need a degree to do XYZ, and people always say, well, no, but you do need it for tech and hyping tech roles and blah blah blah blah blah. But then it's very obvious now that you don't. Clearly you don't, because you can look at the AI race right now, and 2 of the top 3 people do not have college degrees that are in this race— Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman. But then when you really look at it, you listen to people who are in the hard sciences, like you look at Alex Karp from Palantir, you look at Jensen Huang from Nvidia, And they all say that if you want to get into this, the best way to do it is skilled technician roles that lead to engineering roles. And you see this across very cutting-edge technology, across engineering, hard engineering.

Speaker B [00:11:12]:
Even people say, oh, not software development engineering, blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine, whatever. Let's, let's, let's even just say, let's give you that fiat power and say, yeah, we're not even talking about software developers. We're talking about hard engineering sciences. And these people are getting into these jobs. They are making a lot of money. They are being trained. They are doing it at 18 years old.

Speaker B [00:11:31]:
And all of the indications in the economy are showing that that's where companies that are in these hard sciences and hard engineering are going. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody likes to hear it, but that's exactly what's happening. And it's not only happening in the US, it's also happening in Asia because they are having the same problem with a surplus of degrees that are not applicable to the jobs, and it's slowing their economy down. And when it does that, you will inevitably try to figure out a way, the market will figure out a way to increase the speed of technology and building and innovation. So SK Hynix, which is again the biggest chip, one of the biggest chip manufacturers in the world, has removed degree requirements for design, R&D, and engineering in Korea, which is one of the most credentialed countries in the entire world. If you can't see this coming like an avalanche, that these degree requirements are going to get demolished and people can fight this as much as they want, But currently in the US, it's less than 1 in 5 jobs that even mention a degree as required. And already less than 20% of the engineering roles in our country require college degrees.

Speaker B [00:12:31]:
I don't think people understand that. They don't want to hear it because people will always say like, oh, well, STEM is the answer. You know, just go get a STEM degree. It's not that anymore. Go get STEM training. It's not go get a STEM degree. It's go get STEM training. I was just talking to a columnist who writes about higher education, and he was saying that his youngest brother, went and got a mechanical engineering degree.

Speaker B [00:12:49]:
He's unemployed. He's been unemployed for a year. This is not uncommon. You and I hear this all the time, and it's because they went and they get out and they don't have any hard skill sets. But if they were to just go and get trained entry-level, they would have a hard skill set. The entire economy is changing. So basically now in Korea, for this chip manufacturer in R&D and design and engineering, high school graduates, that's who they're hiring. And I can say this over and over until I'm blue in the face, and you can see it on an international scale that this is occurring.

Speaker B [00:13:19]:
And people will start arguing with me and say they don't want 18-year-olds. Yes, they do, because they do not want to hire college graduates. And people, it doesn't matter how much evidence, it doesn't matter if I say, hey, 80% of these employers are saying that these college grads are not prepared for the workforce and they expect to make more when they're not prepared for the work and they cost more to train than high schoolers. And people get so upset, but they just don't want to, they just don't want to hear it. They just want to keep doing what they're doing. And they want to hope that that's going to have the desired result, but it's not. And how much easier is it to not put your child in debt and put them into a skilled training role where they get paid? I don't understand why this is so hard, but that's what's happening in Korea. They're cutting degree programs in China and they're replacing them with training programs.

Speaker B [00:14:02]:
And then in the UK, Marks Spencer, which is a huge retailer in the UK, they just put out 1,000 different store management training positions. And these are specifically for high school students to train into management at these retail locations. This is not uncommon in the US either, where you'll have store managers at stores that outearn the median PhD by a significant amount of money, and they don't go into debt for it. And that provides people very good living, even working just in a smaller management position. I actually know somebody who told me this story about their cousin who worked for Costco. He started at Costco 20 years ago. He's got $3 million in a retirement account because of the way that Costco does their retirement and then their profit sharing. So this guy's going to retire doing incredibly well.

Speaker B [00:14:48]:
He has no student debt. And people are not looking at that as a viable option when the people that work there get treated really well. They have career advancement. They have all of these benefits. That's a perfectly great career. And they earn more than the median master's degree holder. I don't get why you wouldn't want your child to do that. I don't understand why that's not an option.

Speaker B [00:15:07]:
And this is why it's so important to think about what your child really needs from their life so then you can find careers strategically that match that. Because working at Costco is great if that's going to help your child get the life that they want. Working as a skilled technician so they can get training to move into an engineering role, even if they do need a degree eventually to get a PE first right out of high school, is a better route than sending them to college for engineering That is the way of the future. And the reason it's the way of the future is because it's the way of the past. That's what you used to do. People weren't out here buying college degrees right out of high school and walking into a mid-level job. That's just not how it works. And it's always been artificial.

Speaker B [00:15:46]:
And that is, it's just, everything is just correcting. Everything's just self-correcting. And you can see this with the infighting in our country too, with like, oh, maybe we can do 3-year degrees. Oh, maybe we can just shave time off of this because the conclusion they're all inevitably going to reach is that they don't need degrees at all because that's where internationally countries are realizing that that's just not a viable way to train your workforce because putting them in debt right out of high school is not a viable way to create good economic growth. It's not a good way to get your young people to have families. It's not a good way to get your young people to be invested in your society. That's not a healthy way to do it.

