Latest / Solving America's Problems / College Degree? 83% Never Use It in Their Job (Full)

Transcript

College Degree? 83% Never Use It in Their Job (Full) · Solving America's Problems

• 0:00
  Alex: [thoughtful] Welcome to Solving America’s Problems.
• 0:03
  [serious] Jeremy Hritz spent seven years as a high school principal, racked
• 0:07
  up five college degrees—including a doctorate—and walked away with a mountain
• 0:11
  of debt… only to leave education entirely and become a full-time stock trader
• 0:17
  who says, straight up, he isn’t using a single one of those degrees today.
• 0:22
  [leaning in] Across the table, Rob Wallace—Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins
• 0:27
  electrical engineering grad—built a company that trains thousands in solar
• 0:31
  installation across seven states and abroad, yet the highest-paid people
• 0:36
  he hires never set foot on a college campus and clear six figures straight
• 0:41
  out of a thirteen-week program.
• 0:44
  [low, deliberate] Jerremy and Dave dig into the $1.7 trillion question
• 0:47
  nobody wants to ask out loud: if the people inside the system admit it’s
• 0:52
  this broken, why are we still pushing every kid through the same door?
• 0:58
  jerremynewsome: Dave, what are we doing today?
• 1:00
  My man,
• 1:01
  Dave Conley: In this episode of Solving America's Problems,
• 1:04
  we're asking a question millions of families are grappling with.
• 1:08
  Is college worth the cost?
• 1:10
  For decades, a degree was seen as the surest path to success.
• 1:14
  But rising costs and shifting career opportunities have left many wondering
• 1:18
  if there's a better way forward.
• 1:20
  We'll explore college, careers, and the road not taken, looking for how
• 1:24
  education is evolving and the value of alternative paths and what it
• 1:28
  all means for the next generation.
• 1:30
  And that's this week on Solving America's Problems.
• 1:33
  Is college worth the cost?
• 1:34
  With Rob Wallace and Jeremy Ritz.
• 1:38
  jerremynewsome: Listeners from around the world.
• 1:40
  Welcome back to solving America's problems.
• 1:45
  I am Jeremy Alexander Newsome, and as always, I'm joined by my
• 1:48
  incredible co host, Dave Conley.
• 1:50
  Today, we're tackling a topic that impacts millions of families
• 1:54
  across this beautiful country.
• 1:56
  The value of higher education.
• 1:59
  So essentially, is college still worth it in a world where
• 2:04
  student debt has ballooned to?
• 2:06
  Ready for this?
• 2:08
  1. 7 trillion and more than half of the graduates end up in jobs that does not
• 2:14
  even require a degree or use the degree that they paid all that money for.
• 2:19
  So in this episode, we're breaking it down.
• 2:22
  We're going to hear some personal stories from two amazing guests, Rob
• 2:26
  Wallace and Jeremy Ritz both have seen the academics and they work close
• 2:32
  up and they're going to be sharing their insights on how education
• 2:36
  and work either intersect or don't.
• 2:39
  Together, we're going to explore big questions like is the traditional college
• 2:42
  path still the best route to success?
• 2:45
  What alternatives are out there?
• 2:47
  And how can we reimagine education for the next generation?
• 2:52
  Rob, Jeremy, welcome to the show.
• 2:54
  It's great to have my guys here.
• 2:57
  Robert Wallace: for having us.
• 2:58
  jerremynewsome: Of course.
• 2:59
  So both of you have a lot of experience in this.
• 3:03
  If you don't mind, just hit me with a quick background on you.
• 3:09
  As it relates to college, let's go with Jeremy Ritz and then Robert
• 3:12
  first 60 seconds to both of you.
• 3:15
  Jeremy Hritz: First of all, thanks for having me on Dave and Jeremy.
• 3:17
  So my background former high school principal was in that role for seven
• 3:21
  years before that assistant principal, before that high school English teacher.
• 3:25
  And I have five college degrees.
• 3:28
  So a bachelor's degree in English from Penn state.
• 3:31
  I have three, three master's degrees, liberal arts, which I know that I
• 3:36
  saw some of the statistics here.
• 3:38
  We're going to talk about school leadership and special education.
• 3:41
  I also have my doctorate in innovation and leadership.
• 3:44
  My ultimate goal was to become a superintendent of schools, but now I
• 3:48
  am a trader of the market, so I'm not even in what I went to school for.
• 3:53
  So that's my background.
• 3:55
  jerremynewsome: Yeah.
• 3:55
  Beautiful take Wallace hit me.
• 3:58
  Robert Wallace: Yeah, man.
• 3:58
  A little bit different background, but also not in my field.
• 4:01
  Undergrad from Virginia tech, electrical engineering masters, Johns Hopkins,
• 4:05
  electrical engineering, got into solar Freddie Gray rise happened
• 4:09
  in Baltimore, started a workforce development and training program for
• 4:13
  folks who didn't have access to college.
• 4:15
  And now we have schools across seven states, three countries training, Folks
• 4:19
  on the technical skills to build and construct and maintain solar farms.
• 4:24
  So totally different field than where I started.
• 4:27
  jerremynewsome: But still using a little bit of the
• 4:28
  education that you had for sure.
• 4:29
  And I know we all do education is really the cornerstone of my entire campaign.
