What the College System Isn't Telling Parents (Degree Free #207)

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Welcome back, everyone. Today we have colleges' own reckoning. We have seniors not being able to retire, and we have the trust in the quote unquote elite colleges dwindling. Let's get into it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:15]:
Oh man, there's a lot today. So the first thing let's talk about is the extreme negative outlook on, again, in quotes, this is a degree-free podcast, in quotes, higher ed. And what we mean by that is just academia. So currently Moody's, so rating agencies are starting to flag this, which makes sense because not too long ago, I think it was like probably what, 7, 10 years ago, something like that. The SLABS, the student loan asset-backed securities, you can no longer buy those because they began to be too risky. And now the ratings agencies are onto the colleges themselves. So Moody's holds a negative outlook on academia for 2026. And currently they projected that private colleges would run on negative operating margins.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:05]:
And this started in 2024. So in 2024, it was 7.2% of private colleges that were running on negative operating margins. Then that jumped to 12.2%, pretty big jump, in 2025. And now it's at 16% for this year. That's the projection. So this is rolling downhill very quickly. This is not looking good for the Especially the private colleges. And the projections are that colleges will be closing at roughly one per week.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:34]:
That's the rate we're looking at of closures. I think that this speaks really strongly to the oversupply. There were way too many of them. It's very obvious that many of them were being propped up by government money. And the minute that even a small margin of that money, as the Big Beautiful Bill funding capped the amount of money that they could get from a federal level. They have— that's how thin those margins were and they are crumbling now and they're just closing really, really quickly.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:03]:
I don't know if you mentioned it, but this is for private colleges and I just wanted to make that sure. I wasn't sure if you said that or not. This reminds me of a story. I mean, this reminded me of my friend back, I don't even remember, it must've been 10 years ago or so, but there was a private college that she attended and she was going for To be a dental hygienist. And she was almost done. She had taken out student loans to get into the program. It's something that she's always wanted to do, like pretty much her whole life. Like her mom was a dental hygienist type of thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:36]:
She might've been a dentist. She was like, oh, I want to, I want to do it too. And she was finishing up her classes and the college crumbled. I mean, it just literally overnight. went away and it left her. I remember, I mean, she like buckled. I mean, she was crying about it because it literally changed the trajectory of her entire life because she was like super close to finishing her program. And then hopefully, you know, being a, well, I don't know about getting a job as a dental hygienist, but she would've been able to at least apply to start getting, she would have the licenses.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:16]:
and licensure to apply to get jobs as a dental hygienist. And that literally just never came to fruition. But what she did get left behind was a bunch of student loan debt. And when she went to try to figure out what happened after the dust settled, what was going on with her, she tried to get her transcripts. She tried to transfer to different places and she tried everything and she just couldn't do it. And it literally changed the trajectory of her entire life. And it was like super sad actually.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a really stressful situation.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:47]:
Yeah. I mean, she's doing fine. She's doing well now. I mean, it took her a few years to get on her feet and stuff like that. She's not a dental hygienist anymore. She works in the food and beverage industry. She works in hospitality. But yeah, I mean, I like, I just remember going through it and she was distraught.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:05]:
I think the real takeaway there too, because being a dental hygienist is a stable Solid, higher earning career with relatively low debt and a clear legal license associated with it. What's interesting about that is that I think going into the future, it's going to be very important not just to check your degree-free 4, which is, you know, income, schedule, work environment, location for young adults, but also to make sure that the institution you are going to go to has enough money to stay alive for long enough for you to get the thing that you legally need to get into that career if you've chosen something something that legally does require a degree. Now, I do want to say something. This happened in California, and I do think this is important because in California— California has the highest student debt of any state in the country, and a lot of that is because of the cost. Even though California, for some people, you know, the cost of attending the public, you know, the public schools, the public colleges in California and the community colleges can be lower, But because of that, the private institutions that have popped up in order to feed the overflow and the waitlists for those colleges, one, they charge a ton. And then 2, because they're private and they do take, you know, they will take your student loans, but because they're private, they charge more. And even though sometimes they're a little bit faster and like the, literally the time to get whatever degree, associate's, uh, or even 4-year degree that you need. See this a lot with nursing colleges in California because there's so much demand and it's high earning, but it's very important to make sure that if you are going to go into one of these programs, or if your child is, you know, if your child is considering going into one of these private colleges in California, it's very important to consider that the college is cash flow positive, that they have enough money that they will stay alive to give your child, to grant them the actual legal diploma that they need.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:03]:
in order to get licensed to do whatever career meets their, their life goals. Very important. Like literally look at their financials. They have to, I mean, I don't know if they have to disclose them, but ask for, ask to see.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:14]:
