How to Support Your Young Adult in Breaking Free from the College Grind (DF#179)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Education is not limited to college. Those things are not synonyms. Degrees are paywalled, but education is accessible to everyone. There are so many educational options that are significantly more cost effective, provide more practical skills and are way more interesting and way higher quality education than college degrees.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:22]:
Aloha folks, and welcome back to degree free. Today, we are going to be talking about how to help your young adult get off the college hamster wheel. We're going to be breaking down a conversation and some of the things that Hannah talked about with one of the participants in our launch program. As soon as she got done with her session, she came into my office and she started telling me about it. And I knew immediately that we needed to make an episode about it because I know that there are a lot of young adults that are out there feeling like this. And there are a lot of parents out there that know that their young adults are feeling like this. I want to talk about what we can do and to see some of these signs so that we can get off of this college hamster wheel.

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:58]:
Yeah. I was talking with this young lady about what she wants to do. We were going through interest inventory and she is currently feeling pretty stuck and she's buying a degree. Her parents are pretty worried about her lack of direction. She doesn't really know why she's there, what she's doing, and she just keeps spending money and time and not doesn't really seem to be getting anywhere at all. And anytime she starts to get somewhere, she changes majors. So she has to start all over again. And as we were talking, 2 things became really apparent to me that I realized now were the core issues.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:30]:
And this is what you and I were talking about. Many parents have probably heard this as well, and I'm going to single each one of these issues out and then debunk it. And then also talk about how you can help your child if they're in this situation, channel their interest and energies outside of a college campus to get unstuck.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:46]:
I am really excited for this episode. Like I said, I was the one that was just like, man, so many young adults go through this. And I know this because this person's parents and this person's family were the ones that approached us. This young adult didn't approach us. The parents did. And they were like, she doesn't know what she wants. It's clear by her actions so far that she doesn't know what she wants. And then she came into the launch program and sure enough, she doesn't know what she wants.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:09]:
I know that there are so many people that are gonna be helped by this. And so I would love to get into the first point.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:15]:
What I'm going to tell you is the 2 things that she said, and then I'm going to tell you some of the fallacies that she's making, but also what the core problem I think is. So the first thing she said is, I just want to learn forever. That's the first point. She doesn't know or believe that there's education past college. And that is because colleges have done a very good job making people feel like the only place that can learn is after paying them and then walking onto a campus. Education is not limited to college. Those things are not synonyms. Degrees are paywalled, but education is accessible to everyone.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:46]:
There are so many educational options that are significantly more cost effective, provide more practical skills, and are way more interesting and way higher quality education than college degrees.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:57]:
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.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:33]:
I think with this young lady, she wanted to learn forever. She's not super concerned with the practical side of it now because she just doesn't know what she wants to do. How can you really be concerned about the practical nature of what you're learning? If you don't know what you want to learn and you don't know how you're going to apply what you're learning. I think in her world and in her view, which I would agree is after college, it is the real world. You have to get a job. And when you get a job, you won't be able to learn and educate yourself in non practical things. Whereas she's learning a bunch of things that are just interesting to learn, but not super practical. And I will agree that that is a little bit more difficult of a road to pursue, but if you just find a job, if you go through the needs and wants, just like how we go through in the launch program, you can go through in the degree freeway.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:23]:
If you want to pick that up as well, which is the book that we wrote to help you kind of do this at home. If you go through their needs and wants, and then they find a job and a career path that meet all of those things, as long as your needs are met, then you can go and spend all the rest of your time pursuing non practical education. So if that's education in whatever your hobbies are, then go and do that. If it's as an education in whatever your interests are that are non practical. And when I say non practical, I just mean non money making. If that's where you want your education to lead you, you can do those things, but you just got to cover the basis first.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:59]:
Yeah. One of the things she talked about was wanting to learn a language and wanting to do a book club. And then she said she didn't have time to do that because of college. And I was like, Oh, interesting. College is actually keeping her from delving deeper into the things that she'd actually like to learn about. But it's all artificial. It's all fake.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:12]:
The opposite is really easy because if you're just worried about learning practical things and learning economically beneficial things, that is limitless and will never end because you'll continually to get rewarded by it or at least you should be continually rewarded by it if you keep learning new skills and you keep upskilling and upskilling and upskilling and upskilling. It's just a cycle that never ends because you learn this skill and then you get rewarded for learning that skill. This young lady was more from what you told me and from what it sounded like, she was more concerned about like what you said, a book club type of non practical non economic learning, but that doesn't have to stop. You just need to find a job that allows you to have the time and the head space to go and do that. And the way that you do that is you find a job that covers all of your needs.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:59]:
Correct. And that's what the piece that she's missing. But also at the core of it, when I was listening to her, I just realized she is so scared to choose a career path of any kind because she's afraid that she's actually going to have to walk in it. And she's afraid more than anything that she's not going to be good at it. But the reality check is that she's not going to be good at it because she's going to be brand new at it. And learning through failure is an essential part of developing any real skills. You have to fail. It is the only way to learn anything.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:27]:
And in college, the only measure of success is passing exams and tests and passing courses. If you fail, you just pay to retake the classes or take the test again. And if you are really failing, you just switch majors and start all over again, and you can avoid all of the consequences of your own failure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:44]:
As we talked about many times, it is a manufactured world. It is not the real world at all. And I totally understand the fear that she feels and the fear that you're getting out of her. Because I felt that way too, because I was just thinking, man, I'm sitting in these classes and I'm not really learning anything. I'm mostly cramming for these tests. None of it's really sticking into my head and sure. Maybe I'm getting better grades now than I wasn't when I was a freshman, you know, and this is like when I was a senior and a junior, and maybe I'm getting A's and a B, but I'm not really learning anything. How am I supposed to perform out there in the market? Turns out I didn't, it turns out my fear was correct, but the only way to learn is to go out there and try.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:30]:
Yeah, exactly. And fail. But the longer that you stay in college, you really just get into this endless cycle of being in college because you can stay there forever. And we've talked about this before for many, many people. When you take out loans that are not student loans, eventually you're going to hit rock bottom. Eventually there's going to be a time where the chickens come home to roost.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:51]:
All your consequences show up

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:52]:
and they show up in the form of you getting the load of bills in your mailbox. And you're just like this credit card's maxed out. This credit card's maxed out. This personal line is maxed out. I owe my uncle money. I owe my mom money, this, this, this. Like, I don't know how I'm going to do it. And you're just stressed and your monthly payments on all of it is more than you make in 2 months.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:15]:
And you're just like, woah, what's going to happen. And eventually somebody's going to stop lending you money because you're not creditworthy anymore, but now you can stay in this endless cycle forever because you are creditworthy. As long as you keep purchasing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:29]:
I have this right here as a point, but it's the trap of endless college. Young adults will stay in college indefinitely buying degrees to avoid entering the workforce and then facing potential failure because they're going to fail when they start a new job. And then colleges capitalize on this exact fear. They know that that's what they're afraid of. And so that's when they try to upsell them master's degree programs and graduate degree programs. They promote the idea that an endless pursuit of purchasing paper is noble or even preferable to work. They make it seem like it's more righteous. Like it's a higher calling to just sit there and produce nothing except for your own debt.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:02]:
Even if it means that you're accumulating directionless debt that has no function for your life. The loan system facilitates them doing this. And as long as they're continually taking out loans, exactly like you said, they'll continue to loan to them and they won't have to pay. So it's a pretty slippery slope. People just realize all of a sudden they end up at the bottom and they're in so much student debt. They don't know what to do about it. So if your child is saying, oh, I just love learning. Like I just want to learn forever, but they're not making a choice.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:27]:
And now you're kind of in the standoff with them about you need to finish this or you need to do something. Then what you can do is you can present them with practical learning paths. So find structured learning programs that are more interesting to them, that offer real world skills without that burden of debt. It is not hard to find these things. There are so many specialized schools that teach really amazing things. They are usually faster, cheaper, and higher quality education than a college would be. And this could be for language. This could be for craft work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:54]:
This could be for trade work. This could be for software development. It could be for anything.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:57]:
I would go back and say that the first thing you should do is you should go through their needs and wants so that you can present these other learning paths out there, go through their income, their schedule, their work environment, their location, go through those things, figure out what their needs are, figure out what their wants are. And then you showcase these other practical learning paths that help them reach all of those goals, or at least all of the needs reach all of the needs and be like these, according to what you say is important. Because you said it was important. This trade path will help do this. This tech path will help do this. This XYZ path will help do this. There you go. This is a 6 week course.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:36]:
This is a 3 week course. This is self study for 6 months. What would you like to do?