• 4:36
  Whereas if we can change the educational system, we change our future.
• 4:39
  We create so many more opportunities and so much more awareness.
• 4:42
  And that's really the discussion that we're going to have today.
• 4:44
  So as I mentioned just a moment ago college debt in America is over 1.
• 4:48
  7 trillion, which with the total debt of the country, At around 36 to 37 trillion,
• 4:54
  depending on when people are hearing this, it goes up like a trillion a quarter.
• 4:59
  It's wild.
• 5:00
  Half of the graduates ending up in jobs that don't even require a degree
• 5:04
  or use the degree that they have.
• 5:07
  So let's go with Rob.
• 5:09
  Based on your experiences, Is the system broken or is it misunderstood?
• 5:16
  Robert Wallace: This is a tough one, right?
• 5:17
  So I was thinking about this earlier before this call, because one of the
• 5:21
  things there's two different perspectives.
• 5:23
  One is from where college fits in the ecosystem, but I also think
• 5:28
  there's a difference being a minority versus being not minority, right?
• 5:32
  And so what I was taught.
• 5:34
  Back when I was younger was that you have to have a college degree to be able
• 5:38
  to even compete and on global scale.
• 5:41
  So both my parents went to UPenn, both of them engineers.
• 5:44
  All my siblings are all engineers.
• 5:46
  And we were taught if you want to compete, you got to go to play the game.
• 5:49
  You got that education.
• 5:50
  The challenging part for me is a lot of my counterparts, especially when
• 5:53
  I was doing solar development in that sector, did not have the same education.
• 5:57
  And we were still either at the same level or they exceeded me in
• 6:01
  income starting out in the industry.
• 6:02
  And so as I look back, I say really, did education really help me get
• 6:07
  to the level where they were able to get some without education?
• 6:11
  And so we look at it and say, I think what education does to a lot of, for
• 6:14
  a lot of folks is give them access.
• 6:16
  And that's why I think it's especially powerful for the black
• 6:20
  and brown communities because some of these rooms you can't even
• 6:22
  get into if I have an education.
• 6:24
  And I don't believe that's consistent back then across every group.
• 6:28
  But I do think it's shifting now.
• 6:30
  This generation now is a little different.
• 6:32
  And so we got a lot of different CEOs and executives with totally
• 6:35
  different backgrounds, some with education and some without.
• 6:38
  Look, full stop.
• 6:39
  The richest and wealthiest people I know did not go to college.
• 6:43
  That's an interesting fact, right?
• 6:45
  Whether it be folks that are African American who are now athletes or in the
• 6:51
  recording industry or so on and so forth, or sport players, a lot of folks didn't.
• 6:55
  And it's a challenge that we're facing.
• 6:58
  I will tell you this from my perspective, in the inner cities, Where the option
• 7:02
  is only drugs or F or athletics.
• 7:05
  If you're not an athlete, you have to go back to technical trades in order
• 7:09
  to get them out and give them skills, carpentry, electrical plumbing, because
• 7:14
  that's the thing that's never going to go away without AI or anything else.
• 7:17
  That piece of will never go away.
• 7:19
  That's my thoughts.
• 7:20
  jerremynewsome: Yeah.
• 7:20
  I think I love that you brought the technical schools
• 7:22
  and technical components.
• 7:23
  We will definitely be touching on that and the future of this episode because.
• 7:27
  I think we all understand the importance of it.
• 7:29
  And I think you're a hundred percent correct.
• 7:31
  Those are skills that are never going to go away.
• 7:33
  And people that learn how to interact with that are going to
• 7:36
  be even better suited for creating jobs in the future and creating
• 7:41
  the infrastructure of this country.
• 7:43
  Jeremy, you've got a ton of degrees and leadership experience.
• 7:49
  Looking back, was the cost and time invested in education worth it for you?
• 7:55
  Jeremy Hritz: That's a difficult question to answer because I think.
• 7:58
  There are some parts of it that I look back on and it was worth it.
• 8:03
  Some of the intangible things that I was able to pull from, dedicating
• 8:06
  that effort to achieving the degree, what I learned along the way.
• 8:10
  But then, you're looking at your bill at the end of that because
• 8:13
  I did have to take student loans.
• 8:15
  Nobody in my family had gone to college prior to, to me.
• 8:19
  So I had to take all that on and, as a young adult looking at, This
• 8:24
  number that I owed to pay for my education was a bit daunting and,
• 8:30
  the question about whether or not the system's broken or just misunderstood.
• 8:35
  I wouldn't say that it's broken.
• 8:37
  I would just say that it's outdated.
• 8:39
  And I think one of the things, at least from my perspective, that I especially
• 8:43
  saw as a high school principal is that there aren't choices for kids or for
• 8:48
  young adults, it's, and this is what I was taught is that college is the only
• 8:52
  way that you're going to be successful.
• 8:55
  And now.
• 8:57
  In terms of what I do just from trading and an entrepreneurial perspective, that's
• 9:02
  inaccurate, but that's the narrative that we force on kids to say, Hey, all
• 9:06
  right if you don't go to college you can't succeed in this world, but you can.
• 9:10
  There, there are so many different pathways and avenues.
• 9:13
  And I think part of what needs to be changed is just.