It's so funny. Like the fact that we're even talking about this. I mean, it's not, it's not funny.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:20]:
Not like haha funny, like in a clown.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:21]:
Right, exactly. Uh, uh, uh.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:23]:
Funny like sad funny.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:25]:
Yeah, right, exactly. And that was a Goodfellas reference for all those that didn't know. It's funny that you have to go through all this, or I mean, obviously you don't have, you don't have to. Your exposure, if you go to a public, is probably a lot less. And not probably, it is a lot less. You're backed by the government. And so you don't have as much worry there. What this all reminds me of is for all that we've talked about the Ramsey people and Dave Ramsey about giving really bad advice about college and about going and about the value and everything like that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:54]:
This, what this reminds me of is the advice that he gives to like wealthy people and what he does with, with his company, apparently from what, from his, from his mouth, which is like, basically when you get to a certain wealth, FDIC, which is the insurance of banks, they insure it up to like $250 grand, your, your account. So if anything happens, they'll, they'll swoop in and they'll, they'll take care of it up to $250 grand. Once you get into the millions and tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, like to get that FDIC insurance is like silly. You would have to spread it out over a ton of different bank accounts and it just doesn't make sense. And so the way that he chooses where he banks and for his business and personal has to do with literally like an investor, exactly what you're saying. He goes to their financials. And he says like, do you have a good amount of cash? Are you cash flow positive? Are you profitable? And therefore I can put my money in here because I'm making the bet that your leadership, like the people at the helm here, the C-suite, they know what's going on, they understand it, and therefore I can put my investment in there. And so in that same vein, I guess it's not funny, but like one of those things is clearly an investment, like clearly You are putting your business's money, you're putting your personal money in there, hopefully that it'll grow a little bit, but at least being safe and accessible.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:30]:
And the other one you hope is an investment, but it's really a liability, which is the college debt and going to a college in general. And the fact that you have to go through all of these hoops now, because at the ground level, what does this show us? It shows that the price has outpaced the value. Like, that's it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:50]:
Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:50]:
Like literally that's it. The price that they are charging has greatly outpaced the value. And you can say to make you feel better, the perceived value of the degree, whatever you think, but the numbers say it, that the consumers do not value it. And the price remained high. And then therefore they had to close.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:13]:
Well, the more money gets cut off from a federal level, again, I will, again, I'll take this as my weekly spot to say the only way to fix academia in the United States is to abolish the Higher Education Act and take all of the government money out of it. Because if people wanna see costs come down to a manageable level where, you know, boomers would say, oh, I can, I can just work at McDonald's and I'd be able to pay tuition. Yeah, that's because they were doing it before 1965, before the government was subsidizing the loans. Guess what? That didn't make it accessible. It made it inaccessible to people. It is very important that people see that the less government money there is, the lower the price will be. And that is because when you bring it back down to the actual market value, not the inflated government price for these degrees, because the government will pay it and the taxpayers will back it. And yes, that includes private loans.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:00]:
I don't know why people don't know that if people default on private loans, it still does fall to taxpayers by and large, like the great, the vast majority of private loans. If they get defaulted on, they still go back to taxpayers. People are like, oh no, it goes to the bank. No, it doesn't. American taxpayers still pay those loans back. It becomes our responsibility. Even if people are going to these colleges, it's always the taxpayers. And then not the government, by the way, the government doesn't have its money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:25]:
It has our money. That's how it works. And so it's one of those things where you just see that this reckoning is so richly deserved because they're just And again, it always gets me that, and this is a little bit of an aside, but it always gets to me when I see people talking about like, oh yeah, you know, these big corporations, well, you got to go to college because otherwise you're going to be a slave to a big corporation. I'm like, you're literally being enslaved to a big corporation now because they are selling you something that you don't need that will then dictate what you can and cannot do because you have to pay your loans back. And if you don't, then guess what will happen to you? And that's what we're going to talk about right now, because the next thing we have to talk about. is the fact that a ton of seniors can't retire because they have student loans. And that is something that you and I for years have talked about. Whenever people talk about, oh, well, you know, but college graduates earn more on average over a lifetime.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:20]:
Okay. Does that matter if you can't retire when you're 70 because you're still paying your loans off? Not really. Not really. You still gotta work. Oh, well, you know, you have a college degree and you earned $100 more than your friend. Okay. But you're, you still have to be a greeter at Walmart now because then that student loan payment's still rolling in every month. So how did that work out? And that is something that's really worrying to me because this group of people, millions of Americans in their 60s and 70s, which is the wealthiest generation of people in this country right now, they are not being able to retire because they have student loans.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:53]:
If people don't see that this is going to be a crisis because this group of people Has the lowest amount of student loans, and their student loans are not that much. People now there's way more people with student loans, and they have way higher balances because tuition doubles every nine years, and it has been doing that since 1965 when the government said, "Oh, we'll back these loans." This is going to get really bad because what they're starting to do, I mean, and you saw it, they're they're going in and taking money out of people's Social Security in order to pay. For the loans. So basically what happened is the government has restarted collections on these loans because there's a lot of them. It's roughly 2.9 to 3.5 million Americans in their 60s and 70s. Oh, so it's 60 and older. They owe $125 billion in student loans still at 60 and 70 years old. And that is only going to get worse because younger generations, as they get older, have more student loans.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:51]:
and their balances are much higher and their interest rates are higher. Everything about this is not good. Like, again, I don't, I'm not an economist because I didn't buy a college degree, but you don't have to be to see that this is going to be a real serious problem.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:04]:
Yeah, definitely. And not only that, with the younger generation, the wages are lower as well.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:08]:
Right. They stagnated.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:08]:
Yeah, exactly. And so whereas before wages were better, they kept, they kept up better. A lot of it has to do with that inflation Really just went rampant.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:19]:
I was gonna say it was inflation.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:20]:
That's, that's really where the, the delta comes in. What you're seeing here, the stat that you just said is a 6-fold increase in the last 20 years. And I think that it's going to, that 6-fold increase in 20 years, it's not gonna take 20 years to get that, to get that 6x again.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:34]:
No.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:35]:
And, and so I think it's gonna take a lot less time. How, how much? I don't know. I'm not great at math, but it's gonna take a lot less time to get that 6x. And then, yeah, once again, I mean, it is a huge problem. I mean, it's, I think it's the number one problem in our entire country. And it is, the tide is still going out on it, as I always say, but we're not done. And in 10 years, in 15 years, this is going to be a real problem. I mean, this is going to be a real problem because those that are in their 40s and 50s, they who have still a lot of student debt, they are going to be in their 60s and 70s and they're going to have even more because they took out more and every, and all of the things that you just said.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:23]:
And so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's super sad really. I mean, they were sold the dream, which turned out to be a lie. Then they, I mean, granted, sure, life decisions and, you know, all that. I mean, maybe they could have paid it off. Maybe they couldn't. I don't know. Right. Like, but the purchase was made, they didn't pay it off.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:46]:
And now 40 years later, they're still paying for it. And now they're paying for it with more time, energy, and then ultimately money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:55]:
The thing I really want to drive home here is that 3 to 4 million Americans over 60 still have student loans. And when they bought degrees was the last time that when they were buying college degrees was 1986. I want people to really stop and think about this. Do you actually think that more jobs require degrees and/or there was a significant wage increase with degrees and/or that people who bought degrees were much better off because they did after 1986? The obvious answer is no, because more people started buying college degrees. Colleges invented more worthless programs. Again, tuition has been doubling every 9 years since the Higher Education Act passed in 1965. I do not see why more people are not ringing alarm bells about this, because this, this is a small number, like 3 to 4. That's a lot of people.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:45]:
That's a, that's actually a lot of people again in the wealthiest group. So as time passes, people who are less wealthy than this generation of people will have bigger loans and they will not be able to retire even further past this. And the group of people in default over 62 is going to get much larger. I actually, and also with the Social Security, the impending like collapse of Social Security, I don't see how this is going to work. Where's this money going to come from? And then as Social Security begins to collapse and we run out of money for that, where is this money going to come from? Where, where, where are they going to get this money back from? And the answer is, I don't know. Like, and the answer is, and what's going to happen after that is it gets passed on to the taxpayers who are going to be young people. And again, If parents do not key in on this and stop putting their kids in debt, because you basically have from both sides, if you put your child in student loan debt, you also have people's student loan debt coming to eat them from the other side. It's crazy.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:41]:
Like you're going to catch them in the middle. And the time when this is going to hurt people is in the age where they're supposed to be earning money. They're supposed to be in the prime of their life. And it's going to hit them at a really horrible time. Like, I just don't see how people don't see if you put them in debt from this side and you, and the debt of other people is coming to them from the others. How do people not see that this is going to crush their kids? And all they have to do is not buy. That will help a lot. Like they can't afford debt from both sides.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:08]:
They're going to have to pay off everybody else's debt. Like don't put them in debt before you have to do that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:14]:
You're like, you sit down at the living room table and you're like, you can't go to college because you can't go into debt because you need to pay for my grandfather's debt. You need to pay for my debt. You need to pay for Pop Pop's debt.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:30]:
Yeah. Pop Pop?