Speaker A [00:16:17]:
Yeah, it is really strange, really. I mean, kind of piggybacking on what you were saying about Korea and about this SK Hynix deleting the degree requirement for these really technical roles. It is very strange to see that in a country that is one of the most judgmental about degrees. I mean, I'm kind of judgmental about everything, to be honest. And I mean, it's just true. Anybody that knows Koreans, like, knows that, like, they're, they're super judgmental about those types of things. And so, uh, degrees—

Speaker B [00:16:48]:
You heard it here first, folks.

Speaker A [00:16:49]:
Degrees being one of them. You know what I mean? Like, that is one of the first, there's like one of the first things they judge you on. I mean, it's Asia in general. I mean, it's like Asians and Asia in general. I mean, it's like super, we just talked about it. I mean, there's 3 careers you can go into if you're Asian, pretty much. Maybe—

Speaker B [00:17:05]:
You should probably disclaim that you are Asian.

Speaker A [00:17:07]:
Maybe banking and finance and like, okay, so now there's 4. How do I know this? Like, I'm not Korean, but like, how do I know this? Those were the 4 careers that I looked at. Like, and I am Asian. It's like, Granted, like Japanese and Chinese are different than Koreans, are different than Philippines, are different than Laotians, different than Thai, you know, but like I also grew up in a very eclectic place. I grew up in Hawaii where all of these Asian cultures are very represented. It's more represented than anywhere in this nation really, like even in California. It's because we're in the middle. We're in the middle of Asia and the continental United States, so people go to Hawaii.

Speaker A [00:17:47]:
And it's like, and then all of the industry that brought it there. Anyway, going into a history lesson. But just suffice it to say that I know this stuff, these stereotypes, I know it. You just, source, trust me, bro. And so yeah, it is wild to see that this is starting to happen elsewhere. And it goes exactly to what we were talking about before. It's just because the college degree is just no longer a useful proxy of whether or not you're gonna be productive. It's just no longer a useful thing.

Speaker A [00:18:14]:
with exactly what we were talking about last week. The skills more and more are going towards like, hey, you have to be specialized in this one thing that I need you to be specialized in. And then once you understand that, we can grow the context of the business. Like once you understand this, then you can learn the rest of it. But they're going to 4 years of college, they're learning a bunch of nonsense. And then like, obviously it's a bunch of nonsense. Like I'm not even, that's not even me That's what employers are saying. Yeah, that's not even me making a judgment value on that.

Speaker B [00:18:43]:
Employers' actions are saying that.

Speaker A [00:18:44]:
Employers are making the judgment on that, which is obvious here and has been obvious for the past 10 years or so. And like they said, we just called it out. So they're teaching them a bunch of nonsense and then they're going and they're like, you expect to make how much? And you don't know how to do this? This is super basic. And then exactly what you're saying, they're realizing that the well is at the very beginning. It's high schoolers. It is right after they graduate. It is getting them early so that they can teach them the skills that they need to advance in their roles, in their company, in their industry, and help them. Like it behooves them to do it because they're just going to help their company be more productive.

Speaker B [00:19:24]:
And if people don't believe this, I just had a mom and her daughter, and this girl was almost in tears telling me that she hates college. She cannot wait to get out of there. And the whole reason is because she's having to take a bunch of nonsense classes in order to fulfill requirements to get a degree that she doesn't even need to get into the career that she wants to get into. And one of the classes, no lie, I'm not making this up, Vampire Film Studies. It was one of the required— she had to take a class and that was all that was available to her to try to graduate on time. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. And we're putting kids in so much debt for this.

Speaker B [00:19:55]:
And I'm sorry, but again, and I said this last week—

Speaker A [00:19:57]:
Team Edward.

Speaker B [00:19:58]:
Oh, frick. What's the other one? It's Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. Okay, there we go. There we go. Okay. I was like, I had to dig back into my 16-year-old self to remember.

Speaker A [00:20:06]:
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I apologize.

Speaker B [00:20:07]:
No, it's okay. That was important stuff. Wait, which one are you?

Speaker A [00:20:10]:
I literally don't know. I can proudly say—

Speaker B [00:20:12]:
Why would you bring this up if you weren't really able to tell?

Speaker A [00:20:14]:
I can literally proudly say that I've never watched a single one of those movies.

Speaker B [00:20:18]:
Are you serious?

Speaker A [00:20:19]:
Yes.

Speaker B [00:20:20]:
You have sisters though. How have you never seen one of those movies? Consciously, you were a conscientious objector.

Speaker A [00:20:26]:
Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Speaker B [00:20:27]:
All right.

Speaker A [00:20:27]:
That's exactly what happened.

Speaker B [00:20:28]:
All right.

Speaker A [00:20:28]:
And it's not like, it's not like it wasn't playing all the time.

Speaker B [00:20:31]:
Mark safe.

Speaker A [00:20:32]:
Yeah. It's not like, it's not like my older sister didn't read all the books and then watch the movies.

Speaker B [00:20:37]:
But she went to the theater probably to watch the movies.

Speaker A [00:20:39]:
Uh, well, she went to the theaters to watch the movie.

Speaker B [00:20:41]:
But you didn't go?

Speaker A [00:20:41]:
No.

Speaker B [00:20:42]:
Okay.

Speaker A [00:20:42]:
Get outta here. And then, and then, and then, and then when it was rerun on TV, I also, I just wasn't into it.

Speaker B [00:20:49]:
Just left the room.

Speaker A [00:20:50]:
Yeah.

Speaker B [00:20:50]:
You're like, I gotta leave for this. I gotta go. Okay. All right.

Speaker A [00:20:52]:
Sorry, go on.