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:41]:
Yeah. Which one's most interesting to you. And then the biggest thing too, is to let them understand and help them to understand that they're going to fail. And that's okay because you have to in order to grow at all. And that just staying in this bubble wrapped environment is not growth. It's actually stagnation disguised as something productive.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:58]:
Getting out there and actually doing it is huge. I met a lot of people like this in college, actually. They were in their twenties already and they had switched majors 5 times and they were still on their 1st bachelor degree. I could see if you were 25 and you were working on your 2nd, close to maybe your 3rd or your master's or something like that, but they were still on their first one and they were in school for 7 years. And he was like, dude, yeah, I started as an art history major, and then I was like, no, I have to do something more practical. So then I went to economics, and I was like, I didn't like that. So then I went to Spanish, and I was like, I don't speak Spanish. And then I went to this and then this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:42]:
And I was like, yo, what do you plan on doing in the future? Because you've been in here for a very long time. And the reality is exactly what you said, which is at that point, they just need to just get out there and just try something, anything.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:56]:
The second thing that she said was I really liked the work in college. And then she said, I can work when I want to and where I want to in coffee shops or the library or from my room. And I realized at that moment that she was addicted to the flexibility of campus again, because it's fake and unearned, which is understandable. Anybody would be because it's nice to not have to work in a way that you don't want to work. And it's not necessarily that she has to, if she goes through her needs and flexible work environment is the top thing for her or schedule is the top thing for her, which sounds like it was. But many young adults enjoy the flexibility of the work environment in college because they get to choose when and where to work. Unfortunately, they're allowed to choose when and where to work because they're paying to be there, not because they're being paid to be there. And then without realizing it, they may buy more degrees than they need to in order to just keep this lifestyle of flexible work because it's a temporary and artificial environment.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:50]:
And for me, it's that temporary artificial environment, but it feels like work. That's the main thing. I really liked the work in college and you saw, yes, there's a flexible work, which I'll get to in a second. But for me, it is the liking the work and then you work really hard at it. So it makes you feel like you're doing something important, but just because you're working hard doesn't mean you're going to reach your goals. This took me years to learn, but hard work doesn't matter. Hard work on the right things are the only things that matter. And that's the only thing that's going to get you to your goal.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:22]:
For me, that was being a bartender, being a dishwasher, being a cook, being a server, being a busser. That was 10 years in the restaurant industry. I worked my ass off for 10 years in the restaurant industry. I was a really hard worker, but that was never going to get me to my goal because I was working on the wrong things. And for this young lady, that's going through our launch program. It is the same thing here. She likes the work. It makes her feel like she's actually doing something like she's working towards something and she's working hard.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:54]:
I'm not trying to take away from the hard work, but it is just hard work for hard work sake. It's not hard work for her goal sake. She's just working hard because she thinks it's gonna get her to where it's gonna be. But the thing that's gonna get her to where she wants to be is doing stuff that matters and doing stuff that are going to get you to your goal. Not just working at coffee shops and not just working on your car slowed and everything like that. And you're absolutely right to get to that flexible work schedule. If it is the only need that is on your needs and wants, it can be very easy because there's a lot of flexible work out there. Is it going to pay the income that she wants to live in the location that she wants to doing the thing and being in the industry that she wants to be in? That's the question my guess is that it's not going to be, which is why she's afraid because probably rightfully so.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:40]:
She's going to go out into the market and then she's going to see, well, I have to. Work more than this,

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:45]:
at least for a while. And she's going to fail at that at the beginning, which is what she's afraid of. The thing is if flexibility and schedule and then flexible work environment are priorities, then help your child find careers that fit that lifestyle. For the most part, those are always gonna be things that have usually a high hourly pay. Those are often gonna be contract roles very regularly. These are going to be W2 jobs, technical and creative skills often allow for this type of work, but young adults need to work really hard in order to get the level of skill that will get them that amount of freedom.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:11]:
What does that mean? I'll go to the opposite end. So what is really inflexible and what is not location independent would be things like in the trades. So let's go to a plumber and a bank teller, same thing. As far as the inflexibility and the location non independence, because at least nowadays to be a bank teller, if you're in the branch system, you have to be there when the branch is open and then you have to be at the location that you are a teller hat. And then for plumbers, at least nowadays, you have to be there during normal business hours during the day. Most people do not want you to come into their house in the middle of the night

