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Why People Think College Is A Scam · The imuRgency Room

0:00
College isn't worth it anymore. This statement, sure not has
0:02
been a hot topic of conversation amongst young people as Gen.
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Z has grown up and entered a dying workforce where postgrad
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employment is not guaranteed and in fact seems to be more of a
0:10
rarity. General life stages continue to
0:12
be pushed back and with the price of colleges and
0:14
universities climbing year after year.
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However, in a time of rising anti intellectualism and active
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coordinated attacks against education across country by our
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governments, we're also receiving messaging that
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education is more important now than ever.
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So which is it? Is college a scam or not?
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It's time we have a real conversation about college.
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Let's go. Hey guys, what's up to
0:33
emergency? And today we are going back to
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this channel's roots. And if this is your first time
0:37
seeing my face or you're a recent viewer, you may not know
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this, but I got my start in this channel by being a college
0:41
vlogger and college advice channel and was a very strong
0:45
proponent for going to college. So I think now, given that I'm
0:47
four years out of post grad, this is going to be a very
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interesting conversation because the landscape of higher
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education and just employment in the world have drastically
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changed since then. Higher education has always been
0:56
a conversation in the discourse, but especially during this
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administration's attack on education as a whole.
1:00
Through acts of defunding the Department of Education,
1:02
freezing and reducing federal grants and discretionary funding
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for research, and making some literal career paths not count
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as professions so they can deny loan access.
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Education has been a topic that carries the weight of the socio
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economic and political climate of the time.
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And to add insult to injury, the job market seems to only be
1:17
getting worse since 2023 and layoffs have become a near
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constant thing that you can expect every company to do.
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And of course the state of the job market is heavily influenced
1:24
by the administration and it really seems that their
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incompetence is attacking us on multiple fronts.
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With all that in mind, intersected with the
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socioeconomic state of the world, many people are now
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brought to wonder, is college really worth it?
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And to give an answer for this, we're going to need to put on
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our glasses, desk off those textbooks that you use for one
1:39
semester, throw on the obligatory school merge and get
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into it. And to start this conversation
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as to whether or not college is worth it, we need to take a look
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at the traditional values of college.
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Why do we go in the first place? Growing up, Gen.
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Z millennials were raised thinking about College in a
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certain way. College was traditionally seen
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as a step to upwards mobility, essentially a means to jump
2:01
income bracket, achieve higher paying salaries, kick start
2:04
lifelong careers and to explore academic passions.
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And the pursuit of that education would surely guarantee
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you a high paying job and a career of your choice, as it did
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for previous generations. Which if you're a recent grad or
2:14
have graduated in the past few years, you may feel like that's
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further and further from the truth.
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Once Upon a time, in what seems like a myth or urban legend to
2:21
us, but a distant reality for our grandparents and great
2:24
grandparents, people were respected at their jobs.
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They could go to work, have a family, a home, and send their
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kids off to college with a single income.
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You know, actually making a living.
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No part times, no side gigs, no scamming, no boosting, no loans,
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no extra roommates, nothing. The traditional good old
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American dream. No, who was able to do that in
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full capacity is another conversation.
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Oh, it's not. It wasn't for everybody, but by
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and large, the work culture back then was.
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The more time that you spent at a company, the more benefits and
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stability you had both in your life and you had once retirement
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came around. And that honestly sounds great.
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That sounds like the dream. Why do we ever move away from
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that? Well, enter Dodge V Ford Motor
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Company. This court ruling started to set
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the precedent that shareholders, AKA the investors in the company
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are more valuable and important than the people actually working
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there and therefore should be paid out in large.
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First Ford Motor Company wanted to pay out their employees, but
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you got to prioritize that shareholder value.
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And that sounds more familiar with the days that we're
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currently living in. So once we're bonuses or
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reinvestments to incentivize an employee staying at a company
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and benefiting was then turned into to shareholder profit.
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And of course, you can argue that long term keeping employees
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happy would help shareholders and that helped for a while.
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But as everything does, things got more sinister because then
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of course came Reagan. But we don't have time in this
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video to get into the full Reagan of it all.
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But you may be asking right now, why does this matter?
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I thought we were talking about college.
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Well, this line of thinking and shift away from prioritizing
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workers and the community you work hard for really has to
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evolve into what we have today. And contrary to popular belief,
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this did not all happen overnight.
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And that's precisely why so many old people just love capitalism
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and are just so I'm sure that an entire generation are just bad
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savers because they want to buy coffee instead of buying a house
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or something. And honestly, if we transport
4:00
ourselves and put ourselves in their shoes?
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Spooky. I know it's kind of
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understandable why they would think that way.
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Because they were living in the capitalism that allowed them to
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buy a house with one income, have kids, hobbies and jobs that
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truly value them both personally and financially.
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And for the most part, the majority of people weren't one
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medical emergency away from being in complete crushing debt.
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That is what was promised and what they got with a degree.
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But again, Fast forward to now, that couldn't be further from
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our truth on the channel. We previously talked about Gen.