• 9:16
  Just our perspectives and how we pitch it to our community our citizens,
• 9:22
  that there are several different ways to be successful in this
• 9:25
  world and college is one of them.
• 9:27
  And that's great.
• 9:27
  If you want to go that way, but Hey, you have these five or six different
• 9:31
  pathways that you can take and be just as successful and fulfilled.
• 9:35
  jerremynewsome: Yeah you mentioned an interesting word there, right?
• 9:37
  The thing that you said, the balance was daunting because my version of
• 9:44
  this world, I'm really trying to figure out ultimately, maybe even this
• 9:47
  podcast and future episodes, but how do we make the general educational
• 9:54
  experience in college debt free?
• 9:57
  Essentially, how can we require it where it's not such a humongous
• 10:03
  financial risk to go to college?
• 10:05
  Because all of us on this podcast did, including myself, believe it or
• 10:10
  not, I have a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, go Gators.
• 10:16
  And the fact, I did, I got financial loans.
• 10:20
  I had a job during my college tenure.
• 10:24
  So I still worked full time and went to school full time and was able
• 10:28
  to pay off my student loans and my financial aid before I graduated or
• 10:34
  right around the time I graduated.
• 10:36
  But the unique piece of that is, I think there has to be some level at some stage
• 10:42
  of a solution that we can talk about in the future of this exact episode
• 10:47
  where it's like, how can we solve that where college students do not have debt?
• 10:54
  What does that look like?
• 10:55
  Because right now I'm viewing colleges as more of a business, right?
• 10:59
  They're a really good business and they're trying to make a lot of
• 11:01
  revenue and they're using the students.
• 11:03
  As revenue generators.
• 11:06
  So with that question or that statement being asked, the question that I'll
• 11:09
  throw out to Jeremy and then to Rob, do you think that most students really
• 11:14
  understand the financial risk of college?
• 11:18
  Jeremy Hritz: mean, if I just go back in time and think of myself and I'll
• 11:21
  bring it to current day and the current student population, I didn't have a clue.
• 11:27
  I was just like, all right, I'm supposed to go to college.
• 11:28
  I'm going to go to college.
• 11:29
  Yeah, it costs some money.
• 11:30
  I have grants.
• 11:32
  I'll take out some loans, whatever.
• 11:34
  I didn't know any better, but my parents didn't know any better.
• 11:37
  To educate me.
• 11:38
  So I think the student population is only going to be as informed as their parents
• 11:45
  are or their family that they're around or their extended family, their friends.
• 11:50
  And I think my experience as a principal, it's not a stretch to go out on a limb
• 11:55
  to say that There probably isn't a great awareness unless you come from a family
• 12:01
  where college is part of your culture.
• 12:04
  There's not a great awareness of what it costs and what the impact
• 12:07
  of that is once you graduate.
• 12:10
  And there, that should be included in what's taught in schools.
• 12:15
  On the periphery, it's taught or it's offered through your counseling offices,
• 12:18
  but it's not part of the curriculum.
• 12:20
  So really kids are going into it blindly.
• 12:24
  The majority of them, because.
• 12:27
  Not everybody has that type of family.
• 12:29
  I know I didn't.
• 12:31
  jerremynewsome: Yeah.
• 12:31
  So what about you, Rob?
• 12:32
  To that point, did your parents who both were extremely successful in
• 12:36
  their educational career and just their careers in general, did you think
• 12:39
  Did they have conversations with you about the financial risks of college?
• 12:42
  Did they help you understand that from a number standpoint?
• 12:46
  Robert Wallace: Yeah, so that was, that's a tough one, Jeremy.
• 12:48
  Not tough, but interesting, right?
• 12:49
  Because it's unique.
• 12:50
  Our conversation with my parents was, as your parent, our responsibility is to make
• 12:56
  sure you get out of college with no debt.
• 12:58
  So my parents made sure that all my siblings got out of
• 13:02
  college with no debt because they knew the impact it would have.
• 13:05
  On us after college trying to grow in different sectors.
• 13:08
  However, as part of that, it was interesting because they said, but you
• 13:12
  have to study something that will be able to support you and your family and justify
• 13:17
  the costs for us to pay for school.
• 13:20
  So for example, we couldn't go and do not to psychology or anything else, but
• 13:24
  if you can't spend a hundred thousand dollars or whatever on a tuition
• 13:27
  and you get a job making 50 or 40, You'll never, it doesn't make sense.
• 13:32
  Not a good investment.
• 13:33
  So part of their structure was we'll invest in you, but you have to invest in
• 13:38
  something that will be able to take care of you and your family going forward.
• 13:40
  jerremynewsome: But were you allowed to say no to that?
• 13:42
  Could you have said, nah, I don't wanna go to college.
• 13:44
  Keep your money, give me the money that you would spend on
• 13:46
  that, and let me do X, Y, z,
• 13:49
  Robert Wallace: No, it was not optional.
• 13:51
  So here's what's funny, right?
• 13:52
  So I'm the oldest of five, five kids.
• 13:55
  The first four of us, it was not optional.
• 13:58
  My sister came along and it became optional.
• 14:01
  So she was the one that was able to pick what she wants to do in life.
• 14:04
  And this is 16 years after me.
• 14:06
  And so I think they began to see even regardless of that
• 14:10
  piece, everyone turned out fine.
