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Voddie Baucham - Harvard or Heaven · Voddie Baucham Sermons

0:06
Speaker 1: The question here, the Harvard or Heaven kind of play
0:09
Speaker 1: on words, but the question is, what are we preparing
0:11
Speaker 1: our children for? When we are educating our children at home,
0:16
Speaker 1: what's the goal? And for most of us, the goal
0:22
Speaker 1: is a university education of the highest order. That's what we,
0:28
Speaker 1: I mean, when we think about homeschool, when we think
0:29
Speaker 1: about the curriculum that we choose, the classes that our
0:32
Speaker 1: children are taking, that's the overriding goal at the forefront
0:36
Speaker 1: of our minds that drives almost every decision that we make.
0:44
Speaker 1: Here's a word of clarification before we even get started
0:47
Speaker 1: here on this most controversial session. Number one, I neither
0:52
Speaker 1: believe nor teach that college is inherently sinful or completely useless. Again,
0:57
Speaker 1: I'm Dean of Theological Education. at African Christian University. All right?
1:03
Speaker 1: So how could that possibly be my position? Secondly, I
1:09
Speaker 1: do not ascribe to educational antinomianism. Do not ascribe to
1:14
Speaker 1: educational antinomianism. What is educational antinomianism? It's the idea that
1:22
Speaker 1: education is an area where God's Word has nothing to say.
1:27
Speaker 1: That the Bible... is irrelevant when it comes to the
1:32
Speaker 1: education of our children. That there are other authoritative sources
1:36
Speaker 1: out there that should dictate and define how we pursue education,
1:42
Speaker 1: but the Bible is not one of them. And especially,
1:46
Speaker 1: it doesn't override the others. Well, I don't ascribe to that.
1:50
Speaker 1: I don't believe that God's word is silent at all
1:53
Speaker 1: in this area of education. Thirdly, I do not believe
1:58
Speaker 1: that God calls us to prepare our children for college.
2:02
Speaker 1: He calls us to prepare them for heaven. I'll say
2:05
Speaker 1: that again. I do not believe that God calls us
2:07
Speaker 1: to prepare our children for college, but to prepare them
2:11
Speaker 1: for heaven. And college should only fit into our goals
2:17
Speaker 1: and plans with our children to the degree that it
2:21
Speaker 1: is part of the stewardship of their broader life as
2:25
Speaker 1: it relates to pursuing God and his kingdom. Okay? For
2:29
Speaker 1: some of our children, that may include college. For some
2:34
Speaker 1: of them, it won't. The problem is that we treat
2:39
Speaker 1: them all like college is a must for every child.
2:46
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a normal, natural next step, and
2:51
Speaker 1: everybody just thought to do it. And if you don't
2:52
Speaker 1: do it, there's something wrong. That's the problem. And that's
2:58
Speaker 1: not thinking that we get from the scriptures. Nor is
3:02
Speaker 1: it healthy thinking at all. What's wrong with college? What's
3:08
Speaker 1: the big deal anyway? Why would anybody have any issues
3:12
Speaker 1: at all? I don't have many issues, just a few.
3:18
Speaker 1: Number one, most undergraduate degrees aren't worth the paper they're
3:22
Speaker 1: written on. Most undergraduate degrees aren't worth the paper they
3:31
Speaker 1: were given. At the beginning of the university era, there
3:37
Speaker 1: haven't been universities all that long, but at the beginning
3:40
Speaker 1: of the university era, and for a long time after
3:43
Speaker 1: universities were established, you could only get one of the
3:47
Speaker 1: very few degrees. You could get degrees in theology, you
3:52
Speaker 1: could get degrees in law and medicine, But you can
3:55
Speaker 1: only get one of the very few degrees. Now there
3:58
Speaker 1: are literally hundreds of courses of study on the university level. Secondly,
4:06
Speaker 1: four years is too much time to waste. It's a
4:09
Speaker 1: lot of time, especially for what you get. It's way
4:12
Speaker 1: too much time to spend for what you get. Thirdly, $ 100, 000
4:16
Speaker 1: to $ 250, 000 in tuition, that's too much money for what
4:18
Speaker 1: you get. way too much money for what you get.
4:26
Speaker 1: And I leave the U.S. numbers in here because there
4:27
Speaker 1: are a lot of people in this part of the
4:28
Speaker 1: world and what they want to do is they want
4:30
Speaker 1: to go to the U.S. for college. And problem number four,
4:36
Speaker 1: college is not for everyone. We assume that it is,
4:40
Speaker 1: but college is not for everyone. And it's amazing. There
4:45
Speaker 1: are some of you in this room, I look around
4:46
Speaker 1: the room, I'm looking for certain levels of gray, and
4:51
Speaker 1: there are some of you in the room, just a few,
4:53
Speaker 1: who probably remember a time when high school had a
4:57
Speaker 1: couple of different tracks, right? There was the vocational track
5:02
Speaker 1: for people who were going to learn a skill and
5:04
Speaker 1: go into a vocation. Then there was the university track
5:08
Speaker 1: for people who were likely to go on to college, right?
5:11
Speaker 1: Even if you're not old enough to have gone to
5:14
Speaker 1: that school, you remember that that's how things used to be.
5:18
Speaker 1: For the most part, we don't have that anymore. We
5:20
Speaker 1: assume that everyone is supposed to be on the university track.
5:25
Speaker 1: Just all of a sudden, that's the assumption that we make.
5:29
Speaker 1: And finally, most universities are philosophically antagonistic to Christianity. Other
5:36
Speaker 1: than these, I don't have a problem with college. Let's
5:43
Speaker 1: look at the first one. Most undergraduate degrees aren't worth
5:46
Speaker 1: the paper that they're written on. When I talk about
5:49
Speaker 1: worthless degrees, There are a couple of things we have
5:52
Speaker 1: to sort of get in our minds to understand what
5:55
Speaker 1: I mean. First, the million dollar myth. Here's the million
6:01
Speaker 1: dollar myth. This is the way that it's stated. Over
6:03
Speaker 1: an adult's working life, high school graduates can expect on
6:07
Speaker 1: average to earn about $ 1. 2 million. Those with a bachelor's degree, $ 2. 1 million.
