From AI to Healthcare: Grading Our 6 Predictions for 2024 (DF#181)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
People do not realize that 7.7% of all the jobs in the US legally require degrees. I cannot gloat enough about the fact that when Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania rolled back all of the unnecessary degree requirements, it freed up 92.3% exactly of their state jobs to people who are degree

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:21]:
free. Aloha folks, and welcome back to degree free. We are going to go over the 6 predictions that Hannah and I made in the beginning of 2024. We are going to see whether or not we were correct about our predictions. This is the first time that we've done this. Last year was the first time that we made predictions publicly. And this is the first time that we get to check whether or not our predictions were correct. So So this is going to be fun.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:44]:
There are 6 predictions that we had and we are going to go through them 1 by 1. But anyway, there's 3 that you made. There's 3 that I made. Let's jump into it. And so some of these are about degree free, the movement, and a couple of them are just about trends in general. The first one that I wanted to start off with is going to be trend in general. And this was my prediction, which is that there was going to be a more AI.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:07]:
That really is the line that's written down here too. It's more AI.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:10]:
Well, I went back and listened to the episode and that was the prediction basically, which is that AI was going to go crazy.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:16]:
Also, you were wrong.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:18]:
Thank you. It wasn't very hard. That wasn't a very bold prediction that AI was gonna keep getting better and better and getting more involved and more involved and augment more and more jobs. That wasn't a hard prediction to make, but it was a prediction that I made. And sure enough, if you look at all of the different companies that are out there that are actually developing large language models and AI, they are getting better and better, and they are releasing more and more features all the time. If you look at OpenAI, what they did over the holiday season, they did 12 days of OpenAI or whatever. And every day for 12 days, they like launched a new feature or they launched a new thing. They launched Sora, which is their AI video creation, which is absolutely insane.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:03]:
And if you look at this past year, X started their version of an LLM. They started Grok and Google Gemini at the end of the year, they also put out Gemini 2.0, which was significantly better than Gemini 1.0. It's

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:18]:
kind of an offshoot, but I did just see on X that Gra correctly diagnosed somebody from photos of an incision site and blood tests, which is pretty crazy.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:27]:
What do you mean diagnosed?

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:28]:
Diagnosed the level of infection, and they had to go to the hospital. And then insane. Yeah. Because diagnostics in general, it's just pattern recognition on a large scale. And so if you can feed it all of these different pieces of information, it's going to be a much better.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:40]:
Diagnostic partner, I suppose.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:42]:
To a physician because it will literally have seen more than a physician.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:45]:
That's exactly right. And then they also are not susceptible to Bias. Well, I mean, they are susceptible to bias and depending on how you train it, I was talking about more about it as like fatigue. They're not susceptible to the human condition, which is you lost all your money on crypto and your doctors, he's actually in the poor house because he bought his 7th Tesla and he's going through a second divorce. And right before the year consult with him, he just had got off of the

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:09]:
Got served with papers. I don't know if it's sepsis or not. You're probably fine. Go home.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:13]:
The AI doesn't have any of that. And then less dramatic than that, I guess, is more like, Hey, I'm tired. I had a bad night of sleep.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:19]:
That's probably more frequent than the scenario that we described.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:22]:
I'm not sure. I'm not a doctor.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:25]:
We know doctors, man. Those guys are tired, especially in residency.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:28]:
Hey there. I hope you're enjoying this episode of the degree free podcast. At degree free, we wanna help everyone thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. And the only way to truly reach everyone is with your help. If you're getting value out of this episode or if this is your second, 3rd, or 4th episode that you're tuning into, if you could just ship this to a friend, just click that one button and share it with someone in your contacts or on your stories. It would mean the world to us. And more importantly, get our message out to more people who need help getting out of their current situation. If you could do that right now, that would mean a whole lot going down that doctor rabbit hole for a second.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:07]:
I've talked to oncologists about this and that's exactly what they say. I mean, already their work is being augmented by AI because through all of their different scans, I'm not even going to pretend like I know the different scans that they do, whatever, MRI, CTs, whatever types of scans they do, that AI is already better at detecting those types of things. At the very least, it'll flag a bunch of things for them.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:34]:
To evaluate, inform search. Basically, that's what AI is going to be used for improving human work.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:39]:
Exactly.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:39]:
Reducing human error.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:40]:
And it's already happening and it's accelerated this year. It is going to be pervasive. And once again, in 2025, it will continue. That rate of acceleration will not stop until we've reached the singularity until Skynet. But no, no, just jokes, folks. What was interesting though, this year talking about AI, and this is just a more of a personal thing for me. I met with one of my buddies. He's a good friend of mine that I saw this year.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:05]:
Once is more than enough for this friend.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:08]:
It was once this year.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:09]:
Short and infrequent doses. All joking aside, I met with him and he develops AI data centers and I guess he has these projects. That's what he does. And he was saying that they're busier than ever. Just the amount of sites that they're looking at and that they're on schedule to make is unreal. This prediction, it was a bit of a softball, but even though I did pitch the softball to myself, I did knock that softball out of the park.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:36]:
You did. That is very true.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:38]:
So first prediction, correct. More AI. Now I wanted to get to the 2nd prediction, and I think it'd be better if you and I just go 1 by 1. So for you, what was your first prediction?