Speaker B [00:20:53]:
No, it's okay. That was important or not important, I don't really know. But yeah, so she's taking a vampire film studies class in order to fulfill requirements because again, and if you've ever been in a college counselor's office, you know that it's like, oh sorry, that class is full, now you got to take this, but you gotta take one of these 2 classes. Always a bunch of freaking nonsense. But I don't understand— nonsense is really the only appropriate word for it because I can't believe that we're making kids pay for this. I can't believe that there's public money available for this for this, to prop up this industry. But also what I don't get is how people cannot see that what's the only thing that's happening to these kids in between high school and their first job is college. How do you not see that's, that's the thing that's ruining them for the workforce? That's the thing that's giving them this doom mentality.

Speaker B [00:21:37]:
That's the thing that's teaching them this disdain for work, this disdain for everything, like doom, gloom, disdain. And that's because a lot of the people teaching them don't have a very bright outlook on life because the only way for them to move up in their jobs is to take on more debt. to get incremental raises to try to compete for these very few positions that don't really lead anywhere and don't pay that much money. I just don't see how you think that and sending kids into that system for a premium is going to have a good result and is going to prepare them appropriately for the workforce by and large. And I, like, with rare exception, that is exactly what's happening. And I say that because I talk to a ton of people. We talk to a ton of people where they, where they tell us stories like this. Like, yeah, my son left college because he was having to take an interpretive dance class in a sociology whatever, and he was having to humiliate himself for no reason.

Speaker B [00:22:19]:
This kid just wants to work. and wants to contribute to society. And it's ridiculous. Then we're making young men go through this humiliation ritual. And then on the other side, again, this young lady, she's going to school for veterinary medicine. Why are we taking vampire film classes? Why are we being required? That was a requirement. It was not an option for her. She had to do it to fulfill certain requirements so she could graduate on time.

Speaker B [00:22:39]:
Why are we doing this?

Speaker A [00:22:40]:
Well, I mean, are vampires not bats? Veterinary medicine, bats.

Speaker B [00:22:45]:
That's a philosophy question. I'm sorry, I didn't go to college. So. I'm degree-free, so I'm not deep enough. I don't have the depth in order to have this discussion with you, unfortunately.

Speaker A [00:22:53]:
When you become a vampire, do you not then adopt the anatomy of a bat? And which would then hopefully help in her veterinary studies.

Speaker B [00:23:01]:
Do the vampires turn into bats? I don't think that happens in Twilight. I have seen the movies and I don't think they turn into bats.

Speaker A [00:23:06]:
I'm saying internally, does the bat— I think Dracula did. I'm saying internally. I'm not saying that they are Animaguses or anything like that.

Speaker B [00:23:13]:
I'm not saying that they're— Oh, okay.

Speaker A [00:23:14]:
Now we're into— I'm not saying that they're shapeshifters.

Speaker B [00:23:15]:
That's a class I would take.

Speaker A [00:23:16]:
I'm not saying that they're shapeshifters. And now, No, we're talking about Harry Potter.

Speaker B [00:23:19]:
What about the Animorphs? Do you remember the Animorphs?

Speaker A [00:23:20]:
Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying that they're Animorphs. I'm saying that internally, when you become a vampire, does your anatomy then turn into that of a bat? Of which—

Speaker B [00:23:30]:
That would suck though.

Speaker A [00:23:31]:
Then it might be relevant to her studies, of which the people that create her curriculum must have known and therefore put it on her schedule. So all that said—

Speaker B [00:23:40]:
That seems like a valid point.

Speaker A [00:23:42]:
All joking aside, the thing that has become increasingly more obvious is that a college degree purchase is becoming more and more of a luxury purchase. It's becoming more and more of a luxury purchase. It's becoming more and more of a status symbol of that like, oh, we can afford to pay all this money for no ROI because of whatever.

Speaker B [00:24:04]:
And that's true, 'cause only rich people can afford to buy nonsense things with no ROI.

Speaker A [00:24:08]:
It's like rich people, that's a good point. Like, it's exactly like, yeah, my kid went to this university Well, what are they doing now? Well, it doesn't really matter. They went to this university. Like, let's not, you know what I mean? Like, what's with all the personal questions? I'm trying to tell you about my—

Speaker B [00:24:21]:
My son going and being on the Yale rowing team.

Speaker A [00:24:23]:
Right, exactly. Like, never mind what he's doing now. It doesn't matter.

Speaker B [00:24:26]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:24:26]:
It's increasingly moving in that way of just being a total nonsense purchase. And then, but it's just a status symbol. Like, oh, I went to college in general. It's always been a status symbol with the Ivy League schools. It's always been a status—

Speaker B [00:24:40]:
It's like a Birkin bag.

Speaker A [00:24:41]:
Yeah, exactly. It's always been a status symbol. It's always been like, You couldn't really nail down like—

Speaker B [00:24:47]:
What?

Speaker A [00:24:48]:
Yeah.

Speaker B [00:24:48]:
What is that?

Speaker A [00:24:49]:
What does that mean? What did that really get you in life? And increasingly more and more that line is becoming obvious and therefore it's like, well, I just got it because X, Y, and Z, for whatever increasing of status that you would want.

Speaker B [00:25:06]:
Sure. And I think that there's few people that can afford that. And I mean, even emotionally speaking as well. So that's something that I wanna talk about because I know people are gonna have, the objection people will have to this and What people will say is, well, but what you're saying is that education is only for rich people. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. And that's because if you think that college equals education, then you will believe that. College doesn't equal education. And that's very obvious because most people are buying degrees that do not educate them.