6:13
Speaker 1: And people with a master's degree, $ 2. 5 million. Generally, And
6:19
Speaker 1: so the argument is that if you go to college
6:23
Speaker 1: and get a college degree, it's worth about a million
6:27
Speaker 1: dollars over your lifetime. Listen to this from Forbes magazine.
6:34
Speaker 1: The million dollar shiver is a favorite of college barkers.
6:38
Speaker 1: Like many good cons, this one contains a kernel of truth.
6:43
Speaker 1: But anyone who's gotten a passing grade in statistics knows
6:46
Speaker 1: what's wrong with this line of argument. A correlation between
6:50
Speaker 1: BAs and income is not proof of cause and effect. Again, correlation,
6:56
Speaker 1: cause and effect, two different things. One doesn't necessarily prove
7:00
Speaker 1: the other. It may reflect nothing more than the fact
7:05
Speaker 1: that the economy rewards smart people, and smart people are
7:08
Speaker 1: more likely to go to college. But the idea that
7:14
Speaker 1: you can take those numbers and go, okay, great, Get
7:18
Speaker 1: a college degree, you put another million dollars, actually it's
7:20
Speaker 1: not a million dollars, in your pocket. By the way,
7:25
Speaker 1: that Forbes magazine article was called The Great College Hoax.
7:31
Speaker 1: And this is Forbes magazine, okay? This is Forbes magazine.
7:35
Speaker 1: This is not some fire-breathing, you know, wingnut magazine. This
7:40
Speaker 1: is Forbes, all right? Financial magazine. The hidden facts. If
7:46
Speaker 1: you think about it, tuition, Take the average at $ 188, 000.
7:53
Speaker 1: Lost income. Loan interest. Your total comes down from $ 900, 000
8:01
Speaker 1: to about $ 450, 000. Okay? And again, this is over a lifetime.
8:08
Speaker 1: This is over your entire life expectancy. There's a lot
8:12
Speaker 1: of ways to make that up over a lifetime. You
8:17
Speaker 1: can invest a very small amount of money early on
8:21
Speaker 1: if all you want to do is make up that $ 450, 000
8:24
Speaker 1: difference over a lifetime. It's a small margin. Secondly, there
8:31
Speaker 1: are the mountains of debt. Listen to this, again from
8:35
Speaker 1: Forbes magazine. Higher education could be a financial disaster, especially
8:40
Speaker 1: with the return on degrees down and student loan sharks
8:43
Speaker 1: on the prowl. This is a huge problem People are
8:48
Speaker 1: going into mountains of debt in order to get degrees that,
8:53
Speaker 1: for the most part, aren't worth the paper they're written on.
8:57
Speaker 1: We're not talking about people who are going into debt
9:00
Speaker 1: for a molecular biology or aeronautical engineering degree. That's not
9:06
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. Although you can do those
9:09
Speaker 1: a lot less expensively as well. And then there's the
9:14
Speaker 1: idea of what I call non-degrees. Remember, when colleges and
9:19
Speaker 1: universities are starting, they are designed, they are there, they
9:23
Speaker 1: exist for the elite. They exist for that small percentage
9:28
Speaker 1: of people who need to have a level of training
9:31
Speaker 1: that allows them to function in very limited areas. Usually,
9:38
Speaker 1: they were theology, law, and medicine. When we started, that's
9:45
Speaker 1: what we were doing. In the United States, something very
9:48
Speaker 1: interesting happened. After the Civil War, there are these land
9:53
Speaker 1: grants that are given, and these land grants given by
9:57
Speaker 1: the federal government to establish colonization. and universities, especially in
10:02
Speaker 1: the southern states, after they had been decimated by the war.
10:06
Speaker 1: And these land grants, all of a sudden you have
10:10
Speaker 1: like thousands of acres given to a university. Well, if
10:14
Speaker 1: all you're going to train is doctors and lawyers and theologians...
10:20
Speaker 1: You don't need all that land. So now all of
10:22
Speaker 1: a sudden, they start offering more degrees, which actually makes
10:29
Speaker 1: quite a bit of sense if you can do it,
10:33
Speaker 1: if you can get people to pay you for it.
10:35
Speaker 1: Better that we have more students than less, right? What
10:41
Speaker 1: do I mean when I talk about worthless degrees? Here
10:43
Speaker 1: are some degrees. Now, mind you, I'm talking about people
10:47
Speaker 1: who are paying full freight for a four-year degree in
10:51
Speaker 1: these things. I'm not saying that any of these things
10:54
Speaker 1: are inherently worthless or sinful or evil. I'm saying paying
10:59
Speaker 1: full freight for a four-year degree for any one of
11:02
Speaker 1: these things is outlandish, okay? A four-year degree in dance.
11:12
Speaker 1: Is there anything wrong with dance? Dance is wonderful. A
11:15
Speaker 1: four-year degree where you pay full freight and go into debt?
11:19
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Metal smithing and jewelry. These are
11:23
Speaker 1: real degrees. By the way, what I did was I
11:25
Speaker 1: went to three different universities and just, I allowed myself
11:30
Speaker 1: no more than 10 minutes on their website in order
11:33
Speaker 1: to come up with this list because I could have
11:35
Speaker 1: come up with a whole lot more than these. So just,
11:37
Speaker 1: you know, a variety and sampling of universities. Art history.
11:43
Speaker 1: Art history. Is art history important? Yes. Is art history wonderful? Yes.
11:47
Speaker 1: Four-year full freight degree? Nope. Nope. Creative photography. Creative photography.