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:48]:
My first prediction of 2024 was I predicted 20 more states would drop degree requirements. I got very close. As of December 2023, a total of 16 states have removed 4 year degree requirements for most state jobs through a combination of executive and legislative actions. Since we wrote these notes, I think another one came through. I can't remember which state it was, but it's 16 as of right now for the formal record. And for many of those states, it's upwards of 90% of their state jobs, which goes to show how few of them actually required degrees at all the entire time, which is also very close to our 7.7% estimation of the national requirement for actually legally required degree jobs. In fact, I will gloat about this. People do not realize that 7.7% of all the jobs in the US legally required degrees.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:32]:
I cannot gloat enough about the fact that when Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania rolled back all of the unnecessary degree requirements, it freed up 92.3 percent exactly of their state jobs to people who are degree free. And that is literally a direct reflection of our analysis, like point to point, which is pretty crazy.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:49]:
Yeah. That is crazy. I did want to interject here a little bit and you just said it without saying it, which is, there's a little bit of an asterisk on this. It's a little bit of Barry Bonds

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:00]:
because we've rounded up.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:01]:
No, what I mean is the asterisk is that 16 states dropped degree requirements, but they didn't drop them fully. And there are a sub section of jobs, you know, there's a certain cohort, very small minority that still quote require degrees

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:19]:
because they're a legal requirement.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:20]:
But for all of the ones that don't require degrees, I mean, they slash, like you said, all of them took a huge meat cleaver to all of it and just slash those requirements right off. Because as we know for all everybody listening, it doesn't matter. They're not actually required. You don't need a degree to be a park ranger. You don't need a degree to be a fireman. It's just not necessary. And so you get rid of those degree requirements. Magically, what happens when you get rid of those degree requirements, as we talk about all the time is that people stop self eliminating and they end up applying to those jobs.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:56]:
And really that's, what's happening a lot in the talent pool is you just want more people to apply to your job, more qualified candidates to apply to your job. And why would we put up these stops? Why would we put up these barriers for people to self eliminate when we have the exact opposite problem is where we need people to apply?

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:13]:
I actually just read that Canva dropped their degree requirements off of all of their jobs 2 years ago. Do you want to guess how many people applied to work at Canva?

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:21]:
To work at Canva? I don't know. Literally, I hope a gajillion, because as I've talked about many times, I think we are still

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:29]:
the original Canva plan. Yeah. We are grandfathered in pass that one down to the kids.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:33]:
Exactly. 6.95 a month or whatever we're paying. And for 6 years.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:37]:
What did your grandfather leave you? A can remember? A can

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:40]:
for subscription

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:43]:
From 18/12.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:44]:
It was a big day. He changed his email account.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:50]:
Gmail.com. I'm sorry. At that point, it'll be neurolinkdot