Speaker B [00:25:32]:
And again, colleges— I say this till I'm blue in the face— colleges invented a test for themselves called the CLA to prove that they teach critical thinking, which is the only claim that they can make at this point. And they don't because they failed it at a 45% rate. And then no investigation happened, no consequences happened. They still have the same access to public money. It's ridiculous. And so to equate the two things is a huge problem. I was just talking to Andre Stamakis about this on his Go Ivy or Go Free podcast, where I said, and he and I both agreed on this, that it is very important that we divorce college and education because those things have never been synonyms and they're still not, and increasingly more so for the vast majority of degrees. Is it possible to go to college and get an education? Yes.

Speaker B [00:26:12]:
Is it frequent that people go to college and get an education? No. And you can see by the results of that, that people come out and they're not educated on the basic skill sets they need for work, which is the major reason why people go to college and why people send their kids. But also, they're not coming out with the critical thinking skills that supposedly you would assume they would get if they were paying for an education. And not only that, but then you look at like the actual engagement of these people afterwards in activities that you would deem educated. My favorite stat is that college graduates read 7 books a year, median. It's not difficult to have a more educated practice than a college graduate because all you have to have is a library card in order to do that. Because again, I would also posit that 4 out of 3 of those books, majority women who go to college and the majority of books that women read are not like nonfiction books. They're reading fairy romance novels.

Speaker B [00:26:59]:
That's what people are reading now, especially women who are in the age bracket that have just graduated college. It's not like we're graduating from college and then we read median 7 books a year and 4 of them are, and we're reading Steinbeck or reading Plato or reading Aristotle or we're reading Kierkegaard. That's not what we're doing here. We are reading fairy romance novels and then we're saying that, oh, we went $100,000 into debt for a job that pays 40 grand and you read median 7 books a year and 4 of them are fairy romance novels, you're educated. That's not a good society. It's not having the result that people think it's having and it's doing more damage than it is good. And that's why when people say a more educated society is a better society, yes, I agree with you. I agree with that 100%.

Speaker B [00:27:36]:
More people going to college does not mean that they're more educated. It just means right now that they are more in debt and they are more unhappy. That's all it means.

Speaker A [00:27:43]:
It might not mean that they're more in debt. Their family could be rich and therefore can pay for it.

Speaker B [00:27:48]:
Most college graduates are not.

Speaker A [00:27:49]:
But I'm just saying, I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily mean that. And also to play devil's advocate a little bit here, you quote that 7 books a year stat. But I would caution equating the two things because you're just saying college doesn't equal educated, but then therefore reading books does equal educated. And maybe reading books isn't the measuring stick for education either. I understand that it could possibly be better than buying and purchasing a college degree. And I think you and I agree on that, but I also don't think that reading books means that you're educated either.

Speaker B [00:28:22]:
I'm going to push back on this only because I believe that a huge reason our society is in so much turmoil right now is because nobody really knows what the definition of educated is. And I think that that's something that's going to have to get hammered down by somebody. I'm not saying that that's us. However, my definition of it, my measuring stick for it, and I think the one that's most universal and easiest globally is going to be literacy in whatever native language you are being educated in. And so I think that the amount of books someone reads a year, I think is a really good indication of whether or not they are educated or not. I do think that. That is my opinion. Um, I'm not saying that that's true, but I'm saying for people that constantly use that refrain of like, an educated society is a better society, I'm like, I agree with you.

Speaker B [00:29:01]:
However, people in our society used to read more books and they used to read not fairy romance novels. And so that is what I'm talking about, because I think that that's the best indication of how the quality of education has gone downhill because college is no longer education. So just because you have the majority of students going to college does not mean you have a more educated society. And you can see that because our society does not seem to be doing better. Someone just said the other day in the comments, they were like, well, but your society's better when there's more educated people. I'm like, well, we have more people going to college now than we ever have. Does our society look materially better? I would argue it does not. And most people are not materially better off or materially happier, which is what should happen if you have a more educated populace.

Speaker B [00:29:43]:
And that's something that I feel like this is part of my whole thesis about this, is that this is a huge problem because people conflating the two. And then being like, why don't we have, well, like, why isn't our society doing better? And it's because the thing that people are purchasing to become educated is not educating them.

Speaker A [00:29:57]:
I hear what you're saying. All I'm saying is I don't think that reading more than 7 books a year, like you, you did say this. So you said half of this was just like that, you know, if you're reading fairy romance novels, if you're reading 20 of them a year, are you educated? You know, probably not, I guess. But that's part of what I'm getting to is like, I think where you and I, or where I have the gripe with it, In general, just backing up, is exactly what you were knocking on the door of, which is the definition of educated. And it's like, what is educated? I don't know. And you brought it up as the problem. There are people that can't read that are hyper-educated in one specific domain, right? Like, I remember when I was a fireman, there were people that understood hydraulics and pressure, better than I ever would. And I would say that I'm very literate and they couldn't even read, but they just understood it.

Speaker A [00:30:53]:
They didn't need the math. They got it. Like, okay, we're going to pump it to this. We're going to pressure this down. Here we go. We're going to ramp the engine up. Boom. They just got it.

Speaker A [00:31:03]:
And I was just like, okay, so you carry the 1, whatever. And so it's like, in that, I was more literate than them. I had read more books about it than them. They were more educated in that than I was.

Speaker B [00:31:13]:
Interesting.