12:00
Speaker 1: Is it great? Yep. Four-year full freight degree? No. College debt? No.
12:10
Speaker 1: Interior design. Gay and lesbian studies. Or just... Women's studies,
12:18
Speaker 1: or anything with studies on the end of it. Okay?
12:24
Speaker 1: Packing science. No, for real. Packing science. There's a degree
12:31
Speaker 1: in packing science. Drama. Golf and sports turf management. real
12:45
Speaker 1: degree at a number of places. Surf science. They offer
12:53
Speaker 1: that at UCLA. Painting. Now, when I say painting, I
13:02
Speaker 1: do not mean... I mean... Full price four-year degree. There
13:17
Speaker 1: are families who are paying for their children to get
13:21
Speaker 1: these degrees. These are worthless. But it's okay. And we
13:27
Speaker 1: do it. Why? Here's why. Because we measure our worth
13:33
Speaker 1: as parents of whether or not our children end up
13:36
Speaker 1: with a degree. And so we'll pay for a worthless
13:40
Speaker 1: degree so that we can say, my kid graduated from college.
13:45
Speaker 1: especially as homeschoolers, because we have an inferiority complex anyway.
13:50
Speaker 1: And everybody's looking at us, and they're judging us, and
13:53
Speaker 1: they're saying, you're going to mess up your kid. They're
13:57
Speaker 1: not going to be properly socialized. They're not going to
14:00
Speaker 1: be properly educated. And so we want to be able
14:03
Speaker 1: to waive that degree, right? We go into debt so
14:07
Speaker 1: that we can look at them and say, I do
14:09
Speaker 1: have value. I am a good person. My kid got
14:13
Speaker 1: a degree. in your circles, right? But wait, I know
14:23
Speaker 1: somebody who makes good money with one of those degrees. Folks,
14:28
Speaker 1: the worth of a college degree is not determined by
14:31
Speaker 1: whether or not a person can make money with it.
14:35
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who make money with
14:37
Speaker 1: a lot of degrees. That doesn't determine its worth. By
14:40
Speaker 1: the way, when you talk about these universities which were
14:44
Speaker 1: established mainly for three areas of study, theology, medicine, and law.
14:51
Speaker 1: Guess who made the least amount of money among the
14:54
Speaker 1: people who graduated with those three degrees? The theologians. Does
14:58
Speaker 1: that mean that it was worth less than the others?
15:02
Speaker 1: You still don't make as much money with a theology
15:07
Speaker 1: degree as you do with some other degrees. Does that
15:11
Speaker 1: mean that they are worth less somehow? Is all we're
15:16
Speaker 1: measuring this idea of how much money people make? Okay?
15:23
Speaker 1: A lot of these degrees, by the way, have nothing
15:26
Speaker 1: to do with whether or not you need a college education.
15:29
Speaker 1: They have to do with the power of certain industries.
15:35
Speaker 1: For example, if I'm in interior design, right? If I'm
15:40
Speaker 1: in interior design in this area, right? and I have
15:44
Speaker 1: an interior design firm, and anybody can do interior design,
15:51
Speaker 1: I'm probably not going to be able to charge you
15:52
Speaker 1: a premium for my services. But if I can get
15:55
Speaker 1: in collusion with a university, and we can determine that
15:59
Speaker 1: in order to be certified as an interior design expert
16:03
Speaker 1: in this city, you have to have a degree from
16:08
Speaker 1: an institution that has an accredited interior design program Well,
16:13
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden I do two things. Number one,
16:15
Speaker 1: I create a barrier and a bar for my competition, right?
16:20
Speaker 1: And secondly, I make an excuse for me to be
16:23
Speaker 1: able to charge you a premium. It has nothing to
16:28
Speaker 1: do with whether or not college-level knowledge is necessary for
16:34
Speaker 1: the job. It's a racket. Okay? Okay? This is from
16:43
Speaker 1: Michael Garman, president of the American Library Association, and he's
16:48
Speaker 1: a librarian at Cal State Fresno. Literacy experts and educators
16:52
Speaker 1: say they are stunned by the results of a recent
16:56
Speaker 1: adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of
16:59
Speaker 1: college graduates, we're talking about graduates, can we all understand that?
17:05
Speaker 1: We're talking about people who got the paper, right? Reading
17:12
Speaker 1: literacy of college graduates has declined in the past decade
17:16
Speaker 1: with no obvious explanation. It's appalling. It's really astounding. Only
17:21
Speaker 1: 31% of college graduates can read a complex book and
17:26
Speaker 1: extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder.
17:30
Speaker 1: That means 69% can't do that. 69% of college graduates.
17:38
Speaker 1: By the way, Anyone who works in human resources or
17:45
Speaker 1: any entrepreneurs out there who have a business where you've
17:51
Speaker 1: had to hire recent college graduates, you know this. You
17:56
Speaker 1: know that they're idiots. They don't know anything. They have
18:01
Speaker 1: no work ethic. Most of them have never had a job.
18:04
Speaker 1: They know virtually nothing. And you've got to teach them everything.
18:11
Speaker 1: And when you look at the things that employers out
18:13
Speaker 1: there want and are desperate to find, character, competency, a
18:22
Speaker 1: willingness to learn, the ability to pick up tasks and
18:27
Speaker 1: assimilate new information, you look at all of these things
18:30
Speaker 1: that people out there are looking for, none of them
18:33
Speaker 1: are taught at college. None of them. Not one of them. Okay? Well,
18:43
Speaker 1: let's look at this time frame, these four years. And
18:46
Speaker 1: it's not any four years. It's the four years from
18:49
Speaker 1: 18 to 22. These are final years. We get our
18:52
Speaker 1: careers at this time. We start families at this time.
18:54
Speaker 1: By the way, we used to start families at this time.
18:58
Speaker 1: people are starting families way later than they ever had before.