• 14:11
  But if you look at our pedigree, my next younger brother went
• 14:14
  to Georgia tech and Stanford.
• 14:16
  One of my brothers is in medical field and one of them went to tuck and Dartmouth
• 14:20
  school and my sister went to Amherst and part of the agreement was like you said
• 14:24
  that there'd be no college that, however, I can remember having conversations.
• 14:28
  Cause my parents also helped a lot of my cousins.
• 14:31
  And one of the challenging things was my parents said, look, we're
• 14:35
  going to help you get into college, but here's the risk, right?
• 14:38
  This is what it costs you.
• 14:40
  These are the, is the impact it has after you get out.
• 14:43
  And this will be part of your ongoing debt for X amount of years.
• 14:47
  And if you're okay with that, fine, we'll help you.
• 14:49
  If not, maybe you should consider.
• 14:51
  Barber school.
• 14:52
  Maybe you should become a mechanic.
• 14:53
  Maybe you should go to one of these technical trades where you can get up
• 14:57
  to a career faster and with less debt.
• 14:59
  So we've had both conversations, but our path is a little bit different.
• 15:03
  jerremynewsome: Sure.
• 15:04
  But I love that.
• 15:06
  I love the fact that they were.
• 15:08
  Aware of the numbers, right?
• 15:10
  You said it's a good investment.
• 15:11
  I think that's a fantastic way to consider it because, myself and Jeremy
• 15:16
  Ritz being full time market interactors, like we are pretty adapt to the, Hey,
• 15:21
  if you spend whatever 500, 000 on a position, that's a large sum of capital.
• 15:27
  If you can get back 560, 000.
• 15:30
  Have a 60, 000 return on 500, 000 investment and your,
• 15:34
  what was your risk, right?
• 15:36
  And if your risk was 10, 000, you made 60, 000, it's a good
• 15:39
  return on your investment.
• 15:41
  So it from that perspective, I think is really unique because if A lot
• 15:46
  of parents sit down today and say to themselves, am I prepared, willing,
• 15:51
  able, and capable to actually pay for my child to go to college, right?
• 15:57
  What that does in my mind is it sets a standard.
• 16:00
  And if parents have that standard going forward and they say, all right, if you
• 16:05
  do go to college, we will cover the costs.
• 16:08
  If you do not go to college, here's a different routes for you, which I got
• 16:13
  to have a great question coming up now.
• 16:16
  I think just being aware of as parents, hey, this is and should be a standard.
• 16:23
  What that does is when you raise your standards, it raises your quality of life.
• 16:25
  It raises the questions that you have to ask, right?
• 16:28
  Because, oh my gosh, now we have to pay an extra 100, 000.
• 16:31
  From our income for our two or three children every year for three years
• 16:36
  when they get into college, how can I create more value in the marketplace
• 16:39
  to be worth that amount of money?
• 16:40
  That's a different question that has to be asked.
• 16:42
  So I'm just going to throw this up for whoever wants it.
• 16:44
  What's a better route, full stop, technical college or
• 16:50
  a four year degree college.
• 16:52
  Robert Wallace: When you say better, Jeremy, what do you mean?
• 16:55
  Define better for me.
• 16:58
  jerremynewsome: Better success.
• 16:59
  Everyone who goes through it will get jobs.
• 17:01
  They will have less debt.
• 17:02
  They will be more primed and set up for the future for
• 17:05
  the success for their family.
• 17:07
  Dave Conley: Choices.
• 17:08
  I'd put it as choices.
• 17:10
  Like that, that somebody has more choices in their life.
• 17:15
  Robert Wallace: Oh, it's challenging.
• 17:17
  Because there's certain folks who don't have choices right now, and they need
• 17:22
  to stop the bleed now, meaning in the next 12 months, they need to create
• 17:26
  some kind of income or have a skill so they can stabilize because not to
• 17:30
  bleed where they can have simple health care access to food, safe communities.
• 17:36
  And there's a piece that says after that, then you can begin to think about what
• 17:40
  success looks like and so on and so forth.
• 17:41
  So if I were to, if I were to look at the per dollar return, I would
• 17:45
  say technical school right now.
• 17:46
  I would say if I look at what our carpenters, and I built
• 17:50
  a lot of solar farms, right?
• 17:51
  And so looking at what I pay our master electricians, 125 to 150 an hour.
• 17:57
  To come on a site and connect our laborers to that, do the installation.
• 18:02
  If you use prevailing wage, $52 an hour.
• 18:05
  I got 18-year-old kids after coming through our program, 13 weeks, making
• 18:09
  $52 an hour plus time and a half.
• 18:12
  So not saying that's like the cap they're their pinnacle.
• 18:15
  They want to get to, 20 years from now.
• 18:18
  But in terms of resources now and stopping the bleed and stabilizing
• 18:21
  family now, I believe the technical skills, the technical schools are
• 18:25
  the best return on investment.
• 18:27
  At this junction,
• 18:28
  jerremynewsome: All right, Rich, let's hear your point of
• 18:29
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 18:30
  So I actually just want to piggyback off what Rob said.
• 18:32
  And I agree with Rob, but here's the thing.
• 18:35
  And this is something that we fought against in my school is
• 18:40
  technical schools are stigmatized.