Speaker A [00:31:13]:
And so I'm just saying, I don't know what is the definition of education that we're using here. And I think that that's the problem that you're trying to get to. And I agree that as a society, for those that say you don't want an uneducated population or the opposite, you want an educated population, for anybody that says those types of blanket statements, you're right. The burden on them is to define education. And I'm just saying that I don't know I don't know if I have the answer to what that is. That's all I'm saying. And I don't know if— I definitely know that purchasing a college degree is not it.

Speaker B [00:31:50]:
Yes.

Speaker A [00:31:50]:
Because I mean, I know a lot of idiots that have a degree and like, I wouldn't necessarily call them educated. That said, to be fair to them, I'm also sitting here saying that I don't understand what educated even means.

Speaker B [00:32:05]:
This is a really good point. And I actually think too, that as technology is evolving, We're going to be able to measure people's level of education in a more objective way for the specific domain knowledge that we're looking to evaluate it for. And also it will become less necessary for people to have such a general academic version of educated because it's just not as useful in the world as it used to be because we now have technology that kind of takes the place of that, which is where people get into talking about idiocracy. But I think that you could argue that there are a lot of people now who are scholars in specific areas because they've had access to the internet, because they've had access to tools. And because technology has freed up people to have more time to deep dive into things. I use the example a lot of that farmer, that beef farmer from Indiana that I talked about, where he was just self-educated and he basically had a lab in his barn and he was using a centrifuge to test his beef and he was being able to customize, you know, he understands biology, he understands agriculture, he understands animal husbandry. He's a naturalist, he's a nutritionist because he processes his beef, does these inputs and outputs, and then he gets a specific outcome. that he then sells to elite athletes where the meat has a specific makeup to meet their nutritional needs.

Speaker B [00:33:16]:
It's incredibly scientific. It's like, you cannot say that this guy's not a scientist. He doesn't have a college degree. He just has the ability and the time to do what in Victorian England, people who had these labs and they were able to do this kind of thing. And it's more accessible now because of the internet. But this is kind of an aside just because I think that if you were talking about college education and yes, these people, when they're talking about educated, I believe what they mean and what I'm going to say that they mean, because they should be able to back this up, is that they mean literacy. Because if you're measuring college education, it's literacy. If you— if these people can't do fractions, which is what's happening, they can't do fractions, they can't read, and they don't have critical thinking skills.

Speaker B [00:33:56]:
And if you're paying $100,000 for an education, you should come out with those things. That is what I think, because that is what the institution says you'll be able to come out doing. They do not mean you'll be job ready because they say they're not job training. That's common now. You'll get all these professional academics coming out, oh, it's not job training, it's humanities. But humanities implies that you should be able to read and comprehend, and you should have a basic level of logic, and you should have reading comprehension. They don't have those things. And you cannot say that you are education if you do not come out with those things, I think, because colleges claim that they do that.

Speaker A [00:34:27]:
You threw in fractions there. Well, fractions is arithmetic. That's not reading.

Speaker B [00:34:32]:
Basic logic.

Speaker A [00:34:33]:
That's not literacy.

Speaker B [00:34:34]:
Basic math is basic logic. You say that all the time.

Speaker A [00:34:36]:
Yeah, but it's not literacy.

Speaker B [00:34:39]:
I would argue that being able to understand basic math is literacy, is a form of literacy.

Speaker A [00:34:44]:
Maybe proficiency.

Speaker B [00:34:45]:
Maybe, but I think even comprehending what those things mean, because when the colleges designed the CLA, part of that was understanding the percentages and the terms on the credit card brochures. So that's the way that the colleges themselves measure it. So that's kind of what I'm holding them to is if they say that that's the way to measure whether or not someone is educated and coming out of your institution with that education, And they can't pass that, that involves basic understanding of math. I'm taking what they've said and then I'm kind of extrapolating that out to what it should be. Like, if a college is claiming they're educating you and then you can't read, like you don't have reading comprehension, you don't have basic critical thinking skills, you can't do basic math, then you're not educated and the college is failing to do the thing that they are saying they're doing. And the reason I say that is because I think they should be liable for failing to be job training or failing to educate people, because you can't claim that you're both and also neither. depending on which one you're failing at. You either are educating people or you're not.

Speaker B [00:35:36]:
You're either helping them get jobs or you're not. And right now they're not doing either of those things, which is why I feel so strongly about this.

Speaker A [00:35:42]:
For all those listening, go to YouTube, go to Spotify, drop in a comment. What is educated?

Speaker B [00:35:48]:
Yeah. What's the definition of education?

Speaker A [00:35:49]:
Yeah. Especially if you are going to send your child, if you're teetering, I know a lot of people that listen to this are parents that are thinking about it, not sure, But you're like, I want them to be educated. Literally, and how do I know this? I mean, we have these conversations literally every day about this specific topic. Literally, one of the things that we were talking about is it's a little strange to be experts in this field because a lot of parents come to us. And then for you, even if you have 15 kids, you know what I mean? This is only the 15th time that you've been through this. But for most people, you have 2 kids. And so You're going to make this decision twice. And it's like, that's not a lot of reps to like have of making these decisions, right? It's like, uh, you have, you have it once and you're like, oh my gosh, that didn't work out.

Speaker A [00:36:35]:
What do we do? What do we do now? And then you overcourse correct, or, or maybe you just stick with it because that's the, that's the only thing that, you know, whatever that route was with, with the first one. Obviously they're, the second one is different. There are different people. It's totally different out of the box. All of that, all of that stuff. Totally. But it's so interesting to be experts because we've done this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. So we see patterns.