19:01
Speaker 1: And one of the main reasons is we've bought this
19:04
Speaker 1: lie that everybody has to have a college degree. And
19:07
Speaker 1: by the way, nowadays, quite honestly, we're almost at the
19:11
Speaker 1: point where we say everybody has to have a graduate degree. Right?
19:15
Speaker 1: I've had conversations with people, you know, well, you know,
19:20
Speaker 1: we're going to get married and you know, we've been
19:22
Speaker 1: getting it for Five years, and we've been together for
19:26
Speaker 1: five years. When are you going to get married? Next week? No,
19:29
Speaker 1: we're going to get married in, you know, 2018. What
19:31
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Well, you know, I'm in grad
19:37
Speaker 1: school right now. Let's just stop talking. You're going to
19:39
Speaker 1: make me sad. Let's just not have this conversation anymore.
19:45
Speaker 1: And so we're putting off marriage longer and longer and longer, okay?
19:51
Speaker 1: Fertility rates are plummeting. Why? Because a lot of young
19:55
Speaker 1: women are taking their most fertile years and giving them
19:59
Speaker 1: to academia. If you can't say amen, you ought to
20:05
Speaker 1: say ouch. And then later on, we're supposed to just
20:09
Speaker 1: be able to turn it on and everything would be... No.
20:12
Speaker 1: Doesn't necessarily work like that. Okay? And if we're not careful,
20:23
Speaker 1: this is the period when we can limit our options.
20:26
Speaker 1: How do we limit our options? Here's the problem with
20:30
Speaker 1: a lot of the degrees that people are getting today.
20:33
Speaker 1: Because we look at the universities... as more of a
20:36
Speaker 1: trade school now, people go and get degrees that are
20:40
Speaker 1: highly specialized. They come out of college with these highly
20:43
Speaker 1: specialized degrees, and oftentimes they're highly specialized degrees that everybody's
20:48
Speaker 1: going to get at the same time because the field
20:50
Speaker 1: is hot right now, right? And then you get out
20:52
Speaker 1: with this highly specialized degree and you can't find a job.
20:56
Speaker 1: But you also can't go work in other industries because
20:58
Speaker 1: your highly specialized degree didn't give you what you needed
21:01
Speaker 1: in order to be able to go to these other industries, right?
21:05
Speaker 1: And it's a vicious cycle that goes round and round
21:09
Speaker 1: and round. Okay? The money, it's just too expensive. The
21:21
Speaker 1: economy is down, but tuition is up. Families are going
21:26
Speaker 1: into debt to pay for school. Here's what's amazing. And
21:32
Speaker 1: this was amazing in the U.S., A few years ago,
21:37
Speaker 1: if you remember the big gas crisis and gas prices
21:43
Speaker 1: were going through the roof and oil companies were very
21:47
Speaker 1: happy then and not very happy now, right? If you
21:50
Speaker 1: remember several years ago when they introduced the bag fee
21:56
Speaker 1: on the airlines, you all remember this? I remember this.
22:00
Speaker 1: I remember it. We're going to charge you $ 25 per bag.
22:04
Speaker 1: as a fuel surcharge because fuel was so expensive. Guess what?
22:09
Speaker 1: Fuel has gone down, they still charge the back fee. Right?
22:16
Speaker 1: They're making bigger profits than they ever have because fuel
22:18
Speaker 1: is cheaper than it's ever been and they still charge
22:20
Speaker 1: the back fee. But I'm not kidding. So during this time,
22:25
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, the price of gasoline was just
22:30
Speaker 1: climbing and climbing and climbing. And there were people calling
22:33
Speaker 1: their congressmen. There were marches in Washington, D.C. because people
22:38
Speaker 1: are going, these gas prices are just too high. We've
22:43
Speaker 1: got to do something about it. Well, tuition prices have
22:47
Speaker 1: increased more than fuel prices, and nobody's marching over that.
22:52
Speaker 1: You know? Nobody says a word. Please, sir, can I
23:00
Speaker 1: have some more? They can charge us whatever they want
23:05
Speaker 1: to because they know they own us. Your self-worth is
23:12
Speaker 1: tied up in this. I'll charge you whatever I want
23:18
Speaker 1: to and you'll pay it. And if you can't pay it,
23:22
Speaker 1: you'll do whatever you have to In order to get it.
23:29
Speaker 1: Because this is the altar at which you worship. And
23:32
Speaker 1: it's a non-negotiable. And we know it. And we know it.
23:42
Speaker 1: Luke 14, 28-30. For which of you, desiring to build
23:45
Speaker 1: a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?
23:48
Speaker 1: Whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he
23:52
Speaker 1: has laid a foundation and is not able to finish,
23:55
Speaker 1: all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This
23:58
Speaker 1: man began to build and was not able to finish.
24:02
Speaker 1: It's interesting. Not only do you have young people putting
24:04
Speaker 1: off marriage because you've got to wait until you finish college,
24:09
Speaker 1: but then you have young people putting off marriage because
24:12
Speaker 1: I've finished college and now I have huge amounts of debt.
24:16
Speaker 1: So we've got to do something about this debt before
24:19
Speaker 1: we can afford to get married. Meet the Joneses. They're
24:28
Speaker 1: members of your local church. They show up one Sunday
24:34
Speaker 1: with a brand new car. It's $ 100, 000 Mercedes Benz. They
24:41
Speaker 1: financed 90% of it. What do you say? More important
24:48
Speaker 1: than what do you say, what do you think? What
24:49
Speaker 1: do you think? I mean, come on now, let's be honest.
24:53
Speaker 1: I mean, the Joneses are not rich people. Right? They're
24:56
Speaker 1: just kind of your average church members. And they show
24:59
Speaker 1: up next Sunday. They got this $ 100, 000 Mercedes Benz. They
25:03
Speaker 1: financed 90% of it. They went in $ 90, 000 of debt
25:08
Speaker 1: over this car. And you're going, what is wrong with you?