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Z with the job market, housing market, and how even the dating
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market. And as I mentioned in all these
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videos, these things are all related and connected.
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Like yes, the reason why you're chronically single, unemployed
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and living with your parents is all because of the same reasons.
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There is a common denominator there.
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A financially stable and fruitful career was promised on
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the other side of that degree. And society and the powers that
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be have not made good on that deal for so many of us.
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And I probably don't need to explain this to you, but there
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is a mass disillusionment with job markets for reasons that
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we've talked about in previous videos.
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But with this delusionment comes questioning your choices, such
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as pulling out loans for a degree that maybe isn't serving
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you in the immediate. Like in many facets of our
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lives, the younger generations, millennials and Gen.
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Z feel cheated. Now that we're in adulthood, the
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price of living is up even though wages aren't.
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You can't even entertain the thought of buying property
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because you'll likely be a renter forever.
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And of course, getting a degree no longer means getting a well
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paid full time job out of college.
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And if you are, I don't have to tell you this, nor is it the
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first time we've talked about this.
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But as many of you know, the current job market is the worst
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we've seen in recent history. With long periods of
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unemployment becoming the norm, we as Gen.
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Z are taking up multiple part times or gig work just to make
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ends meet. They know how.
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None of that comes with health insurance.
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We're having a chat with AI interviewers that may just end
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up ghosting you. And with all this, there's
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generally just like a lot of time to rethink and regret your
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choices in this job market. According to a Fortune article,
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more than 1/3 of all graduates now say that their degree was a
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waste of money. According to a new survey by
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Indeed, This frustration is especially among Gen.
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Z, with 51% expressing remorse compared to 41% of millennials,
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A whopping 31% from baby boomers.
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And that's a swing so big some might call it a presidential
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proportions. And of course I can understand
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this because the graduates and the highest percentage are
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fairly recent grads with the oldest among us and Gen.
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Z having graduated around 5:00 to six years ago, meaning the
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immediate post grad regret or consequences are still in there
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now, or at least in recent memory.
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And y'all, not to toot my own horror, but I've been saying
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this like everything is connected.
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Like, let's do some quick, real quick.
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If you graduated to this job market, right?
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Right. And the job market is bad, then
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that means no jobs or even underemployment, which means no
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income stability or money. Which usually means if you have
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the support systems intact, moving back in with your
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parents. Which could also mean that you
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still need to pay off your loans or can't afford your own place,
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which then leads to a loss of independence.
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And I don't know about you at all, but I'd personally be less
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likely to bring someone home from the parents, hence the
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issues with dating. And all of this is really just a
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recipe for maximizing discontent, or at least the
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period of dissolution then. OK, now that we've drawn a
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picture around the outcomes of college, let's actually talk
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about the discourse around college right now.
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And before I say anything, don't just take it from me.
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There's plenty of discourse online and studies regarding
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recent grad sentiments about college at the moment.
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And these studies show that if you were to judge by public
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opinion polling, you might reasonably conclude that
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Americans have broadly given up on the idea of going to college.
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In 2013, 70% of adults surveyed by Pew said that a college
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education was very important. This year, only 35% did over the
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same period. And the share of Americans who
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believe that college is, quote, not worth the cost rose from 40%
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to 63%, according to NBC. Despite that though, college
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enrollment is still up across the board.
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But as you've heard, sentiments are down, and that makes sense
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considering the promise in the subsequent let down that we've
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just discussed. And there's a lot of content
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online coming from the A degree is worthless camp where people
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are basically insinuating that having a degree is in no way,
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shape or form helpful in this current market.
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Which actually is true for some people.
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A lot of people are stuck in multiple low paying jobs they're
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overqualified for. So understand why the thought
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process would be that it's worthless to have one.
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Like you have people online saying things like a degree is
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worthless when so many people have it you just got to apply as
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if you never went to college and work 3 low paying jobs to afford
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rent. Which I don't know if I agree
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with that starting sentiment. But then you have people like
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this one redditor in the R slash change my view subreddit.
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Or they argue that the traditional value of colleges
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collapse due to debt and outdated expectation, saying
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that college used to be seen as the ultimate path of upward
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mobility. Now with student debt
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skyrocketing and many jobs not requiring a degree at all, I
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believe the system has lost its value for most people.
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A 40° often leaves people with massive loans and no real world
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experience, while trades or certifications are quicker and
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more practical. After seeing peers drop out with
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less debt and more success. While I watch others struggle
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despite graduating, what might change my mind is having
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evidence that the long term benefits of college financially
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or socially outweigh the upfront cost and time investment.
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And I think that's an interesting point.
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Like we don't really have many widespread examples of this for
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our generation because again, our traditional benchmarks,
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we're looking at the older generations that grew up in a
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time that is different than us under systems that operated
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differently. So we as Gen.
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Z won't really know until it's too late.
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I mean, the closest and we can look at as the millennials and
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they resoundingly for years have been signing the alarm bells
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that it's not looking great. But honestly, I think at the
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moment this kind of hits the nail in the head.