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:54]:
you. Anyway, guesstimating Canva. How many people? They're a big company. Let's call it 20,000.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:01]:
They had 300,000 applicants to their jobs last year. The reason this is such a big deal is because they do not have any degree requirements. Not only that, but they're using something called a skill passport. And that is what they're using to promote people internally. They don't hire based on degrees. They've completely eliminated that from their policy, from their language, from their culture. So that's not how you get good people. And it's interesting because I saw them developing basically that exact thing to use, to move people internally for different projects.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:27]:
It was interesting because Canva is doing that and has great success with it because they increase their talent pool. And when you increase your talent pool, you get better people because you just have more people applying. And when I was still working in AI, one of the companies we worked for was a fortune 500 company, big, massive, huge company. And they were building the first version of essentially that exact thing where they were measuring based on projects. They're measuring based on skills based tests. They did not give a crap if somebody had a degree or not in order to decide to put them on a project.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:55]:
That's amazing that companies are figuring it out and it's definitely necessary. What is going to be the really huge game changer in the market is when you can figure out how to do it externally.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:05]:
They also removed degree requirements outside, but now it's the skill thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:09]:
It's literally exactly what I'm saying, which is you have to figure out how to measure skills and portfolios and all of that from external candidates. And companies are out there that are claiming that they can do it. The companies that we all know and those employment companies, Indeed's out there, LinkedIns, those types of platforms, they are working day and night to try to figure out that thing. Because for them, it's literally their job. Their job is to connect talent with companies. If they can figure it out, they're going to get all of the job seekers going there. And if they get all of the job seekers going there, they're gonna get all of the companies going there or vice versa. If you get all of the companies going there because their batchings is so good, then all of the people are gonna follow.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:48]:
Either way, the companies is the hard side of the market though. You want to get the companies there. So if they, but if the companies are very sure that they're going to get quality candidates through this platform and they are sure that they can match quality candidates and then you are a quality candidate, You're going to go there too. And really it's a multibillion dollar problem that I think is going to be solved. Maybe not completely a 100% solved. The job search process is going to look completely different in 5 years.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:13]:
And you and I've had a vision of something like this for a long time, but you're just going to wake up and get invitations to do work that specifically suits your skill sets and you can choose to do it or not.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:20]:
I disagree with the whole everyone's going to be a freelancer mentality. And then we talked to a CEO of a very large company that does something like this. And he said it best when we were speaking with him, which is finding a job or being employed or finding employment is it's a spectrum. And basically what is going to happen in the future is that these platforms are going to be able to give you what you need no matter where you are on this spectrum. What does that mean? So the spectrum is all the way I'm completely looking for work because I'm out of work to I'm gainfully employed. I'm not planning on going anywhere. Don't need it. And then there's every position in between that, which is I am employed, but if a better deal came along, I would definitely be open to that too.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:08]:
I am working part time in my field, but I'm looking to work full time. Those everywhere in between all of that is that spectrum that we're talking about. And what technology is going to do is going to be able to meet you wherever you are on that spectrum and be able to find jobs for you wherever you are, where I resist the temptation for to say everybody's going to be a freelancer is I think that there are people that are still going to want to be an in a team environment and be working towards something and building towards something day in and day out for very many years. Whereas in this freelancer economy, you're basically a mercenary. You go mark a couple of projects and then you're like, okay, I'm done. I'm going to go back to the sofa, wait for my phone to ring, wait for the next hit to come in. And then I'm going to go mark some more people.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:55]:
And this is my view of everything going back to the future. So you're thinking of freelancer and more of a tech centered way, but if you think about it, even like the classic artists that worked on these, this is seen chapel worked on these massive things. We're technically freelancers. They technically weren't employees in the way that we understand employees to be, but they had consistent work and every day they chose to show up. And some days they chose not to show up if they were protesting some aspect of the project or other, but really that's what I mean. A good example is the guy that just rebuilt, Notre Dame, the cathedral. He was a contractor that did that obviously. And he chose to take that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:28]:
He chose to take that contract. And I think that in the long term for artisans or tech workers, I do think that it'll be something like that. You're employed where you're at, but I also think that people will have a lot more control because it's kind of how it used to be. Thankfully, all people were freelancers. If your farm was fine, you could go down the road and shovel dirt for a neighbor. You could go into town and do whatever for 3 days a week. It's the way people used to be. It's the way they used to operate.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:50]:
So I think it's natural. I tend to think that people end up doing the things that are natural to them before, which is fill their time if they want to.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:54]:
Yeah. I think that future is going to become more prevalent. It's going to eat more of the market share that than what is today. Whereas most people are employees. Most people are for our company. Most people are w-two. And then one of the things is in the US, you have to figure out the whole healthcare situation. That's a mess.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:10]:
But as soon as we can figure that the healthcare situation out and not tie it to our employer anymore and not make it extremely expensive for healthcare through other means other than being employed, then we're going to see a major shift in that reality. And that's going to eat market share of W2 versus freelancers. And so, yes, I do think that will eventually take much more of the market. I still think that a lot, maybe majority, will still be in the W2 role because most of them are going to be on this side of the spectrum, which is I'm gainfully employed and I'm not really looking for other work because I don't want to onboard somewhere else. I don't want to do this thing. And honestly, I'm working towards something that I believe in and that I love, or that my job now has the security and has all the benefits for me to do whatever I want in my life outside of work. And that's what I think. And so moving on to the 3rd prediction, this one was about the movement, or I guess the podcast really about degree free.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:05]:
I said that the podcast is going to get much, much bigger in 2024. So with this one, and I'm just gonna be honest with you folks, I didn't get this one right. If you listen back to the episode, and this was episode 130, I said, oh, we're gonna blow up. Gargantuan atomic bomb. You know? And that wasn't the case at all. We didn't lose any listeners. There's still the same faithful listeners that watch every week, that listen every week as well. We gained a little bit.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:33]:
I thought we were going to go from a 10 X. We're at 1 now. I thought we were going to get to like 10 or 12 X, and that wasn't the case. I think one of the things was that we were just really focused on the degree free way and trying to get that launched and trying to get that out the door. And that sapped up a lot of creative energy. And if you actually look back to our episodes, we usually have a lot more guests on and things like that. But because we had the degree free way, fulfilling it, writing it, all the stuff, we couldn't take as many guests. We couldn't have as many people on and not having the guests on really hampers it actually, because then usually when they come on, they share it with their audience and that helps to grow the podcast and everything like that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:13]:
It helps grow the movement, but we weren't able to, because it was so difficult to hammer down when we could sit down and actually talk to people. And so anyway, thank you for everybody that's watching. Thank you for everybody that's listening. It is awesome. 2025. I'm renewing this one.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:31]:
I think that actually this year is going to be the one.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:34]:
Once again, like I did the last one, more AI and also more degree free in 2025.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:41]:
Yikes. Cop out, cop out, cop. Somebody send the police.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:43]:
So moving on to number 4.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:44]:
So number 4, my prediction was down credentialing will accelerate in medicine, technology, and teaching.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:47]:
And I was