25:14
Speaker 1: What if instead of they showed up Sunday with a
25:17
Speaker 1: new car, they showed up with a new tuition? It
25:21
Speaker 1: wasn't a $ 100, 000 Mercedes Benz. But it was a $ 100, 000
25:24
Speaker 1: state school degree. They didn't finance 90% of it. They
25:28
Speaker 1: financed 100% of it. We wouldn't blink. We wouldn't blink.
25:41
Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is, 10 years from now,
25:43
Speaker 1: they can probably give me more out of the car
25:48
Speaker 1: than I have to create a great car. If we're honest.
25:53
Speaker 1: especially depending on what was studied. Young families delaying marriage,
26:02
Speaker 1: starting off in debt. College debt has risen to over
26:09
Speaker 1: $ 800 billion in the US and now exceeds credit card
26:13
Speaker 1: and auto loan debt combined. The rise of private student
26:20
Speaker 1: lending closely parallels the subprime mortgage boom, which went from
26:28
Speaker 1: 8% of loan origination in 2003 to 20% in 2006.
26:33
Speaker 1: You heard about the big housing crisis, the big housing bubble, right?
26:38
Speaker 1: Before the housing meltdown set that mortgage sector over the cliff,
26:44
Speaker 1: private student loans resemble subprime mortgages in other ways. As
26:50
Speaker 1: banks and brokers did with subprime home loans, colleges and
26:56
Speaker 1: the lenders in cahoots with them commonly market private student
26:59
Speaker 1: loans alongside lower cost alternatives, blurring the difference. So look
27:04
Speaker 1: at these two, the housing bubble and the college bubble.
27:07
Speaker 1: What happened? Easy access to low interest government loans. That
27:13
Speaker 1: was one of the main precipitating factor in the mortgage meltdown.
27:17
Speaker 1: What do we have in college? College loans are even
27:21
Speaker 1: easier to get. The subprime mortgage, at least you had
27:26
Speaker 1: to fill out an application to show you had a job, right?
27:30
Speaker 1: You had to show that you had a certain amount
27:32
Speaker 1: of income. To get a college loan, not only can
27:36
Speaker 1: you not show that you have a job, but the
27:39
Speaker 1: very nature of the loan requires that you don't have
27:43
Speaker 1: a job. And you don't even have to show that
27:46
Speaker 1: they're loaning you money for a degree that is going
27:48
Speaker 1: to allow you to be able to pay it back.
27:50
Speaker 1: They don't care. They don't care. Housing prices rose as
27:59
Speaker 1: easy government money flooded the market. It's very important to
28:01
Speaker 1: understand that. What happened was, you know, it became easier
28:07
Speaker 1: to get a home loan. So there were more houses
28:10
Speaker 1: being sold. So the price of houses went up. Folks,
28:14
Speaker 1: the same thing is happening with college tuition. It's interesting.
28:18
Speaker 1: The more government money there is, the higher the prices rise.
28:24
Speaker 1: And so we're all excited that the government, you know,
28:27
Speaker 1: is now stepping in and lending people money for college
28:30
Speaker 1: when the fact of the matter is that makes the
28:33
Speaker 1: product more expensive. It's completely out of whack now. The
28:37
Speaker 1: cost-benefit analysis doesn't work. A college degree is not worth
28:42
Speaker 1: the cost anymore. And it's only going to get more
28:46
Speaker 1: out of that. And people are not going to walk
28:49
Speaker 1: away from it. Which is why it's going to continue
28:52
Speaker 1: to get crazy. Lacking honest input, three quarters of high
28:58
Speaker 1: schoolers still seek to go on to college. Many deluded
29:02
Speaker 1: about the financial prospect it holds. Part of the drive
29:05
Speaker 1: is the idea that it pays. We need somebody making
29:09
Speaker 1: more realistic statements about the risks. Again, Forbes Magazine. And
29:17
Speaker 1: then the whole idea of the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't work. Next,
29:26
Speaker 1: college is not for everyone. Not everyone has the academic
29:32
Speaker 1: ability to go to college. Now, unfortunately what we've done
29:40
Speaker 1: is we've lowered the standard so that we can get
29:43
Speaker 1: more people into college. People who have no business in
29:47
Speaker 1: college who are going to college. Listen to this from
29:51
Speaker 1: USA Today. Of the 12 California state colleges, state university colleges,
29:57
Speaker 1: 60% of the students need remediation. A Florida study shows
30:01
Speaker 1: that at least 70% of recent high school graduates need
30:03
Speaker 1: remedial courses when they get into community college. In other words,
30:07
Speaker 1: they need to learn material they should have mastered in
30:11
Speaker 1: public high school but did not, costing an extra $ 59
30:14
Speaker 1: million per year. Now, we're going to start a university, right?
30:20
Speaker 1: So you all are going to be my board of trustees, okay?
30:24
Speaker 1: So I'm coming before you as my board of trustees,
30:26
Speaker 1: and I'm making a recommendation. Here's my recommendation. we've got
30:31
Speaker 1: X number of students, right? And that's great. Tuition is
30:34
Speaker 1: coming in. We're all making money, and that's good. I
30:38
Speaker 1: would like to bring even more students in to the university. Well,
30:44
Speaker 1: as a responsible board of trustees, you're going to ask me,
30:47
Speaker 1: so wait a minute, are there more students who are
30:49
Speaker 1: qualified to come to our university? Nope. No, they're not.
30:52
Speaker 1: In fact, these students wouldn't pass our current entrance requirements. Well,
30:57
Speaker 1: my responsible board of trustees would probably object, right? No,
31:00
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. You'd have to lower
31:03
Speaker 1: the entire standard. No, no, wait a minute. Time out, okay?