• 18:42
  If you decide to go the route of vocational technical school
• 18:46
  you're seen as a, a techie.
• 18:49
  Yeah.
• 18:49
  Yeah.
• 18:50
  Yeah.
• 18:50
  Like you
• 18:50
  jerremynewsome: make it.
• 18:51
  Not
• 18:51
  Robert Wallace: do anything else,
• 18:53
  Jeremy Hritz: But you're throwing out those figures there that these
• 18:55
  kids are making in these professions, these are good professions.
• 18:59
  This is great work.
• 19:00
  And they don't realize that it's stigmatized for whatever reason.
• 19:05
  But there's tremendous reward there.
• 19:07
  Whereas if you go the route of college depending on what your
• 19:10
  degree is in, you're not guaranteed that same type of outcome.
• 19:17
  So I would have to agree that, the the trades are powerful.
• 19:22
  Robert Wallace: Can I add something there, Jeremy?
• 19:25
  And I think part of the challenge is that people don't
• 19:27
  look at trees and sexy, right?
• 19:29
  With social media, my mind was social media has done.
• 19:32
  It's showing people like, Oh, you can get rich quick.
• 19:34
  If you do this and this and this, and it lives like this.
• 19:36
  But if you ever noticed, they don't highlight the plumbers, the carpenters,
• 19:40
  the folks who, and I know some of the most successful people I know
• 19:44
  work with builders, home builders, church builders, home builders.
• 19:48
  And this was all based off of carpentry and hand skills.
• 19:50
  So right now, though, we don't see the young people don't see the sexy.
• 19:54
  They want to get into tech.
• 19:55
  They want to get into something that's online.
• 19:58
  Bye.
• 19:58
  And they're not looking at these hands on skills that no one can ever take from you.
• 20:02
  So regardless of where you go, what country, whatever happens to your
• 20:05
  background, you can always build something when you have a technical skill that
• 20:09
  you can leverage anywhere in the world,
• 20:11
  jerremynewsome: Correct.
• 20:12
  What I heard you saying really, Rob, is speed and efficiency.
• 20:16
  If you want to go and create a different lifestyle for your family, if you need
• 20:23
  to create more income for you and your children let's say in the next year, and
• 20:30
  I would argue that there's a humongous.
• 20:33
  Group of our population who would probably fit that category.
• 20:37
  Technical college is the route to go.
• 20:39
  And to Jeremy's point, if we make it less, less weak or pathetic to
• 20:47
  go, it's not like a second choice.
• 20:49
  If we find a way.
• 20:51
  As a country or as a social media populace to highlight, highlight the power and
• 20:57
  the the proficiency of technical college, the pervasive way for that to generate
• 21:05
  and help provide not only more jobs, but higher paying jobs now, because you
• 21:11
  have to ask the question, we all know that artificial intelligence is coming.
• 21:16
  We all know that.
• 21:17
  A lot of people thought it was going to take the McDonald's worker job, the very
• 21:21
  front end low level, burger flipping job.
• 21:25
  Like we thought that was the ones that AI was going to take immediately.
• 21:29
  But what we've seen happen is it starts to also take a lot of the creative jobs,
• 21:35
  very fast video makers, photographs.
• 21:39
  specialists, bookkeepers, sometimes even lawyers, right?
• 21:44
  AI going to be some really big shifts there.
• 21:48
  And it reminds me of when we started going from an agrarian culture where,
• 21:53
  you know, 99 percent of the world, not to mention 99 percent of the U.
• 21:57
  S., but 99 percent of the world was focused on how can we create food?
• 22:01
  That was the industry.
• 22:03
  And once you started once the cotton gin gets created and a few other powerful
• 22:07
  inventions, then you start to speed up the need or the lack of people that
• 22:13
  actually work in the fields that actually go out and create food for our country.
• 22:19
  That was a huge shift.
• 22:21
  Which is one of the things, one of the aspects that caused the dust bowl
• 22:24
  and the great depression, because you had so many people that were jobless.
• 22:27
  And I say so many people, by the way, it's about 25 percent in
• 22:30
  the great depression was the pot was the amount of unemployment.
• 22:33
  So we still had one out of every four was unemployed, but three
• 22:36
  out of every four were employed.
• 22:38
  And that's also a big thing to keep in mind as we had this huge
• 22:42
  shift technology technologically.
• 22:44
  But I think the big piece that a lot of people are overlooking.
• 22:48
  Yeah.
• 22:49
  Is the value, the cost of tuition.
• 22:53
  So let's just ask this question.
• 22:54
  Just want to have fun with it.
• 22:56
  Jeremy, how do you think, or why do you think, or could we decrease
• 23:02
  the cost of higher education so that it gives people either better
• 23:07
  value or at least keeps up with.
• 23:10
  how much the living wage is in the country.
• 23:13
  Jeremy Hritz: That's a great question.
• 23:14
  And I'm so sorry, guys, I'm having a little issue here on my computer.
• 23:18
  Let me
• 23:19
  jerremynewsome: That's okay.
• 23:20
  Jeremy Hritz: Took care of that.
• 23:21
  Wow.
• 23:22
  That's.
• 23:23
  That's a banger of a question.
• 23:24
  Robert Wallace: it
• 23:25
  Jeremy Hritz: you come back to me on that?