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As Miss Vinegar, my beloved succinctly puts it, a college
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degree is no longer a guarantee of employment, but it's
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certainly not worthless. It's now a box to check for many
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jobs and pretty much all high paying jobs that don't require
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entrepreneurship slash luck to get into.
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Not all college graduates get high salaries, but it's stupidly
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hard to get a high salary without a degree.
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Essentially getting back to the point that like, it is a box to
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check, and while it does not guarantee that you're going to
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make it big and live the life that your parents or
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grandparents lived, it definitely is not.
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Doing so definitely stacks those odds against you from ever doing
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that. And I can understand all this
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frustration, trust and believe doing everything right and still
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not getting the base level of what you expect is deeply
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disappointing. But in the short term we have to
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remember for young people in particular who are navigating a
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less than ideal job market, it can be difficult to see the long
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term ROI of college. This is especially true when for
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some subjects like psychology, philosophy or English, it can
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take over 20 years in the workforce for a degree to pay
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for itself, according to the Education Data Initiative.
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However, Christine Cruz Vergara, the chief education strategy
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officer at Handshake, warns against valuing a degree from a
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purely quantitative standpoint, saying that it's short sighted
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to focus on only immediate employment as that makes the
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assumption that the value of higher education is only to get
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your first job cruise regard to a fortune.
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When in reality, higher education contributes to career
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advancement opportunities, exposure to a variety of fields,
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aids in self discovery and develops management in
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leadership skills. And that's an interesting take.
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I think the secondary things are dismissed oftentimes because
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it's not maybe the most important thing in the immediate
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or considered like a hard skill or a hard benefit, which is
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fair, but these are still important traits to cultivate
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and develop regardless. Which brings us to the next part
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of this conversation. If not the traditional value,
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what value does college actually have today?
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And let's start with the first Gen. of it all.
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For first Gen. or first generation college attendees at
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the very least, college is important for expanding your
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network with people with different careers and expanding
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your friendships and community to include people outside of the
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circles you grew up in, AKA adding diversity and perspective
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and upbringing, if you will. And of course, the possibility
11:12
of social mobility through your degree in networks is another
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huge one. And if you choose to have kids,
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they will in turn statistically achieve higher social mobility.
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So All in all, going college is a good domino effect.
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Also from my FGLI that don't know because that private school
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price tag is seemingly unattainable.
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There is so much financial help at private institutions and
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unfortunately more than at public schools and enough for
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our researcher, Brianna. She says that all the private
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schools that she was accepted to offered her a complete aid or
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almost complete aid versus the public state schools that only
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offered a fraction of the cost. And of course, everyone's
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situation is different, but this shouldn't dissuade you from
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doing your research. A lot of these schools are more
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financially attainable than you may think.
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And this provides access to real education and real experiences,
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as well as an opportunity to step out of your current bubble.
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Higher education provides people with the opportunity to truly
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learn outside of their given school districts, which
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definitely vary in today's educational landscape, where
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depending on where you live and which district you're in, you
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may or may not know the same stuff or be taught stuff in the
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same way. In higher education, you can
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learn about indigenous philosophy, religion, and cults
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in America, as well as things like prison, injustice
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initiatives, sociology of family structures, learning more about
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the true history of race in America, as well as many other
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courses. And whether you're deeply
12:17
familiar with an experience and want to see it through an
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academic lens or just want to learn about a new one, college
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does provide you with the opportunity to learn about
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something you maybe never even thought about diving deeper
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into. Like for example, white people
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shout out to y'all. But often times you hear about
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white people going to college and learning about things that
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they normally wouldn't and being around people that they normally
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wouldn't. Which potentially hot take is
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something that I think is super important for everyone.
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But the sheer amount of white people that are shocked and
12:40
appalled every year that learn about the regular experiences of
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people of color and the experiences that we go through
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and have historically gone through speaks volumes.
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Like often times for a lot of people, and this is no shame.
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College is the first time that a lot of white people interact
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with and are in settings that are not homogeneously white.
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So while it is definitely annoying for people of color, it
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is in some ways mutually necessary.
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And specifically speaking for minorities, higher education
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institutions were not built with us in mind, and that much I know
13:05
to be true. And impostor syndrome can hit
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like a ton of bricks. But often times, for better or
13:10
worse, those experiences make our communities and networks
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that much stronger. And by no means am I saying that
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all higher Ed is perfect, but the classes that I personally
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take with my professors of color, specifically my black
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professors, felt so much more important and informed for my
13:21
background just based on what we were learning.
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Now let's get into the conversation around worthless
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measures or at least waste of time classes.
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With the cynicism of college on the rise, I think it's really
13:35
easy to be dismissive of humanities majors.
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And I think that that's easy to do because it doesn't have that
13:40
instant gratification or at least immediate application that
13:43
we may want. And like, obviously not in every
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case. Like shout out to the humanities
13:47
majors that got a job straight out of college.
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But like you see a lot of Flack in slander for the useless
13:51
majors, which of course is all in terms of what our society
13:54
deems as productive. But it's these exact useless
13:57
classes that are teaching you the frameworks for critical
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thinking, learning as a means to create and defend your opinion
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and just be artful in life, which we can always use more of
14:05
and become more and more salient skills, especially these days.