31:07
Speaker 1: These students are going to come in ill-equipped, and we're
31:10
Speaker 1: going to offer them remedial courses to bring them up
31:14
Speaker 1: to speed, which means that instead of graduating in four years,
31:18
Speaker 1: it's going to take them five, and they're going to
31:21
Speaker 1: pay us full tuition for the remedial courses. Which means
31:25
Speaker 1: we get to suck another year tuition out of these
31:29
Speaker 1: unqualified students. We'll make millions. And that's exactly what they do.
31:40
Speaker 1: Exactly what they do. And then they come back the
31:42
Speaker 1: next year and it's like, okay, these people are coming,
31:45
Speaker 1: but they're not staying here five years. They're flunking out.
31:48
Speaker 1: That's okay. Here's a list of degrees that we can
31:52
Speaker 1: now offer you. That these students could actually stay in
31:57
Speaker 1: and complete over the course of their five years. Do
32:02
Speaker 1: you see how this works, folks? And so the worthless
32:06
Speaker 1: degrees continue to proliferate. Because it pays. Because we first
32:14
Speaker 1: sold the idea that everyone has to go to college. Secondly,
32:25
Speaker 1: some people are better suited for non-college trades. Some people
32:31
Speaker 1: are better suited for non-college trades. It's interesting, for our
32:37
Speaker 1: 10th anniversary, my wife bought me a lovely watch, a
32:42
Speaker 1: lovely timepiece. It was not this watch. It's a really
32:45
Speaker 1: nice watch. It's one of these automatic watches, you know,
32:48
Speaker 1: the automatic time movement. It's a beautiful, beautiful watch. And
32:53
Speaker 1: so it's one of the watches that every once in
32:55
Speaker 1: a while you have to take them in and they
32:56
Speaker 1: have to be serviced. And we would take them to
33:02
Speaker 1: this jeweler and he would service the watch. And he
33:05
Speaker 1: had this deal that said, you know, certified Rolex technician, whatever.
33:09
Speaker 1: The watch is not a Rolex. I wish. We've got
33:13
Speaker 1: an anniversary coming up, though. So I just asked him
33:16
Speaker 1: about that. And He said, you know, it's real interesting.
33:24
Speaker 1: It's just the tools that I have to have to
33:27
Speaker 1: work on these watches. It's worth about $ 40, 000. Man, that
33:33
Speaker 1: must be a tough field to get into. He goes, no,
33:35
Speaker 1: actually right now it's not. There aren't enough watch technicians.
33:39
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to go to college. So Rolex at that
33:42
Speaker 1: time was giving away the tools. If you just go, right,
33:52
Speaker 1: and enter into the trade and be taught and apprenticed,
33:55
Speaker 1: they were giving away the tools because they can't find
34:00
Speaker 1: people to do this work. There are a lot of
34:05
Speaker 1: trades out there like that where you just can't find
34:09
Speaker 1: people to do the work because they're all off going
34:12
Speaker 1: into debt for some non-degree because somehow... We just don't
34:18
Speaker 1: think that it's honorable to work in the trades anymore.
34:23
Speaker 1: Many non-college trades are in desperate need because of it.
34:27
Speaker 1: I have this picture in my mind of a commercial.
34:29
Speaker 1: You know, it's a commercial for this message. And the
34:34
Speaker 1: commercial for this message would be something like this. There
34:37
Speaker 1: would be this couple at home, and they would be
34:41
Speaker 1: talking about their kid going to college, and they would
34:43
Speaker 1: obviously be having a disagreement about whether or not the
34:46
Speaker 1: kid needs to go to college. And the one parent
34:50
Speaker 1: is saying... Well, you know, it's really not necessary to
34:53
Speaker 1: go to college. There are other things that they can do.
34:54
Speaker 1: There are trades, blah, blah, blah. And the other parent
34:57
Speaker 1: is saying, if they don't have a college, they're not
34:59
Speaker 1: going to be able to provide for themselves. They're not
35:02
Speaker 1: going to be able to get a good job. They're
35:04
Speaker 1: not going to be able to, blah, blah, blah. But
35:06
Speaker 1: during this commercial, what's going to happen is the one
35:09
Speaker 1: who says that you've got to go to college is
35:11
Speaker 1: going to be writing checks. And the carpenter who just
35:15
Speaker 1: did the remodel on their kitchen, who didn't go to college,
35:19
Speaker 1: gets a fat check. Right? The guy who put in
35:21
Speaker 1: their swimming pool who didn't go to college. He gets
35:25
Speaker 1: a fat check. The electrician who comes to do the
35:29
Speaker 1: electrical work, he gets a fat check. All the while,
35:33
Speaker 1: this person who's writing fat checks to people who didn't
35:35
Speaker 1: go to college and make a good, honorable living is saying,
35:40
Speaker 1: you just can't do it. The fact of the matter is,
35:47
Speaker 1: you can't. And people do. And there are a lot
35:52
Speaker 1: of honorable trades out there that also have to be lucrative.
35:57
Speaker 1: And we don't even think about it anymore. Why? Because
36:01
Speaker 1: our self-worth is tied up in that piece of paper.
36:07
Speaker 1: We don't care about the kid. We don't care about
36:11
Speaker 1: the future. We care about our reputation. And we just
36:17
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to puff our chest out with pride
36:20
Speaker 1: if they did some non-college trade. Well, what about my kid?
36:32
Speaker 1: Analyze gifts, talents, and abilities. Okay? That's Proverbs 22, 6.
36:37
Speaker 1: Trade a child the way he should go. When he's older,
36:42
Speaker 1: he'll not depart from it. It's interesting. Um, That word,
36:47
Speaker 1: the way he should go, is his bent. According to
36:50
Speaker 1: his bent. Analyze desires and calling. Asking college is necessary.
37:03
Speaker 1: We're not doing that. We're not asking if it's necessary.
37:06
Speaker 1: We just assume that that's the next step. It's the
37:10
Speaker 1: 13th grade. Right? It's the 13th grade. Seek the Lord.