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:32]:
I don't know. Whatever, whatever. Like, I don't know, everybody has a weird— everybody has weird names for grandpa.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:39]:
Pop Pop's crazy.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:41]:
Pop Pop.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:42]:
All right.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:43]:
Papa.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:44]:
Bubba. You gotta pay for Bubba's debt. But in all reality, yes. And again, this is where Tim Dillon, the Rush Limbaugh of our generation, this is why he talks like this about the baby boomers. But this is real. Like, and the crazy part is this is the beginning of this problem. It's not the end of it. Like, this is the start of this and it's going to get much worse.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:03]:
You have been saying this for a very long time. You're like, this is the biggest financial crisis in our country. You have said this for a long time. You have said student loans are the biggest financial crisis in our country. And a lot of it is because I don't think people are realizing all of the different facets of how that debt is going to come back around and kick everybody in the teeth. And, and again, this is why it's so— people probably think that we sound like broken records, and I'm sure that they do. But again, it's just someone's got to ring the alarm bell about this because if we are just blindly, again, sending 62% of high school seniors into directionless debt, it has no function for their lives. Half of them will not graduate.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:42]:
Only 22% of them will end up working in their field of study. And that doesn't mean that they make their money back. And by the way, you're right. They're going to have to pay off Pop Pop's debt. Because he bought his degree in 1981 and it's still not, it still didn't pay off. And again, tuition's doubling every 9 years, inflation, and then wage stagnation. How are people thinking that this is sustainable? And all of this, again, as I've said to you recently, what's occurred to me more and more is that all of this has been in service of creating a jobs program for a bunch of faux intellectuals, which is really coming home to roost because let's talk about that. But I love to see this, but, uh, basically trust in the Ivies has cratered.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:19]:
It's like hilarious actually. And again, they richly deserve this. These people plagiarize each other's work. Like, literally the deans of these one-name colleges steal other people's work and then pass it off as their own, somehow get put on tribunal by a board of their peers, and then still somehow are a dean of a college and held up like some, you know, some academic icon when they steal other people's work in order to get to that point. It's no wonder that people have such disdain for academics, such, such a distrust. I personally have this. Such a distrust in this group of people, because if you're going to hold yourself up as the standard of ethics and intellectual superiority, then you have to act better than everybody else. Otherwise, you're going to be judged because you can't say that you're better, that you're more enlightened, that you're more ethical, more moral, and then act like this.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:13]:
I think the core of it was the rot of the government money. I think maybe before that, there actually was something to that. I don't think that that's been present since the incentives have changed, and it's just a consequence of who is attracted into that world when the government money came. Because before that, I think there were scholars there for the love of learning, because they were— the only thing that sustained them was the love of learning, and because they cared about knowledge and they care about the stewardship of it and the teaching. Not saying that a few of those people don't exist, But I think by and large, the group of people that's attracted to that are people who want government money and people that want government money generally. And again, you can see this with politicians. They are not good at creating value other places. So they just take it from taxpayers and it's like, okay, that's fine, I guess.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:00]:
But it turns out that people by and large no longer trust that group of people because their actions have shown that by their own lack of integrity, they are no longer the stewards of education, of knowledge, of higher ed. And so I think, as I've said before, this also shows a lot of the cracks in our society, because supposedly this group of people should be somewhat responsible for this, but they're not anymore because nobody trusts them with it, because they have time and again proven that the greed of their institutions is more important than the futures of young people, is more important than the pursuit of truth, is more important than intellectual honesty. And again, this is just my rant about this, but you know that this is how I feel. And I think a lot of people who listen to our podcast think, know that I think this, but it's very gratifying to see that people have seen academia for what it truly is. And what it truly is now is not any of these shining towering ideals that they claim to be. And I really do hope that there is a future where the government money gets cut off, the people who are there for the wrong reasons leave, a bunch of these colleges close, and the ones that remain are ethical. The ones that remain are there for the real good of the students. The people that remain in that field are really there because they are that devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, to the pursuit of truth, to the pursuit of beauty.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:29]:
And that, that core of people that do remain ends up becoming what people believe academia is.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:38]:
Okay. So I think there's a lot to unpack there. For the first thing, your first mention of that, I guess I want to maybe not defend, but play the devil's advocate a little bit. You chose to double-click on like one headline from a year or two ago. I forget when that was. of this dean that plagiarized her way to the top or whatever. And like, okay, I understand why you chose that. And it was, I think your point here was that if your brand, and I'll get to brand in a second because that's all, I think that's where this all leads.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:17]:
But if your brand is all about superiority, because like Ivy League.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:22]:
Intellectual superiority specifically.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:24]:
Yeah. If it is about intellectual superiority and a basis for intellectual superiority is trust and honesty, intellectual honesty. Therefore, if you're promoting people like that into positions of power, then that shows exactly as you said, systemic rot. I think that that was your logic.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:47]:
It wasn't just Harvard. It was, it was Harvard, it was Yale, and it was Brown. There was multiple cases of this. It was not one isolated case. That's why I'm talking about it because this was present at multiple— there aren't that many Ivies. How are you guys having this much of a problem? And the answer is because it's a, it's a culture. It's a, it's an academic cultural problem. It's not a single institution with this issue.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:05]:
It's multiples of them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:07]:
So let's say I would take maybe not the opposite end, 'cause I have nothing to say about that, but I would just say, what if those were isolated incidents? Right. And so let's just give them the benefit of the doubt. and say that that is not true. Those were isolated incidents. Those people, the individuals, they're bad actors. Like, they're bad people. Like, I'm, I'm not saying they actually are.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:30]:
Their actions were bad.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:31]:
I'm just saying like—

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:32]:
And that color the institution.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:33]:
Right, exactly.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:34]:
Sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:34]:
Because I'm just trying to isolate it to them and then make a different argument.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:38]:
Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:39]:
And so let's just say there's nothing wrong with the institution. Those people are bad. They're liars. They lie. And therefore they lied their way to the top.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:47]:
Sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:48]:
And then that's nothing, that is no reflection that does not reflect badly or poorly on the institution at all. Okay. Let's say that that's true. Now, I think there's still a problem. And I know from my conversation with Zakia Akhorelle on this podcast a few years ago, who Went to Ivy League schools, got her degrees, and was just like, it's not worth it. You know, like, this is not, this is not worth it. What specifically, where does this breakdown in trust come from then? If it's not those individual bad actors that are bad people doing bad actions, I'm not actually saying that, but I'm just like, for the sake of argument, I'm just saying that you know, they're doing bad things or they're bad actions or whatever. And that doesn't reflect poorly on the institution.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:43]:
So don't rail me in the comments for it. I don't know these people personally. I'm sure they're fine people. I think it still comes down to exactly what we were talking about before, which is the price to value. And it almost reminds me of what Warren Buffett would say. Do you know what Warren Buffett says about brand? Like how he defines brand?

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:03]:
You've told me before, but I, please refresh my memory.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:06]:
The way that Warren Buffett has defined brand before is it is the difference of the raw inputs versus the price that you charge. So the raw inputs into the system, the cost of the goods to make, to make it, and then the price that you end up charging the end consumer, all of that in the middle, whatever that is, that's brand.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:28]:
Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:29]:
And the brand has greatly tarnished a lot because of all the things that we've been talking about this entire conversation and for the past 5 years, which is exactly what you were saying, the intellectual honesty, academic honesty, rigor, those types of things. You would think that the most elite among them would not succumb to the common pitfalls of public universities that need money or that are chartered to serve the masses. You would say like, well, these people, they are better than everybody else. And therefore we do things differently. And therefore we keep things small. We keep it maybe not intellectually honest, 'cause I'm not talking about the academics at all. I'm just talking about like literally the value of the thing that you're purchasing. But largely they've been doing the exact same things that every other college does, increasing tuition, increasing the enrollment numbers, decreasing the value of the very thing that they sell.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:39]:
And it really is like a, it really is a double-edged sword because you make, with colleges, you make more money the more people you bring in, but the more people you bring into your programs, the more you dilute the value.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:52]:
I think that's part of my rub with the whole thing is that these Ivies have huge endowment, enormous endowments. And I do think that what this is showing us is this erosion of trust in the Ivies. Maybe it has a lot to do with social media and the fact that these things that they're doing are now on display. That then again, COVID changed a lot where parents are just a lot more engaged, I think, as well. But I believe that this lack of integrity— I'm going to call it integrity— but this lack of integrity— I actually hate using this word because I feel like it's such a silly buzzword, but it really shows that there's a systemic problem with our academic system. Academia in the United— American academia has a systemic problem. The way that we run our colleges, our universities, the messaging that we give to young people, the way our K-12 system is structured in order to funnel all young adults into it and then label all young adults who don't buy from it as stupid or as there's something wrong with them, or even telling the majority of kids that the right first step for them is something that's so expensive and so risky. And I don't necessarily mean in money, but I also mean in time and in energy.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:02]:
And we funnel all of our kids into this system run by people who by and large are— should not be the first point of contact for launching them into the real world because they have shown by their actions that the structure of their organizations is not ethical. Because the way that they sell things to kids and their families is not ethical and their outcomes are not good. And then their own professional behavior. Again, if you were to see this kind of thing at a public company, there'd be trials, but there's nothing going on. Like nothing happens to these people. Like they do stuff that should be criminal. It's again, if you're going to take, if you're going to be so entwined with public funding, there should be consequences when you lie in order to get your job, but then nothing happens to these people. And it's just wild to me.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:46]:
But I think that that lack of accountability, again, and then there's such a vicious backlash from people about, oh, well, you know, there's— it's just anti-intellectualism, and it's, you know, Americans are just want to be uneducated now. And it's like, no, these people have done nothing to deserve or earn the type of regard that you are yelling at everyone to give them. And in fact, if anything, all they've done is damage that, and you should be angry at them because they have an $848 billion industry. And they still can't act the way that you would expect and the way that we should demand that our elite academic class acts. And people are done with it because right now trust in the Ivy League is now at 15%. So that is the public perception of the value of the Ivy League. And I think that that's probably accurate to the value that they produce because they're not really doing anything. Again, people are, oh, you know, research comes outta here.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:39]:
And public policy comes out of here. And I'll argue that the fact that our public policy and our guidance for a lot of our healthcare system, for our education system, for our business consulting is coming out of these institutions is a huge reason why our country is a disaster right now. This is the root of the problem.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:57]:
So I wanted to circle back because I never took the— I never took my argument to its end, I guess, which is when people see That brand and the brand starts to dwindle, the trust, right? So this trust is going down. Where are they going now? And they are heading towards, and the numbers say this, they are heading towards community colleges. They're heading towards certification programs, licensing, those types of things, which is, I guess, if you look at it from a 30,000-foot view, I guess it's better, but I would say that. The diagnosis is probably the same, which is like, why are you there? The prescription, I should say, is largely the same. Like, just because you don't trust this institution, whether it be an Ivy League school, whether it be your local state school, et cetera, doesn't necessarily mean, okay, now you go to the community college, now you go to trade school, now you go do this instead. But you still have to back up. You still have to ask your child like, hey, What do you need and want from your life? What, how do you want your life to look like in the next X amount of years? What are the 4 things? Location, income, schedule, work environment. What are the things that you want your life to be? What are, in other words, what are the goals that you have? And then reverse engineer a way to get, to get there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:24]:
And community college might be one of those ways. It might be.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:29]:
Yeah. A state school might, an Ivy might. We don't know because every single kid is different. That's why a lot of people, you're right. And I say this all the time, so often in our comments, I'll see people just say, yeah, yeah, this is so true. We should send them to community college. And my answer is always, why? Why? I just want to know why. And when I ask that question, no one's ever able to answer.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:49]:
You don't send your kid to community college. Just because they need to have a clear goal. And by the way, it's completely valid to have a clear goal that is just my child wants to learn creative writing. And so they are going to take a creative writing class at the community college, completely valid. Anything that they're curious about, I'm completely in support of people buying college degrees or college classes because that is a clear want in their life and they can responsibly afford to do it. This is, and this has not changed like this. If you go through all of our content, if you watch Thousands of hours of content we've posted on the internet. We have consistently said that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:33:23]:
I specifically have consistently said that the entire time, but it's the why. And that's why people just defaulting to community college to send their kids somewhere, don't do that unless you know why and that your child is fully informed as to why they are doing that and what it is going to serve. What goal does it serve in their life? Whether for a specific career need or a specific desire of something they want to do. But if they do have that, then you know that there's a clear why. And that's all we want people to do is just have a clear reason for doing things.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:53]:
The last thing that I wanted to talk about is I wanted to talk about this like Inc. article or essay or whatever you wanna call it. And it was basically, for a lack of a better term, it was about universities and college campuses getting glow-ups.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:06]:
They equated them to malls.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:07]:
And so, but I like glow-ups better. And so—

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:11]:
I think that's kind of outdated. I don't think the kids call it that anymore.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:13]:
Okay, well, I'm not a kid, obviously.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:17]:
Neither am I.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:19]:
I'm not part of the youth.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:20]:
And you know that because you're calling them the youth.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:22]:
Right, exactly. That's exactly right. Like, I think that's also outdated.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:25]:
I saw this crazy clip of, uh, Robert Pattinson, the, uh, Edward from Twilight and Jennifer Lawrence. And I think they were in a movie together and she's interviewing him and she said, yeah, I think it's crazy that you just cold FaceTimed me. And he just called her via FaceTime, which is a wild thing that tells you how old somebody is. And she just goes, you're not Gen Z. And he's like, I am Gen Z. And she's like, You're definitely not. He's like 40 or something. And he just insists.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:52]:
He's like, no, I am. I am Gen Z. And she's like, okay. That was the whole clip. I'm glad I could reenact it for you. It's a funny clip though. Highly recommend anyone watches it if it comes across your feed.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:04]:
But they are basically trying to improve their campuses, like simultaneously as colleges are closing down. as their dorms are closing down simultaneously, they are trying to renovate and create more appeal and more aesthetics and more reasons for people to go to their institution and spend more time there.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:30]:
So as the trust in the Ivies is eroding, a lot of wealthier people— this is a trend too— are sending their kids to, like, if they're sending their kids to college at all, they're sending them to SEC schools for the culture. I believe that the only reason that many public universities in states where there is any sort of maintenance or even slight uptick in enrollment is solely 100% because of college football programs. And I believe I saw this very interesting article on LinkedIn, which is something I've never said in my life and will probably never say again.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:05]:
And the fact that you're on LinkedIn also shows that you're not one of them.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:09]:
I'm Gen Z. Yeah, I'm Gen Z. I'm gonna cold FaceTime you tomorrow instead of calling you. And, um, it was, but it was talking about the bundling and unbundling of universities and essentially something that we've said for a long time, which is because colleges are no longer the physical choke point because they're no longer the gatekeepers to information. They now no longer have distribution. The internet has distribution. And so they have been, and again, I say this, I've said this earlier, but like they're raging, raging against the dying of the light. They are just trying anything.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:39]:
Hail Marys. They're doing whatever they can to try to keep enrollment up because they're, they're fighting an uphill battle and they are going to lose. But I think, and I don't know how this is going to happen because Americans, we love sports. Again, God bless the SEC, but, and go Dawgs. But at some point, at some point, we're going to have to uncouple the young adult football. We're going to have to uncouple the sports from the colleges because that's just not a good place for it to live because the colleges themselves are going to go under. And I think that even some of these state universities are really going to struggle to stay open. If they lose the, if they lose the sports.