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:48]:
right about all the technology, and teaching. And I was right about all of these, actually, every single one. The National Association of Medical Staff Services has been removing obnoxious questions from their credentialing applications in order to help physicians not have to be annoyed when they were renewing credentials. That's not so much what I'm talking about as far as there's a big push by that same organization to adopt digital credentialing platforms, which is really gonna help with licensing across state lines and all kinds of different stuff. That's gonna get more and more common. It looks like a lot of changes are coming down the pipeline next year too, probably, with the change of administrations, just to be quite frank. It's gonna be interesting to see how health care specifically, business policy, and then higher education policy. I don't wanna call it higher education policy as we all know.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:31]:
I don't really believe that that's what it is. So I'll call it not academic policy, but academia policy is gonna change completely next year. So I'm interested to see this specifically, but 2 other areas, like I talked about major tech companies, IBM, Tesla, Google, Bank of America, Accenture have all removed degree requirements for certain roles. Canva, like you just mentioned, there's way more than that. We should probably have a giant list up on our website, but the shift really is to tap into a broader pool of talent. And there's a massive skill shortage across all industries. That's the solution to it is volume and that's what they're doing. And then teaching is another one that is always for some reason highly controversial, but this is happening and people can get with the program or not.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:09]:
In Texas, the Texas Education Agency offers alternative certification programs. And this allows people to become certified teachers while completing their teaching certification requirements and getting paid. And then New York has developed alternative pathways to teacher certifications because they have so many teaching openings. They cannot keep teachers for anything. A lot of these also include alternative certifications and allow people to actually test out teaching and transition into teaching from being a pair pro or teacher's aid. And this is to address the fact that there's not enough teachers. Arkansas has another one. They have a 2 year program that allows somebody to complete a bachelor's degree, and to teach while completing certification requirements.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:47]:
And then Arizona is offering a teaching intern certificate as Basically, there's just a giant loosening of all these requirements. And then the main thing is that people are trying to reduce the risk of people not wanting to be teachers. So they're trying to get them into the actual environment before they buy a college degree in education, and then realize they hate their life. I hope that this results in people who do become teachers being much happier with their life choices and them going into it much more informed.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:11]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the sooner that we can get them into the classroom and into that environment, I'm not even saying teaching, but just into that environment to see whether or not that's something that they want to do or something that they can put up with, the better. And then also in the same vein, the sooner that we can get them in there as well. What I mean by that is with the less debt, the better.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:28]:
The happier they're going to be.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:30]:
Exactly. Because with the amount of money that they're going to make, they shouldn't be in 6 figures worth of student loan debt. The math just doesn't math out. And we talked about many times in the show. I think that is one of the biggest reasons for the dissatisfaction in the teaching profession. If you talk to teachers, a lot of them are unhappy in their role, which is interesting, right? Because you would think from the outside looking in, it's a pretty good gig. You're like, oh, we don't get paid enough and all that. Sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:57]:
But I'm not shitting on teachers here. I'm just saying, if you look at it, they work 8 months out of the year and they get paid a full salary. It's a pretty good gig.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:06]:
And yes, your contract pays you the thing that people are gonna say is a contract, which it is a contract. They get a contract every year for the most part, but the contract is a full time salary. There are people who work all year, not 8 months of the year for that exact same amount of money. Lots of people, including firefighters and EMTs who put their lives on the actual line and actually go into burning buildings and actually deal with people who are violent and drug addicts on the streets. And they get paid that amount of money. So it's a similar pay. Like it's a public work salary. You can choose to go into it or not go into it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:32]:
And if you want people to be happier than having them start at 18, actually test out if that environment is right for them, and then progressively get paid more while they get certified without having to go into into bachelor's degree debt is the answer, especially master's degree debt. The amount of teachers I've seen get roped into the master's degree for absolutely no reason is insane.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:47]:
I think that that's a good thing. Getting them into the classroom quicker in both senses, just so they can see the environment, see if they like their work, and then also to keep them out of student loan debt. Because the less student loan debt they're in, the happier I think that they're going to be in their role and with their life ultimately, which is important. But yes, the down credentialing has kept up and has broadened for sure in the healthcare space. When you said medicine, I think you were also talking about just healthcare in general. Not, I think. In the episode, that's what you said. It was the healthcare industry and medicine and the tech that's obvious for sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:24]:
And then teaching as well. So I think that you hit the nail on the head on that one as well. And so moving on to number 5.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:30]:
My number 5 prediction. This was my next prediction was that there would be an uptick in small business creation. This is because of one huge factor. And that is that gen Z has a very entrepreneurial spirit. And also contrary to what a lot of people think about this generation, they're actually not afraid to work on the right things. If they have the right thing, they do care about it actually. A 2024 report by WAP highlighted that 54% of Gen Z respondents plan to start a business, underscoring their strong entrepreneurial intentions. This is actually amazing because over half of this generation wants to start a business one day, which is really, really amazing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:03]:
I think that's a pretty significant increase from past people who never thought they would start their own business. And it's probably social media and it's probably just the rise of information and the accessibility of this type of education. But I believe many of them will do this and it's pretty amazing to see that majority of them have this inclination. Like