37:22
Speaker 1: Do those steps. Finally, most universities are philosophically antagonistic or scary.
37:31
Speaker 1: This one, it amazes me that we have to even
37:33
Speaker 1: talk about this one in homeschool circles. Because ultimately, what
37:39
Speaker 1: we see, and this is another thing that surprised me.
37:42
Speaker 1: When I entered into homeschool world and started going to
37:44
Speaker 1: homeschool conferences, and they started speaking at homeschool conferences and
37:47
Speaker 1: many people at homeschool conferences, there were a number of
37:49
Speaker 1: things that shocked me. One of the things that shocked
37:52
Speaker 1: me was the people who were like, you know, no,
37:56
Speaker 1: there's no way I'm sending my kid down to, you know,
37:58
Speaker 1: to that high school. And, you know, I'm never going
38:01
Speaker 1: to put them in that environment. And, you know, they
38:04
Speaker 1: need to learn this. And, you know, Jesus is the
38:06
Speaker 1: center of education and Christian education and biblical worldview and da-da-da-da-da.
38:11
Speaker 1: They finish, and then they send the fatted calf off
38:14
Speaker 1: to the state universities. Not because that state university happens
38:23
Speaker 1: to be the only place that offers the particular degree. No,
38:27
Speaker 1: you can get that degree anywhere. Anywhere. But they send
38:32
Speaker 1: them off to the godless university. Instead of finding some
38:36
Speaker 1: place where you can continue to treat education like Christ
38:43
Speaker 1: is Lord of all. That's just amazing. And there was no,
38:48
Speaker 1: there were no qualms about it. What do you mean?
38:51
Speaker 1: Of course that's what we do. That's what you... That's
38:55
Speaker 1: not what we do. What do you mean? These principles
38:59
Speaker 1: about education, they carry over beyond 18? Actually, they do.
39:08
Speaker 1: They do. These enemies of God, who are they? Well, professors. Right?
39:16
Speaker 1: We looked at some of these passages on yesterday. Psalm 111,
39:21
Speaker 1: blessed is the man who does not walk in the
39:23
Speaker 1: counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners,
39:26
Speaker 1: sit in the seat of scoffers, but is delighted in
39:29
Speaker 1: the law of the Lord. and on his law he
39:31
Speaker 1: meditates day and night. Does that no longer become true
39:34
Speaker 1: when you reach college age? The fool says in his
39:41
Speaker 1: heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They do
39:44
Speaker 1: abominable deeds. There is none who does good. That sounds
39:47
Speaker 1: like a university campus to me. Disciple is not above
39:52
Speaker 1: his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be
39:54
Speaker 1: like his teacher. Are those the people that we want?
39:58
Speaker 1: Disciple and their children. Even when they're adults. Priorities, which
40:05
Speaker 1: are enemies of God. Not just people, but priorities. Again,
40:11
Speaker 1: Romans 12, 2. Do not be informed to this world,
40:14
Speaker 1: but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that
40:17
Speaker 1: by testing you may discern what is the will of God.
40:19
Speaker 1: what is good and acceptable and perfect. Programs, there are
40:24
Speaker 1: programs out there that are absolutely opposed to God, his kingdom,
40:32
Speaker 1: and his truth. Psychology, for example. The very fundamentals of
40:40
Speaker 1: psychology are anti-Christian, right? And the interesting thing is, you
40:45
Speaker 1: have people who recognize this, and so they want to
40:48
Speaker 1: redeem psychology, so they go to the state school where
40:51
Speaker 1: they're going to be taught psychology from an anti-Christian perspective
40:56
Speaker 1: so that they can get the degree and then go
40:58
Speaker 1: practice what they haven't been taught. How's that working for you?
41:07
Speaker 1: And ultimately, what they end up being is psychologists who
41:10
Speaker 1: happen to be Christian, who who do the same thing
41:12
Speaker 1: that the non-Christian psychologists do, they just pray before an hour.
41:24
Speaker 1: Other pupils, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but
41:29
Speaker 1: the command of fools will suffer harm. Let's do this
41:33
Speaker 1: from Richard Baxter. This is the sanctification of your studies,
41:36
Speaker 1: when they are devoted to God, and when he is
41:38
Speaker 1: the end, the object, and the life of them all.
41:41
Speaker 1: So here's the question. What if college is for my kid?
41:46
Speaker 1: What do I do? Do it as quickly as possible.
41:52
Speaker 1: Make the most of the time because the days are equal,
41:54
Speaker 1: Paul says in Ephesians, right? Do it as quickly as possible.
41:59
Speaker 1: Don't linger, all right? Do it as inexpensively as possible.
42:07
Speaker 1: Be a good steward. Do it as safely as possible. Okay?
42:15
Speaker 1: Do it as safely as possible. These are the principles
42:18
Speaker 1: that we follow. Okay? No matter who we are, no
42:22
Speaker 1: matter what our child is going to end up studying,
42:25
Speaker 1: these are the principles that we follow. What are some options?
42:31
Speaker 1: Some options, like one option is College Plus. You guys
42:34
Speaker 1: heard of College Plus? Okay? You can use College Plus
42:41
Speaker 1: get a fully accredited degree, never stuck on a college campus,
42:44
Speaker 1: between one and a half and two and a half years,
42:47
Speaker 1: somewhere around $ 20, 000 U.S. total. Okay? One of our children
42:55
Speaker 1: did this. Online degrees. There are ways that you can
42:59
Speaker 1: study online. And that saves you, often saves you a
43:03
Speaker 1: lot of money, it often saves you a lot of time,
43:05
Speaker 1: and it's often a lot safer to do it that way.