Speaker B [00:36:59]:
Yeah. Even within the same families, within siblings, within even twins or triplets, you're going to get, you'll see the same patterns that you see in other families, but you're always going to get a different result. And it's just because we see these puzzle pieces. And so our strategists, especially our team is really, really good at this where they just see, oh, okay, it's this and it's in this setting and these are the criteria. And it just becomes more clear with every individual. But the thing is, What's cool about people is they're all individuals. And so there's different puzzle pieces that just click into place for different people. And the more you hear it, the more familiar you get with a set of circumstances and then the right set of outcomes, which is just something that experience gives you.

Speaker A [00:37:34]:
That was a little bit of an aside, but to finish what I was saying, if you're thinking about sending your kid to college or you have an opinion on what education is in general, let us know.

Speaker B [00:37:42]:
Love to hear it.

Speaker A [00:37:43]:
Yeah. YouTube, Spotify, drop it in the comments. Let us know what you're thinking. Because obviously you have a very good idea of Or I think that you have a very good idea of what you hold to be true as what education is. I'm an open book on it. I really don't know, like just my, just my own life experience seeing people that literally cannot read. You know what I mean? Like they can't read the manual. Like how did you get through to where you are today? I don't understand.

Speaker A [00:38:09]:
Like, I mean, I guess like not reading is like a little bit of a, it just takes them very long to read. You know what I mean? Like it just takes them what would take me, you know, I'm a slow— I'm a slow reader. Like I'm a slow reader. I can read. But I'm a very slow reader. So if it will take me a minute to read it, it'll take them like 5 minutes, like 5x the time, which is quite a big difference. But then to see how in certain aspects of life, they are so much more proficient than me. And even things that are pretty technical, even things that were like, you know, we talk about hydraulics, but even things that were like geometrical in physical space where it's like, yeah, I could do the math, but then it's like, well, look at the building.

Speaker A [00:38:51]:
The ladder's 75 feet tall. Where do you have to be to get our ladder up there? You know what I mean? And like, well, I could do the math, but it's just like, well, you look, you estimate to here, whatever, whatever. And they're way more, I would use the word educated. I would use the word educated.

Speaker B [00:39:07]:
Sure. I'm sure that some people would say it's trained.

Speaker A [00:39:10]:
Yeah. Right.

Speaker B [00:39:11]:
Some people would say it's trained.

Speaker A [00:39:11]:
Some people would say more experienced, but then where does experience lead into education? Lead into education.

Speaker B [00:39:17]:
Right. Because And that's where, that's why, and you see why now even you and I, like you and I are on the same page, but this is a really difficult conversation. And this is a huge reason for a lot of this social unrest, I think, in our country is this lack of definition. And then in the last few years, there's been a lot of evidence that people that we held up as educated are actually not educated. And that has even, that's even cracked the foundation more. And so now we're at a point where I think it's probably similar to, there's different types of intelligence and different levels of it with regard to specific things. And it's probably likely that as we get, again, as technology picks up speed, and I hope that this is what happens in the future, but people who are educated in different ways according to their temperament, according to their ability, and then we're more able to evaluate people on an individual level, which I believe educated is also an individual evaluation, like I believe about everything else. But that said, I think that if you were going to sell education as your outcome, you have to be held to a specific standard.

Speaker B [00:40:07]:
You can't just not have a standard. If you are gonna sell education, then I believe that literacy is the correct measuring stick because that is what they claim that people will get and they're not getting it.

Speaker A [00:40:16]:
I completely hear what you're saying.

Speaker B [00:40:18]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:40:18]:
And I think that what you're saying is that if you're gonna sell education, then you must be able to define education. Correct. I think that's what you're saying.

Speaker B [00:40:24]:
Correct.

Speaker A [00:40:25]:
Or at least you should, like you should be held at some sort of standard.

Speaker B [00:40:29]:
I think ethically you should. Yeah.

Speaker A [00:40:30]:
Of where you can understand, like, and therefore define what education means. I agree with that point. I just know, I don't know if they can. And so, but I did want to kind of turn, we've been looking internationally this whole episode and that's not our audience. And so some of the last couple of points that we wanted to talk about are domestically. And so Kansas cutting the bachelor's degree by 25%.

Speaker B [00:40:55]:
I know, I just crack up when I see this. Academia, if you can't see it, academia is drowning, it's underwater and they are just flailing around and all the states are because, because basically academia is just a jobs program. And so our country is fighting this way harder than other countries. That's why you see China cutting degree programs viciously. You see the UK has realized they are not serving most people, so they're, they're pivoting to apprenticeship really hard, and they're having a hard time with it because the government's running it. It's always going to be bad. That's why you see private businesses are starting to try it, because that's actually the only thing that works. And then you see South— again, South Korea cutting degree requirements from one of the biggest chip manufacturers in the world.

Speaker B [00:41:30]:
Cutting degree requirements, taking high schoolers for R&D, for design, and for engineering. And our country meanwhile is infighting about, well, maybe we can do a 3-year degree program, which I always crack up about because again, only an academic could come up with a solution that's stupid, which is, oh, hey, our 4-year degree programs take 5.5 years for most kids. So what we're going to do is we're going to make our 4-year degree programs that a lot of colleges, you can't even graduate in 4 years. It's like literally impossible. You were, you experienced that. We're going to make it a 3-year degree program instead of the correct thing, which is actually most of the kids at these colleges, 90% of these kids at these colleges don't need to be there. They don't need to be buying that at all. There should be entry-level work that is strategic for their goals.