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And that's like my whole problem with like the attack against
14:11
humanities in favor of things like computer science or coding
14:13
and math and hard sciences, because we're seeing the impacts
14:16
of that today. Hyper specializing in something
14:18
like computer science is nice and at a certain time made you a
14:20
lot of money really quickly, essentially the instant
14:23
gratification final boss in terms of college majors.
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But as we're seeing now at the current job market, large swaths
14:28
of people that went into the computer sciences after they've
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proved their usefulness, after a couple of now go through rounds
14:34
and rounds of layoffs and are constantly being laid off from
14:36
their jobs because these jobs are now considered more
14:38
expendable. If you specialize in this one
14:40
skill, did not take any of your other college classes seriously,
14:43
the ones that you may not have seen as valuable, what do you do
14:46
then? If the one thing you're good at
14:47
is coding and no one wants you to code anymore?
14:49
That's why learning different disciplinaries is so important.
14:52
And two, that's why things like the humanities are important.
14:54
Because regardless, these classes and courses are teaching
14:57
you to critically think, to constantly adapt and be on your
14:59
feet so that if and one of these layoffs happen, you still have a
15:02
skill set that can be applicable to other things.
15:04
Because critical thought and resourcefulness is at the core
15:07
of so many different careers that it just makes pivoting or
15:09
being inventive and finding things out your own way more
15:12
possible and honestly a little easier.
15:14
And I'm well aware that these humanities courses, classes, and
15:16
degrees aren't always paying the bills, so I do understand how
15:18
people can feel cheated when they are promised a traditional
15:21
value. Another real value that college
15:22
brings is the ability to live on your own and be independent for
15:25
the first time. And to my commuters, this one is
15:27
not real. And I'm sorry, but for many
15:29
people that choose to live on campus, this is their first
15:31
opportunity to live life outside, out of their bubble and
15:33
outside of their family homes where they're finally allowed to
15:35
make decisions for themselves and choose where they allot
15:38
their time to. And I think this act of
15:39
independence is a huge milestone, informing who you are
15:42
and your identity outside of your usual environment, which
15:44
then allows you to grow and honestly struggle.
15:47
And I think that this opportunity is even more
15:49
important now given that college is one of the few ways that
15:51
we're able to afford living on our own, or at least living
15:55
outside of your parents house as a young adult, given the housing
15:57
market of it all. What do you think is a stark
15:59
comparison to not going to college and not really having
16:02
that experience or being able to able to afford living on your
16:04
own for those four years that you'd normally be in college?
16:06
Overall, I think college gives you a peek into what the world
16:08
can be, a little feeler, a little test drive of adulthood,
16:11
and honestly the peaks of what the American human experience
16:14
can be. Like, for example, you likely
16:15
live in a walkable community with third spaces.
16:17
We have a set schedule and routine and are constantly
16:19
surrounded with the people you like, love and hate.
16:21
Like truly, these are intentionally created
16:23
neighborhoods and communities. Are they sheltered?
16:25
Yeah, potentially. But oftentimes it shows you what
16:28
you want to prioritize in this life and teaches you to make
16:30
your own decisions in a semi safe environment.
16:33
This is not to say this is a perfect experience or that
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everyone gets the same thing out of it, but it is at the end of
16:37
the day an incubator and specifically an incubator in
16:39
which you can explore what that means for you.
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And obviously it's no superior college is idealized trust and
16:44
believe they're all college. I have many breakdowns in life
16:46
crises all over my campus and plenty of those what the doing
16:50
with my life and here at this institution moments, some for
16:53
valid reasons, some for not. But I think at the end of the
16:55
day, higher education consistently reminds you that
16:58
these institutions were really only made with white men in
17:01
mind. Despite that though, I think
17:02
they're there are many real ways to still enjoy college and have
17:05
your own experience to grow as a person.
17:06
And also I just want to add a quick disclaimer here that when
17:09
I'm having this conversation, I'm mostly talking about four
17:11
year college because that's been my experience where my focus is
17:13
in. But I would be remiss if I did
17:15
not mention trade or vocational schools.
17:16
And vocational schools are great for preparing you for the
17:19
workforce, especially if one of the careers is in your career
17:21
path of choice. The general sentiments around
17:23
vocational schools are interesting to say the least.
17:26
To me, like these might seem like a random string of numbers,
17:28
but please bear with me. According to the Workforce
17:30
Monitor survey from the American Staffing Association, they found
17:33
that the push for vocational in trade school career paths was
17:36
highest amongst baby boomers at 41%, Gen.
17:39
X at 37% and millennials at 31%, compared to only 22% of Gen.
17:44
Z. Gen.
17:44
Z was the only generation to recommend a four year degree
17:46
over attending a trade or vocational school.
17:49
So basically at least as of 2025, most generations besides
17:52
Gen. Z advocate from vocational
17:53
school over a four year education.
17:54
Gen. Z, even though at the moment I'd
17:56
say we are heavily impacted by the current job market, still
17:59
recommends 4 year institutions over vocational.