Hannah Maruyama [00:37:17]:
But the thing is, as, as the young people drop and as less people are going to college, they're gonna have a harder time, I think, being competitive with, with sports. I think college sports as a whole, the industry is going to start shrinking. I do think that that's gonna happen.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:33]:
Yeah. I don't know about that. I know for the bigger programs such as the SEC, such as all the schools in that conference, it's no problem. Those make millions, multi-millions of dollars. I mean, how much money do they make? They make so much money that they had to do the NIL stuff. They had to do the name, image, likeness stuff for the college athletes so that they can start making money as well. I mean, that's how much money they're making. They are.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:00]:
I mean, it's exactly like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, right? Like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:07]:
We did watch all of the seasons, guys.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:08]:
Within— yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:09]:
It's a wildly entertaining— it's so fun to watch.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:11]:
Literally the only trash television I know. I was like, that you and I consume.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:15]:
I would never watch reality television. And then I'm glued to the TV for the cheerleader crying about getting cut from the Cowboys cheerleading team.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:24]:
Exactly like that, in that it is an economic unit in and of itself. It is a profit center in and of itself. It makes money. It makes money already by itself. It doesn't need, it doesn't, need the school. I mean, it does need the school because it's a part of the school, but as an entity by itself, it doesn't. Where I could see this being, being a problem or where I could possibly see this is the lower schools, is D2, D3.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:55]:
Well, those are, those are going to suffer first.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:56]:
I mean, I think they're suffering now. And so where their programs are not cash flow positive, where they're, they are being propped up by the university enrollment where they need to sequester a part of the budget every year for the sports programs. And the sports programs are closing, and maybe not necessarily in football, but in the less profitable sports that have less viewership and have less advertisers, less ticket sales, etc. Swimming, that type of thing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:30]:
Sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:30]:
Yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:31]:
Well, I don't know. I, because a lot of the reason I think even with the, the NIL deals, right? Name, image, likeness. Is that NIL? Is that right? Even with those deals, I, knowing the numbers on, on what's going on with the college athletes themselves, like the ones that are on full scholarship, those kids get chewed up and spit out a lot of the time. Like they do not, a lot of times, even if they're on a full ride athletic scholarship, Mm-hmm. They do not really get good outcomes. They have some of the highest suicide rates of college students. They, uh, suffer a ton from depression and anxiety. It's because it's very stressful.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:09]:
I think our society is just kind of shifting away from so much value being placed on that. But also, as the colleges are getting less money, I think there'll be less of those scholarships available. I, I'm serious. I think there's going to be less of these full rides. There's already almost none. And then there's very few kids that get 'em, but I think they're gonna shrink even the amount of those. And then I also think that eventually you're right, but if it's starting to affect those lower tier schools, it's eventually gonna get to the big schools too. There just won't be this huge, uh, I just don't think that this sports culture is sustainable long-term, and I think it's starting to burn itself out.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:42]:
I think I disagree with you here. I'm not sure. Let me just spitball a few things at you.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:45]:
Sure. I, just a theory I have.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:47]:
I think exactly as I said, I think for the lower programs and possibly in other schools as well, like in D1 schools for the lesser sports, those lesser programs. Yeah. Maybe, maybe it is one of those things where 80% of the revenue that's brought in, I mean, I'm sure it's already like this. 80% of the revenue that is brought in is produced by 20% of the programs. And so that's—

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:13]:
Pareto's law.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:14]:
Yeah. Football, basketball, baseball, the big 3. Like those, that's where all the revenue is. And then if you want to, of those, now you can, you can separate those. It's just football. Of those 3, it's always just football. And so I can see an argument that if you're just talking about the athletic departments in general consolidating and then therefore giving more importance to the larger sports, that makes sense to me because that's just consolidation in general. Like that's literally just how That's just how revenue works.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:48]:
That's how product lines work in companies. So, okay, that makes sense. I think that sports in general is actually gonna be on an uptick.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:58]:
Hmm.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:58]:
The reason why has everything to do with the disconnected feeling that everyone is experiencing and the uptick and the want for live events. Live events are thriving. I think they're going to continue to thrive. I think that we're gonna see Like, I mean, just look at like Taylor Swift. Everybody wants to go to a Taylor Swift concert.