Speaker B [00:42:12]:
And we should be cutting off public funding. We should be abolishing the HEA. There should be no public money for these universities. They should dry up and close down. That's actually the only solution. And meanwhile, the states, because academia is such a big jobs program in our country, there's a ton of people employed in academia that shouldn't be employed in academia. They should be working in a private market somewhere. Employing people in academia is the only way to prop up academia because the bigger you can make the bloat, that's why there's so many admins compared to so many professors.

Speaker B [00:42:37]:
And you just employ your, you just get high on your own supply. You just employ your own graduates because who else is going to employ them? Because employers don't care. And that's what's increasingly showing. So Connecticut just killed this 3-year degree program probably. And I, I'm not sure, but I bet it's because a lot of academics are worried about the standard. But the problem is that the standard now is not good. And so they're fighting for it because it's going to cost jobs. It's going to close down institutions and it should.

Speaker B [00:43:06]:
And so I think that there's going to be a ton of infighting from this professional academic class of people to try to keep the 4-year degree program alive, even while around the world, countries are like, oh, this doesn't work. Let's cut that. Because they don't have as much of the social pressure involved because of how Because of how tied in our country is to the loan system, because it's such a big moneymaker in our country, $848 billion, this industry, and it thrives on young people. Like we put all of our kids through this meat grinder. And again, I think that that's probably why our country's in bad shape right now, because we're doing this to young people. That's how we're starting their lives out. And then we're like, oh, why is the birth rate going down? Oh, why aren't people getting married? Oh, why are young people so unhappy? And a lot of it is because they either have been told they have to go buy a $100,000 piece of paper to get a good job, which is a lie. Or they've been told if they don't go do that, they're stupid.

Speaker B [00:43:54]:
And those are the— that's what's wrong with our country. If we stop doing that and we abolish the HEA and we cut off the government money, a ton of things will fix themselves. And it might even save academia because that's the only thing that's going to fix it. Yeah.

Speaker A [00:44:06]:
The thing is, is that by making a 3-year degree or by cutting it from 120 credits to 90 credits, however you want to state that, is by effectively making it a 3-year degree, it doesn't automatically make it a better product. It's still the same underlying product. And to what you were saying about the people that actually are in these institutions might not want it because of X, Y, and Z, because of, you know, they're not going to be as educated or because tuition is going to fall by $20,000 or basically by one year, you know, a 25% drop in whatever the tuition was at whatever institution it is. They don't want to go through that hit, that revenue hit. You got to think like from the college's perspective, why are they doing this? Literally, why are they doing this? If everything was great, They would be trying to go the other way.

Speaker B [00:44:55]:
Keep them there longer.

Speaker A [00:44:56]:
Right. Keep them there longer. Right, exactly. Let's make it 150 credit hours to graduate college. But really they're realizing, oh, there's cracks showing. This system is bad. We are a big business, huge, massive business. We are having to lay off people.

Speaker A [00:45:14]:
Enrollments are down, which is then purchases. People are not buying our products at the rate of which they used to, and we have to do something about it. And so then they go to their product team, they go to their marketing teams, and they're just like, yo, what can we do? And they're just like, well, how about we take the same exact product, but we make it shorter—

Speaker B [00:45:32]:
Faster.

Speaker A [00:45:32]:
And we make it cheaper. And then they're just like, good job, Timmy, you're gonna get a raise. And it's to attract us consumers into theirs and thinking that like, okay, well, less money, at least the same amount of value that it had, or increased because you're not paying as much for it. Right. So it's either like, it's less money, equal or better value, therefore net positive in our mind. Therefore we're going to purchase. Yeah. Therefore more purchase.

Speaker B [00:45:59]:
Families will reconcile it to themselves a little bit better, but the irony being this 3-year degree is not going to take 3 years. It's still going to take 4 and a half. It's still going to take 4 years.

Speaker A [00:46:07]:
It doesn't matter about that. Well, it might matter to like your child that you, you listening to this, like, Of course, it is their life, and if that's the case, then it adds another year of their life. But I'm saying on aggregate, let's just say, let's just take them at their word.

Speaker B [00:46:22]:
Say it does take 3 years.

Speaker A [00:46:23]:
Let's say that it does take 3 years. It's still like, you as the consumer still have to realize net-net, this is not a good purchase. It's the same product. It's literally the same thing. They're just putting it in a different wrapper, and they're just, you know what I mean? They're putting lipstick on a pig. It's like, what are we doing?

Speaker B [00:46:39]:
Well, that's the craziest thing is that at no point here has it occurred to these people that maybe most of these kids don't need to buy this at all. It's just, how can we make this— like, how can we just make this a little bit more palatable to parents who— because trust in higher ed, which I've always put air quotes around it, is at an all-time low. And at no point, if this was really about the kids, if it was really about the outcome, we would be saying, you know what, most of these kids don't need to be here. Because that's the truth. That's the truth. Most of them do not need to be here. They don't need to be here to have good lives, to start businesses, to have families, to get high-paying jobs, to get skilled jobs, to get engineering jobs, tech jobs, finance Like they don't need to be there. Healthcare jobs, they don't need to be there at all.

Speaker B [00:47:18]:
They never need to step foot on a campus to get those things. We know that because in the Launch Program, we do that all the time. And it's crazy to me that they look at this and they don't, they don't just question the fundamental assumption, right? Question every requirement. Do this many kids need to go to college and buy degrees? The answer is no. And if they just started there, it would get so much easier. We wouldn't have to be quibbling about 3-year degrees or 4-year degrees. You can keep the 4-year degrees. You're just going to sell way less of them because you should be selling way less of them.