18:01
And I know that that could be taken and then way that like
18:03
we're young and dumb and don't know what we're talking about,
18:06
but maybe let's get a little hope Corps with it.
18:07
Not that it's wrong or bad to go to vocational.
18:09
But this makes me think that even though we're facing a tough
18:12
job market, arguably the toughest job market we've seen
18:14
in a while, with almost no experience under our belts,
18:16
we're still seeing the value in our education and think it's
18:19
worth it regardless if we're getting the traditional
18:21
benefits. I mean, either that or the fact
18:23
that most of us are still in college, so we want to see the
18:25
return on our investment. So yeah, there's that.
18:27
Now at this point in the video, maybe like Rumi, I thought you
18:29
said that college wasn't worth it.
18:31
And right now you're kind of saying like a higher education
18:33
bill that's only talking about the positive.
18:34
So let's talk about some more of the real drawbacks of college
18:41
because college and higher education, unfortunately, is not
18:43
a net positive. And there are some very real
18:45
drawbacks. I know it's cheesy to say, but
18:47
everyone really is on their own path.
18:49
And college might not be for everyone.
18:50
Or isn't this grand transformative experience or
18:53
milestone that everyone makes it out to be.
18:55
Aside from that, though, let's talk about the big one.
18:57
And no, I'm not talking about the predicted California
18:59
earthquake. I'm talking about the money.
19:00
Honey, that price tag to get you into college?
19:03
Absurd. Back in the day, it seemed like
19:05
you just needed 250 bucks and a dream to get that degree.
19:07
Now you may be considering putting your organs on the black
19:09
market to make that tuition check.
19:11
But baby, please let me tell you, put the scalpel down.
19:14
There are other ways to be looking at this.
19:16
While the price tags for private college may be looking at
19:18
something in the 40 to 80 K range, which is insane, studies
19:22
show that only about 20% of all students actually pay that price
19:25
because of things like scholarship and financial aid.
19:27
But studies also suggest that most people don't know that, so
19:31
that initial sticker price scares a lot of people off
19:33
before they even try and attempt to apply to the university.
19:35
But because of financial aid, only the wealthiest family is.
19:38
Less than 20% of all college goers actually pay it.
19:41
Everyone else's tuition is essentially subsidized by those
19:44
rich families, according to The Atlantic.
19:45
Which brings us to the middle class paradox of cost.
19:47
Like I said, some people are able to get the majority of
19:49
their education covered, but that is not the case for
19:52
everyone who apply to financial aid.
19:53
There are many of us who are part of the middle class which
19:55
sometimes means that you won't qualify for financial aid or as
19:58
much financial aid despite the cost.
20:00
Tuition not feeling any cheaper for these families like for the
20:03
majority of middle class people. Like you're not A1 percenter to
20:05
pay the full 80 KA year but you still make enough where a
20:08
subsidized 40K is still a lot of money.
20:10
Especially given what we said at the beginning of how people as
20:13
of late, given the ever plummeting job market, AI taking
20:15
over certain jobs, and the ever increase in cost of living.
20:18
Why people may feel like they're not getting a return on their
20:20
investment. And even if you do qualify for
20:22
financial aid, it is still a process.
20:24
Like it's not easy process to get the money especially if
20:27
you're going at it alone as someone that is first Gen. and
20:29
while there are. There are so many resources out
20:30
there to help you with this process just and believe it is
20:33
still so tough to find them for one when you don't have the
20:35
experience of having to do that, but even tougher when finances
20:38
and money are such a taboo topic.
20:39
I feel like college financial information isn't out there in
20:42
the ways that it should be. But I think what I want to leave
20:44
people with for like this point is that private schools have a
20:46
lot more money to give than you may think and you should apply
20:48
and find out. Like ask questions and talk to
20:50
people because there could be a lot of aid and a lot of things
20:52
that can be waived for you. But money aside, another
20:55
absolute downside of going to college can be the elitism and
20:59
the impostors of it all. And there are many such cases of
21:01
this, especially in the elite institutions, as education, for
21:05
some reason, for reasons we all know, is considered a privilege
21:07
rather than a right. Knowing that your peers went to
21:09
a Swiss boarding school that is more than your combined family's
21:12
yearly salary is daunting. But hey, it's important to
21:15
remember y'all all still ended at the same place.
21:17
And I know we've talked about FGLI, but I wanted to talk about
21:19
this one study that sampled over 2000 students aged between 18
21:23
and 26 that shows concerns about being an imposter on campus are
21:26
significantly heightened by coming from lower class social
21:29
backgrounds. Showing how the associations of
21:31
lower class backgrounds with reported experiences of
21:33
devaluation and exclusion in college, imposter concerns,
21:36
depression, anxiety, and low college persistence are
21:39
consistent with the idea that imposter concerns play a role in
21:42
the reproduction of social inequality in higher education.
