How to Tell Your Parents That You’re Breaking Out of College (DF#174)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Education is available to anyone from many places and you can decide how, where, and when you are educated. And it is not something that can be pay wall. There are ways you can self study and there are ways that you can pay for curated curriculum. College is one of those things. It is an educational product.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:17]:
Aloha folks, and welcome to degree free. On this episode, we are going to go over how to tell your parents that you're dropping out of college. It is a 7 step process and we go through every single step to show you exactly what you need to do to create an actionable plan and then follow through on that plan. All right, let's jump into it. We are super excited to have you back here. We have a couple of things that we want to get into this week. I think you're going to take it away for the first one. Right?

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:48]:
I have a comment from someone on TikTok. There was a video that I made about 19 to 20 year olds, and if they were experiencing this specific set of things and they wanted to in quotes drop out of college, that it actually wasn't dropping out. It was in fact breaking out because they didn't need to be there wasting time, money, and energy burning their life away. What I want to talk about, and we have done this in a previous episode, we talked about how to talk to your parents about breaking out of college.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:13]:
I'm smiling because that was a long time ago. I will put links to that episode in the show notes, degreefree.coforward/podcast. You can go back and watch that episode as well. But that was a long time ago. That was like 7 studios ago.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:27]:
To play off of that, that was back when we had maroon curtains and that was a very long time ago. And part of the reason I wanted to do this on the podcast today was because I wanted to link that podcast episode to that person, but it was such an old episode that I felt like the entire concept needed to be revisited. I think it was two and a half years ago because of that. We're going to go over it again today, more focused, more actionable. And I have a 7 step process for any 18 to 20 year olds who are currently in college and really do not want to be there anymore. And they're not sure how to broach that subject with their parents, but they're also not sure how to explain to their parents what the other options are, which is a real problem that keeps them from bringing this topic up and from their parents responding in a positive manner as well. So I think we can break this down today.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:12]:
I mean, we've talked about that before very recently in the last couple of episodes, which is a lot of times it is not just going to college, but it's the lack of the plan afterwards that you're just like, well, they're just gonna break out of college, but like, what are you going to do now? And then it's just crickets. If I'm just being honest, crickets and not having a plan is better than going to college and not knowing why you're there and not absolutely having to be there and not have to pay for the pleasure of breathing that air and going to those classes. If you're listening to this, I think that you're much more likely to hear that and to receive that when you're like, well, what are you going to do now? And there's a, I don't know. And you just say, okay. You're much more receptive. I'm sure. Most parents, but for the people that are not receptive, that is the number one thing that they want to do. Because in their mind, college is the plan.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:03]:
You're not sticking to the plan. The parents just want to know that you're going to be okay. They think that college is the symbol that you are going to be okay in life.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:13]:
It's scary for them because they feel like if their child is not in college, they're just adrift in the world, but that's not the reality of it. And reclaiming young people's time and the money, the sheer amount of money that is spent on education in the United States. And this is so key because college is not a synonym for education. You guys know that we are so exhausted saying that, but it bears repeating every single time we have this podcast because education is available to anyone from many places. And you can decide how, where, and when you are educated. And it is not something that can be pay walled. There are ways you can self study and there are ways that you can pay for curated curriculum. College is one of those things.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:55]:
It is an educational product.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:56]:
Hey there. I hope that you're loving this episode of the degree free podcast. We spend a ton of time every week creating this content for you. So my only ask is you take a quick second to leave a review or thumbs up on whatever platform you're on. It's one of the best and easiest ways that you can support this podcast, and this simple action can help bring more people into the degree free community. At degree free, we wanna help as many people as we can thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. Your review will be a step in that direction. If you could do this small favor right now, pause this and leave a review.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:27]:
It would truly mean the world to us. Thank you. And back to the show.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:31]:
And because of the time and expense and risk, it is not worth it for most people. And when young people realize that for themselves, that it's not working out for them. One of the top things I saw in that comment section, by the way, was just about people's mental health. They just said I was losing it and it's everything that we know. And I'm going to bring up Scott Galloway again, where he talks about mental health and mental illness and young people. And you can see in the comments section of that, how representative of that cohort it is. When young people go into college, they get diagnosed with mental disorders within a year. And this is a real thing that happens.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:00]:
Unfortunately, there's a high rate of suicide amongst young adults who are in college higher than the general populace. It's so important to see that because many of them were just saying, yeah, I got on campus and it was immediately got addicted to substances. Yeah. I got on campus and my mental health just really struggled. One of the comments said, I told my parents that it was either I left or they might not have a kid anymore because of how it was affecting them. Just being in that environment and just the stress and being away from home and all that stuff. But anyway, if you are 18 to 20 years old, you've already been in college and you're going, wow, this is not for me for any reason. This is how to talk to your parents about it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:37]:
The first thing you need to do is you make a plan. Now I'm not going to send you out into the world with no way to make a plan. These are the things that you need to figure out. If you could choose what sort of schedule you work, when would you work? 4 day workweek, 5 day workweek. You okay working 7 days a week. If you work 4 hours at a time, do you want to get off at 3 pm? Do you want to get off at 9 pm? Do you want to work night shifts, swing shifts? Where do you want to live and work day to day, week to week, month to month? Do you want to go back to your hometown? Is there a specific city or town you want to move to because you have friends or family there, or there's something outside of nature that really appeals to you because you want to be close to the mountains or close to the ocean or close to cornfields, whatever it is that makes you feel at home, that makes you happy every day and day in, day out. And then work environment. What sort of work environment are you okay going into day in, day out? And this isn't just okay, but also think about what you would like to go in.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:28]:
And this means you go in with people, you go into an office some days, but not other days, or you go into a manufacturing floor and you're able to wear headphones in New York and then leave. Think about what you want in work. You want to go site to site so that you don't have to be stuck in a desk all day, or you do want a 9 to 5 desk job, or you want to work on a computer, but you want to work from home. Think about what type of work environment you want. The 4th thing is income. Usually that needs to be the thing that you prioritize because you have to be able to support yourself. That's just how it is. And you need to figure out how much money you need to make to do the things you want.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:59]:
If you want to own a home, if you want to just move out and have roommates right now, you can calibrate for the timeline you're talking about. So if you just want to earn enough to exist and be responsible with your money within the next year, then figure out how much you need to make. So that your parents understand that you have a grip on reality. And then once you do, it's going to be so much easier for you to explain to them what you're going to do and then how you're going to do it. So what do you need in each of these categories? What do you want? Go find jobs that fit your top need. If that's income, go find jobs that make the money you need to make. If it's location, go find jobs that are where you want to live. If it's work environment, go find work environments that you want to work in that ideally also make you the income you want to make.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:37]:
Then go find jobs that have the schedule that you want, and then compare and contrast these jobs, like literally get a yellow legal pad and just look at them and say, okay, which of these jobs fits what I need the closest. So ideally it'll fit each of your needs, but what you're looking for is at least meets your top need, whatever that is. Now, once you have that done, then find out what skills they're looking for. Let's say you look through all the jobs and you go, the thing that fits my needs the closest is a HubSpot administrator. So you go look all of the HubSpot administrator jobs you can find, and then you break down the skill sets they're looking for. The certs, the licenses, the software, the hardware they need you to know, and then use an Excel or a notepad to write all of these skills down that you get from all these job listings that are Salesforce administrators, and then see which ones come up the most. And then in life, you pay for things

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:22]:
either in time or money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:24]:
Now, what you're doing is you're looking for options that will let you pay in time, which is self study or options that will let you pay with money. And college would be an example where you're paying with money actually though, you're paying with time too. So it really it's both for that one, which is why it's so expensive in a lot of ways.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:38]:
Well, everything you're paying time too.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:40]:
But I mean, it's going to take you a really long time to go through college.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:42]:
I'm just being accurate.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:44]:
So you're looking for self teaching or close to free option. If you want to self study and pay with your time, if you want to do something accelerated, you may have to pay more to get a quicker result because that's usually how it works. The reason you would do that is because you want to quickly get into the job or industry that you've picked to be that tech or trades, whatever it is. Now, you're going to formally write up your plan of how much money you want to make, what kind of schedule you want, what kind of income you want to make, and what sort of work environment you want to be in. You're going to list out the jobs that you've found that fit your needs. You're going to list out the skills you're going to get to get those jobs. And then you're going to formally write this up for your parents.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:19]:
I just want to stop you right there. That was a lot of information. That is a really, really good plan. And the reason why we know it's a really good plan, because this is what we do for people in the degree free launch program. This 100% works. So you can get a really, really solid plan from doing all of these steps. The problem is that it's going to take you a long time. Once again, you either pay it with time or you pay with money.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:42]:
Our service is no different in that. If you wanted to, you're like, wow, that's a lot of stuff. That's going to take me forever. It probably will because each one of those things you have to just getting clear about your goals and getting clear about the things that you want in your life. Personally, I've seen it take literally weeks, even adults who are job seekers that are my age or older or a little bit younger. They're full on adults. They have kids. They've been paying their own bills for a decade, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:10]:
Some of these adults, when I ask them these questions, they don't know the answer to them. We don't work with job seekers anymore, but this is when we did. I would talk to them again a week later, sometimes 2 weeks later, depending on the schedule. And they were like, this is what I think. I'm not a 100% sure. I kinda wanted to talk it through with you on this. And we're like, well, we have the hammer of this now. And, I mean, you had 2 weeks to think about this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:31]:
And the fact that you still don't know is wild, but it's because they didn't have more guidance, I suppose, and like more touch points and have me be like, okay, here we go. Which is in that second one, do you need somebody to help you prioritize what it is really? Boom, boom, boom, boom. And then we figured it out in the first five minutes because they don't know what they're doing. And then we moved on the same thing here. You either pay with time or pay with money. If you're listening to this and you're thinking this is going to take forever. Like I said, it probably will. If you wanted help with this, you can pay with money.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:59]:
That's what the launch program is for, For everybody that wants to add degreefree.c04/launch, you can apply there, but you can do all of this yourself for sure. It's just gonna take time.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:09]:
And that is paying with your time. That's such a good example of that. So for you as a young adult going into this, this is not going to be an easy or quick process. It's going to take you a long time to do this. If you really just shut yourself in a room and focus up for 3 hours a day for a week, you might be able to knock it out. But it does take a lot of time. It takes a lot of research. And we're not trying to sugarcoat this.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:27]:
It's simple, but it's not easy because we do this for people. That's how we know how hard it is, but it's very, very worth it. So I would encourage you to please take the time and set it aside to do this for yourself. And then this is a key part of it. Write this up, put it in a document and print it off, print a copy off for you, for your mom, for your dad. If you have step parents print copies off for them, whoever is going to be involved in this discussion have packets basically. So that they understand that you are not joking around and they don't think that you are just wanting to be cut adrift and directionless because that's probably not what you want, because most of you don't want that actually having worked with this age range all the time, and they don't want to be directionless. It's actually one of the biggest fears that they have as being directionless.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:06]:
So it's interesting that parents are always worried about them being directionless. When we ask young adults what their biggest fear is, they always say not being stable. They say not having a clear direction. That's exactly what they say. They don't want to feel that way actually. Cause shoot, who does? I don't wanna feel that way. The third thing is call or get your parents together. And this includes step parents if they're part of the discussion.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:25]:
Now, I think what might be really wise here, because it's just adds another layer of I'm serious about this is scheduling a call with them, zoom, Google meet, whatever, FaceTime, and adding a calendar invite and inviting them all to it. I think that that would be a really wise thing to do, or even just creating a calendar invite and it just being a FaceTime call, but they all know what time it is that way everybody's on. If your parents are divorced, obviously, and you can't physically have them together, then do a video call so everybody can get on and just set the expectation for your parents. If they are divorced, everybody just get along on the call. I'm here to talk about something really serious if they don't get along.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:57]:
And if they don't get along, then you have to have separate calls with both. They're like, if they literally just don't talk to each other, which happens, you just, okay, I'm going to do one with mom, one with you dad.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:07]:
And then step 4 is tell them I'm done. Here's what I'm going to do instead and why. The reason that you're going to lead with that is because you, if you are 18, 20 years old or an adult, look your parents in the eyes or in a camera, if you're on a video call and tell them I'm done. Here's what I'm going to do instead. This is how much it costs and how long I expect it to take me, and then ask if they will financially support you the same way they have. If they're supporting you currently in college with the educational option, you're going to pursue done. This shows your parents that you are serious, that you have done your homework, that you know what you were in for and that you want to do it. And you have stewardship over the path that you are creating for yourself.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:45]:
There are no parents that don't want to see that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:48]:
For me at this stage, the most power that you have is not taking any other assistance. Definitely ask. If the funding is available for whatever else that you want to do, then awesome that you can get it. But the most power that you'll have in this situation is just be like, I don't need your help and I'm going to do it by myself this way. Here you go. Look at the plan. And you start the conversation by saying I'm done. Here's what I'm gonna do instead.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:12]:
It's not a discussion. The decision has already been made. From a power perspective, that is the best thing to do. If you can do it, definitely recommend if you can cut the ties fully, especially if they don't support you in doing it. You say all of this and then they're like, well, we're not going to fund that. And then, okay. I didn't need you to because I have this option instead.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:31]:
It also really changes the power dynamic and it sort of reintroduces you as an adult who is going to take agency and take back control over your path. Life is not going to happen to you. You are going to happen to life. And this is a huge way to show your parents that. And I think ultimately too, I know that there's for a lot of people, this is going to be an extremely, extraordinarily difficult conversation, and you're going to feel like your parents are disappointed, like they're angry and they might be. But I think in the long term, and when I'm saying long term, I mean, a couple months down the road, if you execute on this, they're going to be a lot more proud of you actually, because anecdotally they're going to be hearing their friends going, oh, my kids are just asking me for Venmo them money every 5 minutes and they're missing their exams and they're having to micromanage their college age kids and they're having to manage their 18 18 to 20 year old kids. And you have gone, I'm going to get a job. I'm going to get roommates.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:16]:
I'm going to put myself through this bootcamp, or I'm going to study this. And then I'm going to get this job. There are a few parents who, at the end of the day, when they realize what's going on are not going to be actually extremely proud of you. Number 5 is if your parents don't support you, this is what you need to tell yourself. It is your time and your money. If they are also contributing, just understand that you are borrowing from future you. That includes borrowing from your parents' future. If your parents are not independently wealthy, then they may be borrowing from their retirement accounts or from their house or apartment if they own one.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:49]:
That is a very real thing that is happening to a lot of families in the country. It is okay if they don't agree with you leaving college. Just because they're paying for you to go doesn't mean that you have to take their money. If it's tied to you spending your time and energy in a way that you do not want to spend it because it doesn't serve you. That is okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:05]:
And it doesn't necessarily have to be any one of those things. They're literally just borrowing from anything else that they could be doing with that money. Literally anything else. I mean, it could be vacations. It could just be saving it for a safety net, literally anything. You're literally borrowing from your future self and you are going way in the hole for something that you don't want to do anyway. If you're listening to this and you're like, yeah, this is me. Well, what are you doing there?

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:30]:
Yeah. Stop. You are in control of what happens to you. Okay. Number 6 is get a job and self study or pay for your educational option in your spare time. This is so key because getting a job will help you to 1, get work experience put in a resume. 2, you need to fill your time well and working, even if it's a minimum wage job is a good way to do that because you're getting some experience. This is something that I saw on TikTok.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:55]:
I saw somebody who was young. I think he was gen Z. I think he was probably 19. He was talking to millennials. He was talking to people RJ. She's like, you like have to get roommates and you guys didn't have to do that. And I almost spit out. I was drinking coffee and almost snorted it out of my nose.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:08]:
I personally lived the minute I moved out of my parents' house at 18. I moved in with 3 roommates and then immediately acquired a 4th from the time that I was 18 until I was 22. I lived with between 3 to 5 roommates in usually less than 500 square feet of living space. Sometimes I think there was one point where I lived in, in, it was a 9 50 square foot house, 1 bathroom. And I think there was 5 roommates at one point. Be willing to live within your means. And then also I will say while living with that many people is not an ideal situation, you are young enough that you do not have to live in an ideal situation. It is okay.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:50]:
Don't pick crappy roommates, pick good ones and be willing to leave if the roommate situation is not good, but just pick people from people that you know, or just be careful when you interview to move in with somebody. Or if you have somebody move in with you and just pick good decent roommates. And if you do that, that is a great way for you to lower your cost of living, not be completely lonely also. So somebody knows where you are, especially if you move to a place you don't live, but having roommates is the answer. People have done that for a very long time. People ask, act like roommates are a recent development. But if you go back even to like the 1960s, 1950s, young people still lived with roommates. When they moved to large cities where rents were expensive, they live with roommates or they lived with family members.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:30]:
And there was a lot of people. It's just how it was. And so acting like roommates are not a thing is very silly.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:34]:
I would say for the, get a job portion of it, and then do the free option in your spare time. That is definitely doable. The holy grail here is to get a job in that industry. That is really what you want to do. So whatever it is, let's say you want to be a marketing associate or something like that. Getting your first job in the industry in marketing is really what you want to do, because then you are going to be studying quote while also getting paid. So whatever it is that you're doing, you'll be learning marketing while you're getting paid. There's levels to get the whole getting a job thing and learning the skills.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:12]:
Just breaking out of college and not paying to be there with your time and your money. That's really good than getting a job. So that's just baseline, stop paying for something that you don't like, and you, for whatever reason, you don't want to be there. Stop doing that immediately. The next thing, okay. Get a job, getting a job at McDonald's or getting a job at a retail store while you are learning whatever skills that you need to level up and then get that first job. That is the next level. If you need to do that, do that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:41]:
The next level and the best thing that you could do is getting an entry level job, either as that thing that you want to do, or at least in the field so that you know what it's like. And then possibly there's room to grow into the next job. One of the things that you're going to find is when you go into the fast food work or the retail work, and you just start getting a job and you start making rent, it's going to be hard for you to make the transition into something else. I know because my life is like that. It might not be true that you don't have the skills. Cause I think that there are a lot of skills that transfer over. I think a lot of it has to do with the self esteem issue of being all I know is X, Y, and Z. All I know is how to be a fast food cook.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:23]:
What do I know about marketing? What do I know about operations? Or what do I know about sales? By you doing it and that self defeating spiral, which not everybody has that, but I very much do have it. It holds you back. If you can just right at the jump, just go, I'm gonna take a minimum wage to go and work in this marketing office. I need to have 3 roommates who pay for my rent because this city is expensive or whatever. Like that's just what I'm going to do because this is what I want to do. And I'm just going to keep moving up every year. Just move to a different company or move up within the company and just keep learning and keep learning and keep learning. Like, that's the holy grail of what you wanna do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:57]:
The next step, like I said, the job, learning the skills, and then the last one, just get out.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:02]:
I agree with that actually. A good example of that is when I work in theater costume design. Okay. Well, you better go get an entry level job at Cirque du Soleil. That's the move. Go to Vegas, find some roommates, and go to work every day and start working on that goal. But the big thing is just being humble enough to realize that a lot of people have roommates and you got to pay your bills and make ends meet so you can learn and figure out what you're doing. Now, the final thing, the most important part of this entire process is do what you say you're going to do.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:27]:
Because if you want your parents to respect you, you want them to believe in what you're doing, and you want to show them that you're making a better decision than the one that you all made when you decided to go to college and buy a degree is to execute on what you said you were going to do in the plan that you typed out and printed out and emailed to all of these people who you just got on a call with and told you were going to do it, say you're going to do something and then do that thing. And it really is that simple.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:51]:
That was the 7 step process. And that last step there really does matter. And that's really in the respect realm. Whereas if you think about it, that's all we really care about because you don't really have to tell your parents, you're an adult, go do whatever you want. The only reason why you're worried about this is because you want them to understand. You want them to empathize. You want them to sympathize sometimes, and you want them to respect your decision and you want them to accept your decision. That's why you're doing this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:19]:
That's why you're putting in all this effort. And that's why you're thinking about all these things. If you really just didn't want to go and you don't care what your parents think, then you would have stopped listening to this episode at the very beginning. But no, you do care and you want respect. Number 7, just doing what you say is the most important part about all of this, executing the plan. You don't have to necessarily do it to the T because what you might find out is that your plan was really bad, but just showing them the fact that you took the first step and then you clearly communicate with them that, okay, look, so I did this. I thought I was going to do this, this and this and this and this afterwards. What I realized is that I'm swimming in this and I don't know, I need to go take a hard left turn and I need to go and do X, Y, and Z instead of 2, 3, 4, 5.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:03]:
So that is what I'm going to do. That right there is going to earn way more respect than all of this other stuff, because it's going to be you just doing what you said you were going to do and showing them that you are an adult now and that you can do what you say, and then you can communicate effectively what you are going to do and what you're doing, which are surprisingly hard traits to come by.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:26]:
They really are. But if you can show your parents that you can do those things, it is going to increase the amount of respect. And I believe the amount of support you get from them as well.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:34]:
Yeah. That was the episode. I think that was really good to just leave right there. If you guys have any questions, go to ask. Degreefree.co. Please ask us your questions. We're going to be doing another mailbag episode soon. And that was it for this week, guys.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:46]:
Until next week,