Speaker B [00:47:44]:
That's the answer. And no one wants to hear that because it means that they're going to have to cut. It means they're going to have to cut and their industry is not going to have all this excess money, all this excess prestige. They're going to shrink back down to their actual size. And that is what nobody wants. They're all trying to avoid that because it's going to be hard. It's going to be a hard, hard market correction too. There's going to be a lot of people unemployed.

Speaker B [00:48:02]:
However, I would argue that for the damage that academia has done to young people, to generations of young people at this point, and the years that they have robbed from them and the opportunities that they have robbed from them, because debt closes more doors than degrees will ever open. They deserve that. The industry itself deserves that. And the people who are going to be negatively impacted about that, I feel bad for them. However, that does not take away the fact that your industry is corrupt. Like, the base level of it— that what you're selling, who you're selling it to, and why you're selling it to them— it's wrong. It's wrong. It is morally, ethically wrong.

Speaker B [00:48:33]:
It's also just not right for the market because less than 10% of jobs require degrees, and that's always going to be true. And until We have academia shrinking back down to where they're selling degrees to maybe like 10 to 12% of graduating high school seniors. This is not going to get fixed. And the only way to do that is to cut off the public money. That's the only way to do it.

Speaker A [00:48:52]:
To be fair to academia, yes, I agree with everything that you're saying and everything, but I think that it's mainly our government that is to blame. And it is that access that they've given colleges, that they've given these institutions to basically Right now, it's not even basically, it is to write blank checks. They gave them the ability to write blank checks.

Speaker B [00:49:13]:
And then they wrote them.

Speaker A [00:49:14]:
And then they wrote them. And so it's like—

Speaker B [00:49:17]:
You get what you incentivize.

Speaker A [00:49:18]:
Yeah. How is that their fault? I mean, it is their fault, but—

Speaker B [00:49:23]:
I agree with you.

Speaker A [00:49:23]:
How is that their fault?

Speaker B [00:49:24]:
I agree with you.

Speaker A [00:49:24]:
It's like at the end of the day, we have to think about whether or not we're going to put our young ones in this or whatever, as an overall thing. But for you listening to this right now, it's screw everybody else. Who cares?

Speaker B [00:49:38]:
What are you going to do?

Speaker A [00:49:38]:
What are you going to do with your kids? Like I said, you got 2 shots at this.

Speaker B [00:49:42]:
Yeah.

Speaker A [00:49:42]:
Right? You got 2 shots at it.

Speaker B [00:49:43]:
Most people got 5 max.

Speaker A [00:49:45]:
Right. You have to deal with this. And so are you going to keep purchasing from this place of which the government has enabled to write these buying checks, of which you can see how is it that college tuition, even though the underlying product has gotten less valuable over time.

Speaker B [00:50:01]:
Doubles every 9 years.

Speaker A [00:50:02]:
But the price of it has gone way, way, way up. It's because of the government money. And so academia, I agree with everything you're saying to a point, but at the end of it, it's like, dude, you got to point the finger at where it is. It's like we didn't get into this student loan debt crisis, and it is a crisis. We didn't get this by ourselves. It was enabled and it is continually being enabled. There are some certain things that we talked about before in previous episodes that are happening in this administration that's kind of hopefully walking it back a little bit.

Speaker B [00:50:40]:
I don't think it's going to help.

Speaker A [00:50:40]:
It's not helping.

Speaker B [00:50:41]:
It's going to make it worse.

Speaker A [00:50:42]:
I don't think it's going to help. Right, exactly. It's not now exactly what you've— we talked about last time. Like now you're seeing programs that are $99,000 and it's just like, oh, that's interesting.

Speaker B [00:50:50]:
The limit's $100,000.

Speaker A [00:50:51]:
So the checks, Is, and like, that is the clear, for, for those people that are non-believers here, like send this to your non-believer friend. Like for those people that are like, no, they're, they're not businesses and thinking like, oh, they're just, there's no—

Speaker B [00:51:03]:
They're nonprofits.

Speaker A [00:51:03]:
They're, they're, they're just, yeah, they're just out here for our good. Why did they make it $100,000 and then weeks later $99,000 is the, is the tuition price? Like, oh, the check is no longer blank. It is now named and you can see it. The tide is coming out. You can see them for what they are. And they're a business incentivized by us or by our government and therefore taking advantage of it.

Speaker B [00:51:29]:
Right. And it's the same thing that happened. Was it Biden that did the forgiving $20,000 of student loans or just pausing the student loan payments? And you and I both were like, all people are going to do now is just take out more student loans. And that's exactly what happened. They got a little bit of a reprieve and then they immediately were like, oh, let me just buy more. Let me just buy more loans. That's exactly what happened. People took out more loans when they weren't having to pay their student debt.

Speaker B [00:51:50]:
Or when they got that like $20,000 forgiveness credit, that's exactly what happened. People went and bought master's degrees they didn't need. And that's why every time the government gets involved in this, they always make it worse. And that's why I don't think like, is it a sign of moving in the right direction to limit the, like to cap the loans? Yeah, I guess. But I think all it's going to do is just alleviate a little bit of that price point where people would've not bought and that would've benefited their life a lot more. And now they're still going to buy and it's still going to be too much and it's still going to negatively impact them. I think that's what's going to happen. But anyway, I guess socially, I guess a step in the right direction towards being more cognizant of the debt, but I just don't think it's going to have the desired result because usually when the government does things, it doesn't have the desired result.

Speaker A [00:52:29]:
Yeah, I agree with you completely. I think we'll get off our soapbox now. Until next week, guys.

Speaker B [00:52:33]:
Aloha.