Your Kid Can Have the College Life Without the Debt (The Hannah Maruyama Show #10)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
So if you're worried about the college experience or your child is worried about the college experience, you're about to be sold a $100,000 version of that when your child can get that exact same experience down the street for free. The Wall Street Journal just reported on something that Ryan and I have been telling parents for years, and that's that young adults can get the college experience by just being 18 to 22 years old and participating in activities and community exactly like college students do. And honestly, most of them aren't even doing that. So if your child actually wants to have the college experience, college is not the best place to get it. But living in a town where there are different classes or community meetups, or just living in a town with a younger demographic can get your child the exact same experience and probably a better one because there won't be any debt associated with it. And they don't have to sign up for this 4 to 6 year time suck that's going to just take $100,000 from them and all of their energy and time. But if your child really wants the college experience and they want to live in a college town, They can just move there. They can work, they can go to parties, go to the gym, go to the tailgates, and they skip the one thing that is making college students miserable and that's not gonna help them get a good career.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:05]:
And that's the degree. Now, I worked in AI and machine learning software for years without buying a college degree. That's why I founded Degree Free. And then I wrote a book called The Degree Free Way: How to Help Your 16 to 20 Year Old Build the Life They Want. That has helped 18,000 families plus nationwide guide their young adults to the right career and the life that actually fits them. And then we've helped hundreds of young adults start their career through our launch program. Now, I made a ton of friends and I participated in a ton of activities between the ages of 18 and 22. Not only did I make friends, but I also learned languages.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:33]:
I also learned arts and I also met my spouse. So all of these things your child can have whether or not they're buying a degree from a college. And that's because the college experience was actually never about college. It's about being 18 to 22 years old and having that time and that freedom. And if you want to increase the demographic of people who are around the same age as your child, the easiest way to do that is help them move to a town where those people are present. So you can pay for your child to go to the town without having to buy a college degree for them. And parents oftentimes will tell me that they're against college in general. They just don't think it's worth the time.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:05]:
They don't think it's worth the money. They think it's not going to teach their child anything useful. And if anything, it might teach them the opposite of things that are useful. But a lot of times they'll say, but I'm just worried they're going to miss out on this college experience. They're almost rooting around for this phrase, and it just means this nebulous basket of benefits that they think their kids will get as long as they sign on the dotted line. But when I ask them what exactly they're afraid of the kid missing out on, it's never the degree, it's never the professors, it's the friends, it's the parties, it's the games, it's the apartment, it's the years of being young with people who are the same age. And sure, that's a real thing worth wanting. I personally think that a bit of diversity in the age and wisdom and experience of the people around you has higher benefit.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:47]:
But if the goal for you and your child is to get them around people of the same age, then you can do that. But you're being charged for the degree and the experience that people think they're going to get from college is not what it used to be. So let's look at what a degree is actually going to cost you. So you're going to pay about $108,000 to $156,000 on average for a 4 to 6 year degree, because it's 5 and a half years on average. And that's before we've talked about interest. So the honest all-in cost of a bachelor's degree per the Education Data Initiative, which is based on the NCES numbers, this is about $562,000. So we're looking We're looking at a lot of money here for an experience that's stripped down as just your child being young in a place with other people. I think we can do better than that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:27]:
And I think you probably think that too. We're going to break down the college experience and see what you're actually trying to get for them, and then see if it's actually going to cost you as much as a degree is. And we're also going to see if it's actually going to get the things that you think it will. And the main reason is if you're looking for the college experience, you can pick the town and skip the paper. Now, if you have a 16 to 20-year-old and the college experience is something that's being debated in your household, Just hit subscribe. The show exists to give you the real data about what's going on and then what you can do instead. Now, I made this case a few weeks ago, and it's worth saying again, because it's— this is the whole game. The friendships, the possibility of a spouse, the late night talks, and the relationships the parents think college is going to give your child are really just things that you will secure from being 18 to 22 years old.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:09]:
They're actually not about the college. The colleges take the credit because that helps them sell degrees. So a dear friend of mine recently told me about a really, really good friend from her days at UCLA. Now here's the catch. That friend never went to UCLA. He lived in the same apartment building and he worked full-time in entertainment. He went to the same parties, just ate at the same restaurants, and to this day still goes to tailgates. He knows everyone from UCLA.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:33]:
He's got the same network, the same community, the same memories, same friendships, and he has more money in the bank, she said, than those who paid for their degrees. Now, nobody at these parties was checking whether or not you're enrolled at UCLA. They're just young people that are in the same place at the same time, which your child can absolutely do. It just takes a little bit of thinking. So if we know that the college experience is just being young and in the right place at the right time, then there are 2 main things that create it, and neither one of them is enrollment in college. The first one is just proximity. You live near young people who are the same age. And the second is availability.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:08]:
You have the free time to actually be around them and say yes and do things. And a job in a college town still leaves way more weekly hours for being around people your own age and networking than the average student will get between classes and the part-time job that some of them may be working. But they're going to meet their future spouse in college. They're probably not. So most recent data on where American couples actually meet puts college at 0.74% and online at 60.76%. So online is roughly 82 times more common than college as the place that couples will meet. So out of every 100 couples getting married now, fewer than one of them met in college. So the whole campus romance thing, like that you see that your kids are probably being fed on off-campus on Amazon, is actually something that is unlikely to happen.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:53]:
And it's far more likely that they're describing your grandparents, not your child. So more than 60 of couples getting married now met online on an app that your child maybe already has or can easily download on their phone. And I'm not being an advocate for online dating. I'm just saying that statistically speaking, it's very unlikely that your child will meet their spouse on campus. So the friends and the relationship that your child builds from 18 to 22 come from being around other young people with time on their hands, and the area in which they live can supply that. But being enrolled in college is not the reason for it. So you're not buying your kid a social life when you write a check for tuition. The social life was accessible the whole time.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:28]:
You're buying a piece of paper that's actually gonna make it harder for them to get a job, and you're being told that the social life is what's gonna make it worth it. But that's not true. And you can pick their town and then they can skip the paper. So let's talk about how to make this real. So if your teenager or you want the college experience for them, but you're not sure that college is the right move for them or just for your family or the right move at all. Here's what you can do that will actually get them the experience. So you can send them to a college town. So big state schools are the easiest.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:55]:
Usually the social density is already kind of built in. So you're not creating a whole new thing. Your child will just be moving to one and then getting an entry-level job in that town. And honestly, I would say here, this is a good place to find strategic entry-level work. So to go into the specific industry your child wants to get into. Very few of the jobs are gonna require degrees, less than 10% of jobs nationally actually do. And once they find a strategic entry-level role, they're actually compounding network and experience, which their counterparts in college will not be doing. The other thing that a lot of people I don't think know is that your child can move into the exact same apartments where students live.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:29]:
Your child can live in off-campus student housing without having to be enrolled in college. Enrollment is not a prerequisite for them living in these apartments. And I thought that that was wildly interesting. Because a huge factor that a lot of parents don't say out loud, but they are thinking is, well, I just want them to have this like safe place where they can move out and be on their own. And so if that really is the concern, then there's usually some oversight in these off-campus housing. There's somebody there. There's just somebody with a little bit of oversight so that nothing crazy happens. And that I think is really what parents are looking for.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:58]:
And I think for a lot of families, if it was a little bit more understood that that was an option, like your child can live in the exact same type of housing that students live in, without having to be a student, then I think a lot more people would choose that option because really that is what they want. They want their child to have a little bit of independence while they work, while they get experience, while they have a little bit of fun, and then they're starting to build network and resume while they're doing that. And that is a really good option that I think satisfies what a lot of people are looking for. Now, the other thing here is that you do have to be intentional with your social life. So this is joining what they wanna join. This is joining a gym. This is the intramural league. This is a local church or a volunteer group, or bar trivia night or salsa class or the makerspace.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:36]:
So your child shows up to what they want to participate in and they learn and they make friends. A wise thing to do would also be to pursue something that professionally helps with the strategic entry-level work your child is building. So this would be getting certificates, getting licenses, working on hard or soft skills that will help them to do well in the strategic entry-level work they've chosen. And you're skipping the degree because it doesn't take 4 years to learn the skill set that you need to start a good career. It just doesn't. In the Launch Program, we've rarely had anybody find a career that takes more than 12 months to actually start, unless it was something that legally required a degree for licensure or was a 4-year paid professional apprenticeship for something. So the last part of this is that your child can just show up to things. They can show up to football games, they can show up to parties, they can show up wherever the local scene is, and your child will be included as soon as they walk in.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:22]:
And I know this because this is my experience. I lived in 2 different college towns while I was in this age range, and it's very easy because there's lots of transient people. There's lots of people that are not from there. And so people are just making connections and friends. That's just kind of how it is. Whatever you're doing, you're going to make friends with the people doing whatever you're doing. And so if your child goes to, as I did, goes to dance classes, goes to language meetups, goes to professional meetups, just works, they're going to make friends and they're going to make friends with people who are around the same age as them. It's just kind of how it is.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:51]:
So now if your child does this for 4 years, they have the same friend group as young adults who are enrolled in college. They have the same friends, they go to the same places. The difference is that your child has a resume and they have 4 years of work experience and professional network, and they also have 4 years of earning money instead of actively losing money. So if this sounds like this is a fringe move, it's not. The whole country is headed this way to the same conclusion. The 4-year enrollment machine is shrinking on its own. It's funny because I see all these headlines about how, oh, enrollment's up. It's not.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:18]:
We're at an enrollment cliff. The number of college-age Americans is set to fall about 15% between 2025 and 2029. That's going to be roughly half a million fewer college students because there's less kids. So class of 2025 was a peak and it's just downhill from here. When I talk to people who are in the off-campus housing industry, they are selling their units and they're selling their units because there's not enough students to fill them. And so somebody's lying. And I don't think it's the people that own real estate that's losing money. I do think that it's the colleges because they're trying desperately To make parents think that everybody is still sending their kids to college when that's clearly not what's happening.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:55]:
There's a lot of incentive for the colleges to lie about enrollment going up. There's no incentive that I can see for people who own off-campus housing units to lie about having to sell their units because they're underoccupied. So as usual, just follow the money and it'll tell the truth. But interestingly, the towns themselves are not emptying, so people will still move to them. So in 2025, there were 34 college towns where more people moved in than moved out. And in these towns, the unemployment rate is below the national average. So if you look at it, fewer kids are enrolling in college, but more people are still moving to college towns. And that's because the town is the thing that's actually valuable.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:27]:
It's just young people wherever they are during that age range. There's hustle and bustle. College enrollment was never really the draw. It's just young people between the ages of 18 and 22. Colleges are just taking responsibility for something that always happens in spite of them. So quick word from our sponsor. Just kidding. As you guys know, there's no sponsor.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:42]:
It's just me. The college town move works on its own. And it's way better if you have a plan. So if your child wants to have the college experience and you you want them to have this independence and you want them to be able to move out and kind of get out on their own, but you want to make sure they come out with real experience and a real career, then that's exactly what we do in the Launch Program. We're kind of like a financial planning service, but just for launching your young adults. What we do is we help them figure out what they need from their work, what careers objectively fit that, what they need to learn in order to get those careers, and then what options there are where they are going or where they live to find exactly the right fit for them to learn whatever they need to learn. And then we create a 12-month plan for them to learn it. We also help them find local groups that will help them to build a type of network that parents think that college will get, but won't.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:24]:
If you're going, wow, I've never heard of this before, but that would really help, degreefree.com/launch. We'll jump on a call, see if it's the right fit for your child, and then talk about how they would start. So here's the difference a plan can make with the same town. So an 18-year-old who enrolls in college and then moves to a college town is going to get a degree. And right now, college degrees are not helping people get work. But a Launch Program kid who moves to the same town with strategic entry-level work, knowing exactly what community meetups they're going to go to to make friends and build a network, now has 4 years towards a real career and a social life that's a lot more curated and specific to them, and they won't lose it when they stop paying the college. Again, the enrolled student's going to walk away with a degree that they have a 22% chance of using, especially since fewer than 10% of US jobs legally require one. The Launch student's going to walk away with friends, with the same memories, with the resume, with the career capital, and then savings.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:09]:
So they're in the same location, Same access, totally different outcome. And that's the power of picking the town and skipping the paper. And this is really the core of it for parents who are afraid that their child's going to miss out on this experience. You're not taking anything away from them. That fear is the most natural thing in the world. And honestly, you've been told that on purpose. It's because they're trying to get you to buy something that's very expensive. They want you to buy that paper because they need you to believe that that's the only way that your child is going to get a good life, have a community, Find a spouse or make friends.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:40]:
And that's how they're trying to justify the cost of this. But the trick is that you don't actually have to buy this bundle. You can get the exact same things and really better things that are more tailored to your child with the slightest bit of planning. The good part of the college experience is the town that they go to and the age that they're at. It's never the degree. So you're not denying your child the college experience. You can actually help them create a better experience that's more permanent, more useful, and more cashflow positive. So they can have the same friends in the same town.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:09]:
They're just missing the debt that's eventually going to rob them of opportunities and have them paying down student debt until they're 40 years old. A good way to talk about this too, if it's your child that's worried about it, is to ask them what they actually want out of their college years. If the real answer is the social aspect, like the parties and the friends and the games, and then having that independence, every one of those things is available if they just move to the same town. And you and they can completely skip the part where you pay 6 figures for a piece of paper that's not going to help them get a career. I hope this helped shed a little light on the college experience and how your child can curate that and build a far superior one in the same location while they're between the ages of 18 and 22. So if this was helpful, subscribe and then share it with another parent who's worried about their child missing the college experience. And if you do want that third-party support to work with your child one-on-one to plan out how they're going to do this, what entry-level role is going to help them get the career they want, and then what other options there are for them socially in whatever town they want to move to, degreefree.com/launch, because the college experience was never college. It's just the age that they're at and where they are.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:09]:
And you can pick the town and skip the paper.