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:18]:
I've said many times on this podcast, it's never been easier to start a business. The barrier to entry has never, never been lower and it's only going to get easier and easier as time progresses. But I think with this 54% of Gen Z wanting to start a business, I think that this is also indicative of what you were talking about earlier about the freelancers and things. I think starting a business is just like working, but working for yourself instead of starting a big business or starting a whatever. It's more like, this is what I think. This is all opinion. Oh, well, I want to do this job, but I just want to do it by myself and I want to do it for myself and I want to do it in like a contractor role. And so I can work when and where I want, which is exactly what wouldn't evolve.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:02]:
Robin Khan was saying is exactly what you were saying, that you think the future is going to look like. And I think that that's really what they mean by starting a business instead of like, oh, well, I want to start a business where I then hire people, employ more people, make it big. I think it's more like I want to be a graphic designer and I just want to work for myself. That's what I think starting a business is. I don't know. That's just my opinion.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:25]:
I think I agree with that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:26]:
Last but not least, this was more about our business or about degree free as a movement, which is 2024 is going to be degree free's year. That's what I said. And I would say for our company, that was definitely true.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:38]:
Yeah. It wasn't not that's for sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:40]:
I would say that was definitely true with the launch of the degree free way. It was the biggest launch we've had and it stretched us as entrepreneurs, but it felt good to have a product that wasn't 1,000 of dollars. Yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:53]:
That was accessible to people.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:54]:
That people could buy them once again. How is it accessible? It's still expensive.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:57]:
To all those people, You write your own book, publish your own book, and make sure it's 2 books that go together in a set, and then you figure out the logistics, supply, shipping, printing, all of that stuff. Good luck.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:06]:
But it felt good to have something that was accessible to everybody. I would say in that sense, it was the most successful launch that we've had of anything, not even in degree free, but just of any product ever that we've done in our however long we've been entrepreneurs now, 8 years or whatever, and however many businesses we've had, it was the most successful for sure. And as far as the movement getting widespread, I'm not sure about the company adoption as far as the company is dropping degree requirements. I mean, we talked about it, they are. But I know it's happening and it's a much faster rate than before, but I thought it was going to be much, much bigger. Basically, degree requirements would never exist. If you listen back to the episode, that's pretty much what I thought. Well,