Hannah Maruyama [00:42:22]:
Sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:22]:
The UFC has never been bigger, right? Like you wanna go to a UFC fight, you wanna go to a football game, you wanna go because your life is completely digital. Everybody's life is completely digital. Millennials definitely feel it. I mean, millennials, they don't wanna talk to anybody, right? But you talk to millennials, they'll be like, oh, they wanna go to this concert though. And so they'll go to a concert, but they don't on their day-to-day life, Like they don't wanna drive to McDonald's and go through the drive-through. They would rather just Postmates it or Uber Eats or something like that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:42:54]:
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:55]:
And so DoorDash, I think the live event space at large is going to get much, much larger and sports is going to be a large driver of that. We've seen that in just this past few months with the World Cup. I mean, the World Cup Was huge. I mean, it was huge in all these cities. I mean, the World Cup is always huge, but I mean, it was really big. And I think a lot of it is just people with, especially with AI, and it's just going to become more prevalent. It's just going to become more and more prevalent. You're going to end up talking to your AI agents during the course of your knowledge work, during the course of your white-collar job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:37]:
You're going to end up talking to your AI agents more than you talk to Freddie across the desk. You know what I mean? You're sitting in the bullpen. Freddie sits on the other side. You haven't talked to Freddie in 3 weeks because you're—

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:45]:
You think we're going to have cubicles in the AI age?

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:47]:
Because you're— yeah, right. You're sitting on your bed. You're sitting on your bed.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:51]:
It's the metaverse.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:52]:
Yeah, right, exactly. Oh, I got to clock in. You put the glasses on. To bring it to its conclusion, I think that I don't necessarily agree with you. And I think that sports are going to— I think the market share for sports is going to get larger.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:06]:
I want to clarify, college sports. I believe that college sports is going to dissolve because it makes a lot more sense to take kids from high school into— if sports is really the focus, it makes a lot more sense to take them from high school and put them into sports. It just does because they're younger, they're less likely to get hurt, they can play longer, they have more time to build an image. I'm very serious. I believe that this is going to shift.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:34]:
Once again, That will not be the case for the big 3. That will not be the case.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:41]:
We'll see.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:41]:
And the reason why is especially for 2 out of 3 of those sports, which is basketball and football. And it has to do with, they don't have great farm leagues. And so you must go to college to play in the NFL.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:59]:
Yes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:00]:
You must go to college to play in the NFL. It is their farm league. It is where you go. You cannot be 18 years old and get drafted. I mean, imagine getting, being 18 years old, getting—

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:13]:
And there's 300-pound dudes running you over.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:16]:
Right. There's a 29-year-old man who's 350 pounds and he's going to run over you. And so you need to go to college so that you can grow up, learn physically. Yeah, exactly. And then get more experience, play the game. And then you get drafted. Basketball is, is very similar as well. Not that people don't get drafted outta high school.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:38]:
But they do. I think at one point there was a one year you had to go to college. I don't, I'm not sure if they abolished that or not. So I forget if they abolished that or not, but whereas baseball doesn't have as big of a problem there because they have— Because they have minor leagues. The minor leagues. They have a really, really good system. to develop and farm talent from a young age. In fact, a lot of the people that went into the NFL, they got drafted in baseball, for baseball.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:09]:
They got drafted. I mean, they just didn't go to play baseball because they were better at football type of thing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:46:15]:
Well, I wonder, but that's kind of what I'm saying is baseball has that distribution. They have that, but I believe that there will be demand to grow that outside of college because Gen Z, And then Gen Alpha behind them does not want to go to college, and they also want to get started on things sooner. So I believe there will be demand outside of college because a lot of them just don't want to go to college. And if you want to have the greatest share, the greatest space of athletes to look at— and, and I, I don't disagree with the demand for like sports, I just think college sports as a whole is going to shrink because what you just named, UFC is huge. UFC fighters don't have to go to college. in order to fight, they start really young. They start super young and then they go—

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:55]:
Yeah, they're scrapping in the backyard.

Hannah Maruyama [00:46:58]:
Yeah. And then, I mean, that's like literally what BJ Penn did. That's what Max Holloway did.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:01]:
Busting your neighbor's face. You're like, bro, you should go to the gym.

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:04]:
But that's what I'm talking about. Like these guys start super young and then again, because they're gonna get hurt, they're athletes. And so the younger they are when they start, the better it is for them and the better it is for their career. And I believe that people are logically going to come to that conclusion. Given they will, somebody will have to build the infrastructure in order for the NFL or NBA guys to go straight into those from there. But I believe that there's going to be, there's gonna be a shift in that. I really do think that, but we'll see.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:31]:
Time will tell. Yeah, I, I don't know. Time will tell. I promise you we're gonna find out. Let us know what you think in the comments. Until next time, aloha.