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:50]:
unless they have a water leak.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:51]:
That's true too. But also that's not really super flexible either.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:55]:
Yeah. You gotta be on call.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:56]:
And then it's not really location independent because you have to go to wherever that job is. Those are two examples of things that, well, you probably don't want to steer them in either one of those directions. If that is the number one thing that they care about, if they really care about flexibility and they really care about location. Now, at least one of those scenarios directly in that career, it can lead to flexibility on location independence, and that's going to be the plumber. And that's where you start your own business. And that is where you hire people underneath you. And then you extricate yourself from actually doing it. And then you hire a business manager and all that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:32]:
Then you're location independent and you're completely flexible. The bank teller, that's gonna be a little bit tougher. Maybe you just do a lateral thing into customer support or something like that. And then you can be on a little bit more of a location dependent thing. As far as the flexible thing in the banking system, it's going to be pretty not flexible, but just due to the nature of the work. It's mostly during business hours and things of that nature, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. You think of that's the number one thing then where should I go? Exactly what you were saying, technical and creative skills. I would even think of technology careers, like anything in the tech industry for the most part, thinking of things that people sit behind desks to do, as long as you're not something like a customer support person, then for the most part, if you're work on project things, that is something that can be flexible and location independent.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:25]:
And this is my last thing that I'll say about this. Parents can help and you can do this by, like Ryan said earlier in the episode, really helping them figure out what they need and then helping them figure out not only what they need, but what they want and then narrowing it down to jobs that really, really fit their needs and ideally fit some of their wants. And then looking at those jobs and seeing what skills they actually need to learn. And then from there, you can figure out how they can learn them a lot faster, a lot more cost effective and a lot more high impact and high quality than on a college campus, burning all this time, doing stuff that they don't need to do in a fake work environment that doesn't teach them about the reality of work when they actually get out into the market. So if your child's coming to you and saying, oh, well, I just really like the way that I work in college. Like I like my schedule. I like my pace. I like my setup.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:13]:
I can work when I want to. All of these different things. The way that you can help your child with finding those types of work environments in the real world, where it actually matters to them is to highlight career paths that allow them to have that type of schedule or location independence and work environment independence. The degree free way, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want, does exactly this. It does what Ryan talks about earlier. It helps you figure out what your child actually needs out of work, and then what they want out of work, how many jobs they know about, go through with them and practice thinking of more different jobs in a more dynamic way. It walks you through just a series of conversations like budgeting that really matters. And then also helps you figure out what 3 jobs will work for your child's life.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:54]:
And then after that, if those jobs require a college degree or not. Once you've established that with your child, you can take the 3 job titles that work for the way that they want to live, and then help them find the skills that they actually need to learn. Skills, certifications, hardware, software, things they need to know in order to get those types of jobs so that it can make the life that they want really possible instead of just having them on this fake little college hamster wheel where they're spending money and just burning time where they're not getting any closer to what they actually want. Like I said, there's a lot behind these things. When your children are saying these things, it usually is not the thing that they're saying. So that I just want to learn forever is you being really stuck and just not wanting to take another action because you're afraid of failing. And also you're afraid because you don't know what to do. And then the second thing is I like this setup.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:39]:
I like some aspect of college that makes them feel they're having the life that they want. They don't wanna let it go because they're afraid that they're not gonna have it afterwards. So you can demystify that by helping them figure out how they can get it. And then if your child falls into these categories and they're just really frozen and you're not sure what to do or how to help them go through this, we do 1 on 1 work for this. It's in our degree free launch program. You can go to degreefree.c0forward/ launch. If you'd like to apply for that. And we do work 1 on 1 with young adults to take them through a lot of the process I just outlined in the launch program and all the way through to the educational design, which is 3 jobs.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:10]:
And then the ways that your children can learn those jobs, all vetted cost, timeline, all those types of things.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:15]:
Yep. And then you can find the degree free way at degreefree.co/book. And that's pretty much it for this week guys until next week.