21:45
Furthermore, the results showed that cultural aspects of
21:47
imposterization played a larger role than the intellectual
21:50
aspects emphasized in the traditional conceptualization of
21:53
imposter syndrome. And anyone can experience
21:56
imposter syndrome, but there is a demographic, regardless of
21:58
race, that fuels this at school. And it might not be a tangible
22:01
thing, but it is something real and something that can be
22:03
debilitating or at least really tough to overcome.
22:06
And although I've spoken highly of College in the past, that
22:08
doesn't mean that it wasn't hard, which is why I'd like to
22:10
file the sentiment of like, if you're not going to a top
22:13
school, why go at all under the general category of elitism?
22:16
Because maybe not everyone has to go to Harvard.
22:18
Education, at least to me, is worth it every time, regardless
22:21
of what school you go to. Like truly, who cares what your
22:23
school is, right? Like, that's truly just like
22:24
some elitist BS to begin with. Like all you really need to do
22:27
is make sure that your school is accredited so that you don't
22:29
get. Now comes the interesting part.
22:36
When it comes to the conversation around college
22:39
being worth it or not, there are really good faith points to
22:41
both. However, there are also some
22:43
very loud bad actors that have recently come out against higher
22:46
education and against college, trying to use a lot of the
22:48
gripes that people have had against college to not
22:51
necessarily save people time and money, but for more manipulative
22:55
and nefarious reasons. And that's where the importance
22:57
of critical thought really does come in.
22:58
Because like many things, it's important to understand who is
23:01
saying these things and why. And in the conversation of
23:03
college, who are the groups and people that are very actively
23:06
against college? Like sure, there might be
23:08
someone off individuals that believe that college is a scam
23:11
and you shouldn't be going to school, but what about those
23:13
major voices that are pretty loudly opposing higher education
23:17
or just generally education as a whole?
23:18
And what I mean by this is that recently I've been seeing
23:21
something that I don't necessarily like and more
23:23
something that perks ears up and raises eyebrows.
23:26
And that is billionaires coming out to say that college is
23:29
useful and that can open up a whole conversation over whether
23:31
or not we should be listening to billionaires over life advice
23:34
and thinking that they're experts just because they have a
23:36
lot of money. And my personal takeover, that
23:38
whole thing is that like you shouldn't typically listen to
23:40
billionaires because it's never in a billionaires interest to
23:42
help make other billionaires. Like again, this isn't a
23:45
buzzword, but there is no ethical way to become a
23:47
billionaire. At some level, we need to be
23:48
exploiting at least one person and consistently people over
23:52
there is no way and no economic incentive for these billionaires
23:55
to be helping you out when they historically make money from
23:58
exploitation. And well, yes, I had a few
24:00
billionaires dropped out of college.
24:01
I also know that most, if not all billionaires, despite what
24:05
they say, still send their kids to private high tuition schools
24:08
and colleges. And if their kids aren't in
24:10
college yet, they're probably at that Silicon Valley low to no
24:12
tech school. And if they are in college,
24:14
they're at these prestigious Ivy League or Ivy League adjacent
24:17
schools. So now what?
24:19
Are these billionaires lying to you?
24:20
Well yeah, and that's because again, billionaires often do
24:24
things for their self-interest, like that's how they came into
24:26
those positions. It's in their interest for you
24:28
to decide to spend your days filling orders at their Amazon
24:31
warehouses. Their career oriented, high
24:33
level positions require a degree or an equivalent experience,
24:36
which probably means that secret third way rich, well connected
24:39
people can achieve stuff like the way that Kim Kardashian
24:42
tried to become a lawyer without actually going to law school.
24:44
Billionaires have been long time public dismissors of higher
24:46
education while in the same breath having their kids get
24:49
that same education they're telling you you don't need.
24:51
Who needs college when you can get educated at Palantir?
24:57
That's the thinking behind the Meritocracy Fellowship, a
24:59
program that's offering 22 teens a chance to skip higher
25:02
education and instead complete a four month program that can lead
25:05
to a job. So my first thought was what a
25:08
thought, what a concept, what an idea.
25:11
Interesting. And then my second thought was,
25:15
let me check out the pages of the Executive Ford and the
25:20
C-Suite. Let me, I just want to see, I
25:22
just want to see what they did. Did they go to college?
25:24
Maybe they didn't, I don't know. Each of these individuals did in
25:27
fact, go to college. And when you look at this list,
25:30
you see that if the individual does not have multiple degrees
25:37
from elite institutions, they have a degree from at least one.
25:41
But that's in the rare case that they don't have multiple.
25:44
But these are the same people who are like college.
25:47
We can teach you everything you need to know.
25:48
OK, so then I was like, this is intriguing.
25:51
This is intriguing. I want to learn more.
25:53
So I decided, let me read the article.
25:55
Let me just see what the motivation might be.
25:56
It did not disappoint. You know, I barely was through
25:59
the article when I saw this. The motivation.
26:02
Existing American universities are no longer reliable or
26:05
necessary for training good workers.
26:09
Listen to this Peter Thiel, who made a fortune by working at
26:12
PayPal and investing in companies like Facebook, who was
26:15
famously weary of higher education.