43:10
Speaker 1: Combination of... distance learning and other types of distance learning,
43:14
Speaker 1: and a combination of distance learning and campus learning. You
43:17
Speaker 1: know what I mean by that? Well, College Plus uses
43:21
Speaker 1: a lot of testing that you can do to test
43:24
Speaker 1: out of certain classes, okay? But let's say that you
43:27
Speaker 1: were going to do a degree in aeronautical engineering, and
43:30
Speaker 1: you can get into, you know, whatever. It's the best
43:34
Speaker 1: aeronautical engineering school that you can think of. Okay, fine.
43:40
Speaker 1: Go there and do your classes in aeronautical engineering, but
43:43
Speaker 1: don't go there and do psychology. Why would you do that?
43:48
Speaker 1: Do that stuff through distance learning or through CLEP test,
43:52
Speaker 1: Dante's test, whatever, so that when you show up on campus,
43:56
Speaker 1: if you have to go to such a campus, when
44:01
Speaker 1: you show up, you show up toward the end only
44:04
Speaker 1: taking classes in your major, not those classes with the
44:08
Speaker 1: philosophical underpinnings. Again, as quickly as possible, as inexpensively as possible,
44:16
Speaker 1: as safely as possible. There are a lot of ways
44:18
Speaker 1: to get this done. I'm not here to tell you
44:23
Speaker 1: that nobody should do it. Again, that would be ridiculous.
44:29
Speaker 1: I'm dean of the university. I wouldn't tell you that.
44:32
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you that nobody should do it. But
44:35
Speaker 1: I am telling you that if you're going to do it,
44:37
Speaker 1: number one, you need to make sure that you're doing
44:39
Speaker 1: it because you have determined that for this child in particular,
44:44
Speaker 1: this is the best path. It might not be. Don't
44:51
Speaker 1: assume that it is. And if you've made that determination,
44:55
Speaker 1: do it as quickly as you can, as inexpensively as
44:58
Speaker 1: you can, and as safely as you can. And there
45:02
Speaker 1: are a variety of different tools out there that you
45:04
Speaker 1: can use in order to accomplish this. But this whole
45:09
Speaker 1: idea that we just walk through life like livings and
45:12
Speaker 1: we educate our children and then we just send them
45:15
Speaker 1: off to, you know, whatever. No, we can't do that.
45:19
Speaker 1: We can't do that anymore. Okay? All right. We've got
45:24
Speaker 1: like five minutes. Do you have any questions? Then I
45:30
Speaker 1: can answer questions. Or whatever they are. Anybody? No questions? None? Yeah,
45:48
Speaker 1: what's that about? Yes? Yes? college degrees that you can
46:00
Speaker 1: get that probably aren't too good either is that correct?
46:04
Speaker 1: the question is aren't there online degrees that you can
46:07
Speaker 1: get that probably aren't too good either yeah there are
46:11
Speaker 1: so you can still go the worthless degree route but
46:14
Speaker 1: then you do it online and it's still a worthless
46:16
Speaker 1: degree and that's why you know I said the assessment
46:21
Speaker 1: has to take place first we don't just do this
46:26
Speaker 1: just for the sake of doing it, you know? And yeah,
46:30
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that we're being good stewards.
46:34
Speaker 1: And that's just not good stewardship. Yes? With even, like,
46:42
Speaker 1: Christian institutions becoming more liberalized, what kind of due diligence
46:48
Speaker 1: do you think we need to do as Christians in
46:50
Speaker 1: sending our kids off to Yeah. The question is about
46:55
Speaker 1: Christian schools and them becoming literalized and secularized. And what
46:59
Speaker 1: kind of due diligence do we need to do before
47:02
Speaker 1: sending our children there? It's a great question. Because one
47:05
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous things that you can do is
47:09
Speaker 1: just assume that, hey, this is a Christian school. It's
47:14
Speaker 1: a safe place. Because the fact of the matter is,
47:17
Speaker 1: for example... the overwhelming majority of Christian schools, in their
47:22
Speaker 1: psychology faculty, they have people who are just like what
47:25
Speaker 1: I described. They went to secular institutions and got psychology
47:30
Speaker 1: degrees and were deciphered and inundated with a view of
47:35
Speaker 1: psychology that's antithetical to biblical Christianity, but they happen to
47:38
Speaker 1: be members of a church, they happen to know Jesus
47:41
Speaker 1: as Savior and Lord, and so now they go to
47:43
Speaker 1: the Christian school to teach psychology there, but all they
47:46
Speaker 1: know is the version that they've been taught. So you
47:50
Speaker 1: get the same thing that you would get over at
47:52
Speaker 1: the state school. These people don't even have a concept
47:55
Speaker 1: of teaching this from a biblical perspective or a biblical worldview.
47:59
Speaker 1: So you would really need to ask questions like that.
48:04
Speaker 1: How do you incorporate your convictions and your theological convictions
48:10
Speaker 1: in your various degree programs, right? I do want to
48:15
Speaker 1: talk to you about your professors in Bible and theology
48:19
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, right? But I really want to
48:22
Speaker 1: talk to you about the guy who teaches biology. That's
48:27
Speaker 1: what I want to know about, okay? Because you can
48:30
Speaker 1: have wonderful faculty over here teaching, you know, New Testament survey,
48:35
Speaker 1: Old Testament survey, and then the guy in the biology class,
48:39
Speaker 1: you know, is from the GUI to you by way
48:42
Speaker 1: of the zoo, right? So we do. We have to
48:46
Speaker 1: do our due diligence. And we have to ask those questions.
48:50
Speaker 1: As a dean at a Christian university who's trying, you know,
48:55
Speaker 1: we're still trying to finish up our faculty. It's very
49:00
Speaker 1: difficult to find Christian faculty in certain disciplines. It's nigh
49:07
Speaker 1: unto impossible to find Christian faculty in certain disciplines that
49:11
Speaker 1: know how to apply their Christianity to their discipline. Okay?
49:16
Speaker 1: Because it's just not being done. You know? So. Alright.
49:28
Speaker 1: Thank you.