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:44]:
I think it's still headed that direction and picking up speed as it goes downhill, to be honest.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:48]:
But I just want it to be honest to what I think that I meant a year ago. And so to that standard, I don't think it was as big as I thought it was going to be.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:57]:
But I don't know. I saw this year, it was the year of everybody and their mother just started being like, yeah, literally just saying it's a scam. You got professors coming out the wazoo, just talking about it's a scam. Every talking head that I saw is it's a scam. What is this? And honestly, it's stuff that you and I have been saying for years. And so it was kind of good to see that everybody's catching up. Both presidential candidates also talked about removing them, by the way, which was a huge.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:19]:
What I was going to say was that the movement has gotten much bigger from the perspective of the people and the perspective of there are so many more people.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:28]:
So many more people questioning.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:30]:
And not only questioning, but being vocally against just going with the narrative, just going with the, Hey, you have to go to college. You got to get a 4 year degree. You got to go into debt. You got to check all of these boxes to have a great life. And there are so many more people that are against it, or at least that are double thinking it or vocally speaking out and saying, Hey, maybe it doesn't have to look like this. Maybe there is a better way for that. I'm grateful. And I think that we definitely had a part in that for sure.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:00]:
Yeah. I like to think so.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:01]:
Anyway, that's what I meant. I think it was from a company perspective, we were going to do much better. And then from a moving perspective, it was going to be everywhere. Mainly coming from the companies. If you listen to it from the company level, it is happening, but it's happening quietly and it is picking up speed. I thought that they were going to just take an atom bomb to the whole degree requirements and nobody requires a degree. And so that didn't happen. But from the people perspective and from the boots on the ground, I guess, or whatever, you can tell that

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:28]:
the tide has shifted.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:29]:
Exactly. And I wouldn't even say any more that the tide is shifting. I agree with what you just said. Yeah. It has moved and people are starting to wake up to it and have woken up to it. And just now they're looking for a better way and

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:41]:
We're the antidote.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:42]:
Yeah. The Degree Free way is the way. I'm very confident in that. So those were the 6 predictions that we had for 2024. Next week, we're going to be doing our predictions for 2025. Thank you so much for being a part of DegreeFree in 2024, and we are super excited to see what 2025 brings. Until next week,