26:17
That Teal Fellowship pays young people not to go to college, and
26:20
Teal publicly assert that he thinks the university is a
26:23
bubble. But nevertheless, he spent
26:26
almost a decade at Stanford, where he received both a
26:29
bachelor's and a law degree, and when he visits, is a welcome
26:32
present at the faculty court. Elon Musk likes to portray
26:36
himself as an autodidactic mine, and indeed he dropped out of a
26:40
pH. D program at Stanford.
26:42
But he, too, spent a lot of time at universities in both Canada
26:45
and the United States. You know one thing I noticed
26:47
about rich people, They'll sit up and tell you all day and
26:49
tomorrow that how they regret college.
26:51
That they did not need college. You don't need college to be
26:53
successful. That college is a waste of time.
26:56
Then you go look at their kids, the people that they supposed to
26:59
love most and ain't now one of their kids skip college.
27:02
I'm talking about every single kid has attended college.
27:06
I'm talking about it don't even matter if they already have the
27:08
kids name registered on that business when they was three
27:10
years old, they still going to do that four years of college
27:12
and then run the business right after then.
27:15
It's not like the kids just attending.
27:17
Kids be smart as fuck, 4.0 GPA and be involved in everything.
27:22
They're being honors classes, part of 11 different works, run
27:25
four different charities and done a surgery or two.
27:29
I think in tandem with the billionaire entrepreneurship of
27:31
it all, since name recognizable billionaires like Steve Jobs and
27:34
Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have been college dropouts and
27:37
got their start from being a college dropout, And that
27:39
seemingly has proliferated the idea that like you don't need a
27:41
college degree to be insanely successful.
27:43
Which OK, may be true, but that correlation doesn't equal
27:46
causation my friends, especially if you look at the common
27:49
denominator there. All of those men that I just
27:51
mentioned are straight white men.
27:53
Like they had the best odds of success regardless, and even
27:56
then, it was pretty rare and a big stroke of luck for them to
28:00
make it big in the way that they have.
28:01
So I am all for the entrepreneurship of it all and
28:04
taking risks on yourself and wanting to see the best for
28:06
yourself. But I do have to also say from
28:08
an aspect of reality, if you do have melanin in your skin and
28:11
aren't a man in this country, you're not afforded that same
28:13
luxury of being able to throw it all to the wind and make it big
28:16
in the same way. And there are just less safety
28:17
Nets free to fall back on in case you don't make it big.
28:20
So it's important to establish those for yourself.
28:22
And I know this is rich coming from me, but I think the rise of
28:24
unconventional Internet jobs that display these images of
28:27
vast and fast wealth, like being an Alex Earl type influencer or
28:31
like being a call her Daddy podcast type, or like a Mr.
28:33
Beast who all suddenly got these $1,000,000 deals and
28:35
partnerships just from doing what we all basically can do.
28:38
We've kind of skewed our sense of reality and our access to
28:41
wealth and success. And since these jobs are
28:43
overexposed to say the least, it seems more attainable.
28:45
And like realistically, who really needs a degree to ask
28:48
call her Daddy level questions? No one.
28:50
The answer is no one. Like again, yes, some people
28:52
have absolutely struck gold with their career paths, but also
28:55
that's not the case for everyone.
28:57
But more than ever, we're hearing young people say that
28:59
they want to be influencers and is sounding 57% according to
29:02
CNBC. Which hey, I get it.
29:04
I was the same ever since I was 16.
29:05
I wanted to be a content creator.
29:07
And in my case, luckily I'm able to be in a position where I'm
29:09
able to do this full time. But I've been making content for
29:11
10 years and I've only been able to go to full time as of two
29:13
years ago. And even then it was a big risk
29:16
to do so. But again, in my case, that was
29:17
all after I got my degree and had previously worked 2 full
29:20
time jobs. Like it wasn't just something
29:22
that I spontaneously jumped into.
29:23
There was a lot of planning around it and I made sure to
29:25
have some backup plans. So again, I get the sentiment of
29:28
people wanting to be paid to just have a great life and to
29:31
make this content and live these larger than life lifestyles, but
29:33
unfortunately a lot of that is for show.
29:35
We don't really know what these people's lives look like.
29:37
But I have an ongoing theory that modern influencing is just
29:40
a giant pyramid scheme. Like I think influencing now is
29:42
just the modern day MLM and I can go on a full video rant
29:44
about that. So again, if you want to see
29:46
that, let me know in the comments and I'll make it for
29:48
you. The internet's a place that's
29:49
consistently evolving and fluctuating and it's important.
29:51
Let me tell you now as someone in it right now, it's important
29:54
to have a backup plan or a backup career or at least
29:56
something that you're working towards, which I know is hard to
29:58
hear considering what the job market itself isn't showing
30:01
signs of the longevity that we are promised.
30:02
But this is something to keep in mind and consider.
30:04
And getting back to the original point, unfortunately at the
30:07
moment, our literal government is strongly, strongly a popular
30:12
voice against college. While this administration at
30:14
least there have been historical precedents for government
30:16
censoring education and dissuading people from attending
30:18
college when ideologies are on the rise and they want a
30:22
complacent and uneducated population.