• 23:26
  Let me let me, I need to think on that one, man.
• 23:29
  jerremynewsome: Think on it.
• 23:30
  Jeremy Hritz: and I actually was thinking about that last night.
• 23:32
  But come back to me.
• 23:34
  jerremynewsome: Yeah.
• 23:34
  I'm gonna come back to you, Wallace.
• 23:36
  How do we lower the cost of higher education?
• 23:39
  Because that's the other piece with technical schools, right?
• 23:41
  Technical schools are less expensive than higher education as well.
• 23:46
  So not only are they faster, But they cost supremely less money.
• 23:51
  It's staggering.
• 23:52
  80 percent less than a four year degree.
• 23:56
  Robert Wallace: I think there's a company out of New York that I work with called
• 23:58
  FedCap and I think they got it right.
• 24:00
  And what they have created was what's called stackable credentials.
• 24:05
  jerremynewsome: Okay.
• 24:06
  Robert Wallace: So you would start with an entry level credential that covers
• 24:08
  your basic life skills, balancing a checkbook, safety, stuff like that.
• 24:14
  And then you can add basic construction, everything from hand
• 24:19
  tools, power tools, you name it.
• 24:21
  Then you can layer off.
• 24:22
  It's called a bridgeway program.
• 24:23
  Then you can bridge off into.
• 24:25
  Electrical, you can bridge off into other technical skills.
• 24:28
  You can bridge off into plumbing.
• 24:31
  Then after that, you can add another layer where you become a journeyman.
• 24:34
  Then you can add another layer, you become a master.
• 24:37
  And my point is each layer equates to a different layer of wealth,
• 24:42
  which allows you to pay down some of the costs as you build versus going
• 24:48
  through four years of, 50, 000 a year, which I paid my door tuition.
• 24:53
  So on and so forth.
• 24:53
  You have 200, 000 by the time you get out making no income.
• 24:56
  And so I think what it does, two things.
• 24:58
  One, it builds the the success of the student and that it gives
• 25:02
  them time to mature in terms of what direction they want to go.
• 25:05
  Number two, they can also adjust to the market conditions, right?
• 25:08
  So something else is becoming hot.
• 25:10
  AI started.
• 25:11
  So this.
• 25:11
  This software program might not be the route now, let's look this way.
• 25:15
  And then the last piece is they can make money as they go.
• 25:17
  If they need to work two years to save some more money before they go to
• 25:21
  next level, fine, but at least they're not capped out at some total income.
• 25:25
  So I like the stackable credential approach.
• 25:27
  And I think if we look at that, that it'll be an easier way to minimize the cost, but
• 25:32
  also reach the same academic and financial levels that they're looking to get to.
• 25:38
  jerremynewsome: Okay.
• 25:38
  Yeah.
• 25:38
  One of my, one of my takes, which is actually in a way happening,
• 25:42
  and this is a big, probably like system wide change or shift.
• 25:48
  And again, maybe this will spur your thoughts Ritz, but one of my big ideas
• 25:52
  that I had at some point was The people that need long, longer, larger education
• 26:01
  packages shouldn't go into debt for those.
• 26:05
  Case in point, doctors.
• 26:08
  Doctors, potentially some engineers, potentially some
• 26:12
  architects, or individuals that have to go eight years plus.
• 26:18
  So not a choice, but they have to in order to really become proficient.
• 26:23
  So how would you do that would be a question, right?
• 26:25
  Because that's really the ultimate people that I probably at this point, from a
• 26:29
  career standpoint, care the most about decreasing the cost is our doctors.
• 26:35
  Because doctors have to go, they have to go, they can't go to a
• 26:39
  technical college and become a doctor.
• 26:41
  You can't do that in a year.
• 26:43
  So you have to go six, eight, 12 years in the college system
• 26:46
  to learn at a higher level.
• 26:48
  And that's going to put you into a lot of debt.
• 26:50
  And then if they're in a lot of debt, they have tons of stress.
• 26:52
  They're already working 12, 18 hour days.
• 26:55
  You have not only medical insurance, you have to pay for malpractice insurance,
• 26:59
  so many different aspects that there's a lot of stress on our doctors.
• 27:02
  And therefore a lot of people don't want that profession anymore.
• 27:05
  And that's not going to be good for the country if we have no doctors.
• 27:08
  So what if gentlemen, we do not allow those careers or certain careers,
• 27:16
  let's just call it the medical field to pursue to pursue any debt
• 27:19
  obligations as they go through their educational career, the people that
• 27:23
  are not allowed to get scholarships.
• 27:26
  Ready for this one would be business and finance and entrepreneurship.
• 27:30
  If you go to a college, which I did to get a finance degree, which I did and
• 27:35
  was able to apply for some scholarships, trying to get a finance degree from a
• 27:40
  top 10 business college in the country.
• 27:42
  Now, if you think if you're going to go to finance, the goal is to make
• 27:47
  as much money as possible to help as little people as possible, ultimately.
• 27:51
  What do you need?
• 27:51
  What do you need a scholarship for like you should you're the ones that
• 27:54
  should be making as much like you don't need to pay less money for college.