30:24
And mainly I think this is due to the critical thinking
30:26
component. Like it's no surprise or secret
30:27
that Trump since his return to office has gone hard against
30:30
higher education with rolling back DEI initiatives to serial
30:33
killers of slashing funding, making jobs like nurses,
30:37
accountants, social workers and you guessed it, educators.
30:40
Technically not professions. Making it almost impossible for
30:43
you to get loans for your degrees, which of course only
30:45
prohibits those who can't afford it in the first place to
30:48
potentially receive socio economic mobility.
30:50
Very interesting indeed, but something to take note of.
30:57
Now this last point I wanted to talk about in the conversation
30:59
around college is around AI and higher Ed and specifically how
31:02
do we integrate it if it's considered to be like the
31:04
ultimate truth? And I got to admit this one
31:06
being a drawback was not necessarily a thing that was a
31:09
thing when I was in school. And when I say that, I'm not see
31:12
a single UNK comment down below. But AI was starting to become
31:15
more mainstream when I was graduating college.
31:17
So I ultimately don't have a lot of first hand experience of what
31:19
the proliferation of AI and current higher academia means.
31:22
But from what it sounds like, the class of like 2022 or 2023
31:26
got the last chopper because I keep seeing tik toks about
31:29
students feeling the need to compete with these bots for
31:32
their grades or just generally unfairly getting zeros because
31:35
of suspected AI use even if there wasn't any.
31:37
Bro, I spent hours working on this assignment.
31:43
Hours. And the teacher's trying to say
31:47
there's. AII.
31:49
Think the stupidest cycle that's happening in college right now
31:52
is a student having to agree not to use AI before taking a
31:55
course. And then in turn, the professor
31:58
uses AI to grade their paper and the AI mistakenly thinks that a
32:02
quote that a student is using from a text that was approved is
32:07
plagiarism. And the AI is like your whole
32:09
paper was like. Used with ChatGPT.
32:13
My university is doing like forced AI, like assignments and
32:19
like incorporating it into like our lesson plans and stuff.
32:23
And they're literally just like taking AI and shoving it down
32:26
our throats. And the teachers are like, yes,
32:28
please give me more, please, yes.
32:31
And so my assignment that I'm doing right now for my $900
32:35
credit, mind you, microbiology class, I'm having to role play
32:40
with AI and the AI is pretending that it is, it's a bacteria.
32:46
So we're doing like little bacterial role play.
32:48
It's like, no, I'm just a little funny.
32:52
Thermos Aquitus, please no. And I'd be lying if I said that
32:58
I had any concrete answers for this, because truly, I don't.
33:02
I don't think many people do. Like if everyone woke up one day
33:04
and decided to listen to me, it'd be no AI allowed generally.
33:07
But that's just simply not the truth of the matter and not the
33:09
world that we put in. And most educators and
33:11
administrators right now are still trying to figure out what
33:13
this means and are unsure what the answers are going to be.
33:16
But if integration is the best way to go here because
33:20
unfortunately, it is here to stay, I understand why that may
33:23
deter students from thinking that colleges work that at all
33:25
when they can either just use AI to learn or just fear of being
33:28
like a Guinea pig in this transitionary trial period of
33:30
figuring out what AI looks like in schools.
33:33
Like, how do you set up provisions forever advancing
33:34
technology? Like, I don't think that we're
33:36
finding that out for the next year, honestly.
33:38
And it's going to be a lot of trial and error.
33:39
Like this is a confusing period for AI generally, but especially
33:42
for kids in college. Now, my heart goes out to y'all
33:44
for figuring out what this is going to be.
33:46
So with that said, that brings us back to the initial question,
33:48
is college truly worth it? And honestly, I think that's for
33:51
every individual to decide. But for me personally, without a
33:54
doubt, that answer is always going to be yes.
33:57
In my experience, college taught me to think critically.
33:59
It gave me space to be curious and explore my options and
34:02
interests. It gave me friendships that feel
34:04
like they're going to last a lifetime in a generally strong
34:06
community. Now, whether that's for you or
34:07
not as an individual is completely up to you and
34:10
different for everybody. But the important through line
34:12
throughout all of this is that it's important to be a lifelong
34:15
learner, to remain curious, and to be able to form your own
34:18
informed opinions. And those things don't only
34:20
exclusively happen in the classroom.
34:22
Like college will always be important because it is a good
34:24
means to an end, but it's not the only one.
34:26
And personally, if a fascist government is battling tooth and
34:29
nail to defund and dismantle higher education, it's because
34:32
it's important for a reason and for the people.
34:34
Now in terms of the traditional values that we mentioned
34:36
earlier, right now college just is not going to offer the same
34:40
safety net that it once did. That is in the short term.
34:43
But again, that's not the only value that it brings.
34:45
And we do have to look to the bigger picture and especially
34:47
looking past the first few years of post grad.
34:49
And I know it's frustrating. Trust me, I'm in a bit too.
34:52
But I think there are other values that college brings still
34:54
that still make it worth it.