• 27:58
  So if you're going to get a liberal arts degree, if you're going to get a
• 28:02
  business degree, an entrepreneurship degree, colleges should just
• 28:07
  disallow from scholarships from those particular careers, taking
• 28:10
  that money and doing what being able to apply it towards the doctorate
• 28:14
  or the longer term degree needers.
• 28:18
  Thoughts on that Ritz?
• 28:20
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 28:20
  I think that makes a lot of sense because you're prioritizing those professions
• 28:26
  that are making the greatest contribution to society which is important.
• 28:31
  And you're right, finance or business.
• 28:33
  There's not a lot of.
• 28:35
  Philanthropy in the beginning, maybe toward the end there
• 28:38
  Coming back to what you asked me.
• 28:41
  How do we make college cheaper?
• 28:42
  I had an epiphany here.
• 28:45
  What's the one thing that young adults don't have a lot of?
• 28:49
  Money.
• 28:51
  What do they have a lot of?
• 28:53
  Energy productivity.
• 28:55
  And so this kind of ties into something we were attempting to do my final
• 28:59
  years as principal, which is where we were trying to create internships
• 29:04
  or onsite work based opportunities.
• 29:09
  And so the best way to learn a profession or to learn a trade
• 29:14
  or a skill is to actually do it.
• 29:16
  You can sit in a classroom all you want, but until you're thrown in
• 29:19
  the fire and you're forced to learn it, you're not going to learn it.
• 29:22
  So maybe a model can be created to where, Hey we can help you pay for
• 29:29
  your college by having a role to contribute to this business, this
• 29:33
  corporation, this company, this college.
• 29:36
  And I know we have some of that out there that exists now, but if you would
• 29:40
  amplify it and scale it up, maybe that wipes out 50 percent of the tuition
• 29:46
  because you're adding value to the college or to the business connections
• 29:53
  that they have in the community.
• 29:54
  And so it's a, it's an indirect way to get around.
• 29:57
  Yeah.
• 29:58
  Hey.
• 29:59
  I don't have the money to pay for the tuition, but I have the effort
• 30:02
  that I can give you my time, my value to help your business, your
• 30:06
  organization, the college grow.
• 30:08
  So that could be a creative solution and it benefits the student because
• 30:13
  they're getting on site training.
• 30:15
  jerremynewsome: I like that take.
• 30:17
  What do you think, Robert Wallace?
• 30:19
  Robert Wallace: I like your idea.
• 30:21
  I do.
• 30:21
  I don't Jay.
• 30:21
  I'm honestly because I think that the doctors when they come out, they're making
• 30:25
  so much money that's why they do the eight years so they can make the million dollars
• 30:29
  or 2 million a year and salary to do.
• 30:31
  So I think there has to be some type.
• 30:33
  Let me say this.
• 30:34
  My counter would be if we're going to do it for the doctors.
• 30:37
  We got to do it for teachers.
• 30:39
  Because I believe they're just as valuable
• 30:41
  As the doctors are in terms of the overall ecosystem of the United
• 30:44
  jerremynewsome: Sure.
• 30:45
  Totally.
• 30:45
  Robert Wallace: would have to stabilize it.
• 30:47
  Maybe, and maybe that's your point, is that for all those critical functions,
• 30:51
  police, military the teachers, we would have to do the same thing
• 30:55
  across all those sectors, I think,
• 30:57
  jerremynewsome: Yeah, agreed.
• 30:58
  Agreed.
• 30:59
  It really, it's just precisely my man.
• 31:00
  This is, it's really a discussion or awareness of, can we start
• 31:03
  shifting where the money to, from these colleges go to, right?
• 31:08
  Where does it go to and who needs it the most?
• 31:10
  Because if you are throwing out scholarships, just willy nilly.
• 31:16
  And you're having all this capital that doesn't need to be spent on individuals
• 31:22
  that probably Aka would never use it not to bring out Belmont too strongly,
• 31:27
  but Belmont is a college in Asheville, Tennessee that is one of the largest
• 31:33
  private colleges in the country.
• 31:34
  The Dean of Belmont is the second highest paid Dean in the country.
• 31:39
  And the tuition there can range anywhere between 125, 000 a year
• 31:44
  to a quarter million a year.
• 31:46
  And the majority of the students there, they get degrees in like
• 31:51
  commercial flute playing or commercial saxophone or audio engineering.
• 31:58
  And there's a lot of.
• 31:59
  Students, they're going through Belmont every year that are going
• 32:02
  into crazy amounts of debt that again, maybe would or would not have to, but
• 32:07
  specifically, there's also a lot of them that are getting scholarships
• 32:11
  again, that probably shouldn't.
• 32:13
  It's if you have the wherewithal to be understanding of the cost of this
• 32:18
  degree, to your point, Rob, the cost of the degree and how much are you
• 32:21
  going to make as a commercial floutist.
• 32:24
  40, 000 a year max for 99.
• 32:29
  9999999 percent is it worth going to that particular college and spending
• 32:35
  that particular amount of money?
• 32:36
  Probably not, but there does need, in my opinion, there, there really does need
• 32:40
  to be a conversation about this, which is why I'm glad that we're having it.
• 32:45
  And I think ultimately being aware that there needs to be some level of change
• 32:51
  because the amount of students that always argue or fuss or get upset about
• 32:57
  the amount of student loan debt, even though they may or may not have been
• 33:01
  aware of it, to Jeremy's point earlier, and to then your point, Rob, like a
• 33:04
  doctor, you have the best of the best, the top 1 percent in the world probably
• 33:08
  would make a million dollars as a salary.
• 33:11
  The vast majority of doctors after.
• 33:14
  Eight years, 10 year working is probably somewhere between
• 33:17
  200 and 350, 000 on average.
• 33:20
  Even that, having to outpace the amount of debt because debt's not something
• 33:24
  that can be wrote off as bankruptcy.
• 33:26
  There's a lot there.
• 33:27
  There's a lot there.
• 33:28
  Robert Wallace: Jay, back to your point real quick before we move on.
• 33:31
  There's another interesting model that we should consider,
• 33:33
  which is the online model.
• 33:35
  Because if you see what happened after Kobe, a lot of the brick
• 33:38
  and mortar institutions went away.
• 33:41
  Cost came down across some of the schools because now there's no room in
• 33:44
  board because you're studying virtually.
• 33:46
  But the number of the students enrolling went up.
• 33:49
  If you look at New Hampshire University, which offers a degree of all kind of
• 33:53
  degrees online, Their tuition cost is a fraction of what you would pay to go
• 33:57
  to a brick and mortar school and their enrollment rates have gone up 600%.
• 34:03
  I believe it is.
• 34:04
  And so I wonder how that affects your model in terms of bringing the cost down,
• 34:08
  but still being able to offer degrees in certain sectors, but minimizing the
• 34:13
  cost because now part of is virtual.
• 34:15
  And maybe your last two years are in person, or maybe, there's one semester
• 34:19
  every one month, every quarter you go.
• 34:22
  And do that part in person
• 34:25
  jerremynewsome: go for it.
• 34:26
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 34:26
  So looking at this from a different perspective but to Rob's point and talking
• 34:32
  about educators, 100%, I agree that, if we're going to do this for doctors,
• 34:38
  we have to do it for educators as well.
• 34:39
  But I think that this.
• 34:42
  This pokes at a deeper conversation that needs to be had about
• 34:45
  what we value as a country.
• 34:48
  Robert Wallace: a side.
• 34:49
  Jeremy Hritz: Yes.
• 34:49
  And we talked before about, the stigma associated with technical schools.
• 34:54
  There's a stigma associated with education.
• 34:56
  If you're a teacher, if you're a principal you're looked at as, Oh, or what's
• 35:00
  the quote, those that can't do teach.
• 35:04
  But when we think about it, maybe this is a, And I don't know how
• 35:08
  this could be done, but through research, how do we quantify which
• 35:12
  professions create the greatest impact?
• 35:16
  On our
• 35:17
  jerremynewsome: Society.
• 35:18
  Yeah.
• 35:19
  Jeremy Hritz: And then from there you have an equation.
• 35:22
  We, you make it mathematical that somehow influences how much support or help is
• 35:29
  provided going for those professions, because online school is great and I
• 35:34
  do believe there's a place for it, but the human connection that comes through
• 35:38
  teaching those relationships, I'm sure all of us can think of somebody.
• 35:42
  Who if it wasn't for that person who taught us something that we wouldn't
• 35:47
  have achieved what we have so you know that's really what comes to
• 35:51
  me and thinking about that deeply
• 35:53
  . jerremynewsome: No.
• 35:53
  So that's a great perspective, is essentially figuring out a
• 35:56
  quantification model for which values we need to focus on the most.
• 36:01
  And I think that word has come up a lot in past podcasts as our listeners will
• 36:05
  know specifically one with the debt.
• 36:08
  Of the nations right now we're focusing on student debt and
• 36:11
  educational debt But from a debt of the nation that word came up a bunch.
• 36:16
  What are we spending money on shows our truest values?
• 36:20
  And for you bringing that word up, Ritz, of saying we need to focus
• 36:25
  on teachers I think is one of my favorite topics because as you being
• 36:31
  a teacher in the, in your past life, essentially, and seeing the struggle
• 36:35
  and the wildly unequal pay structure.
• 36:39
  for spending so much time and so much energy and being a
• 36:42
  cornerstone of this country.
• 36:45
  I do think 100 percent that teachers need not only either more pay on the back end
• 36:51
  or less expenses on the front end, because that's a profession that a lot of people
• 36:57
  love to overlook as being extremely.
• 37:01
  Valuable to this nation because every one of us that has children, where
• 37:07
  do we put them right during the week?
• 37:09
  Who's spending time with them during the week?
• 37:10
  It's like teachers are
• 37:12
  Jeremy Hritz: And Jeremy can I add something
• 37:13
  jerremynewsome: Please.
• 37:15
  Jeremy Hritz: The impact of a great teacher on a child
• 37:20
  Robert Wallace: Priceless.
• 37:21
  Jeremy Hritz: It's priceless.
• 37:22
  And here's the thing.
• 37:23
  If you're putting shitty teachers, just to be candid, in front of kids,
• 37:29
  and I've seen them, they're out there, they exist, you're hurting kids.
• 37:34
  And not to go on a tangent to Promote teachers getting paid more, but
• 37:41
  great teachers don't want to teach anymore because it's financially,
• 37:45
  they can't provide for their families.
• 37:46
  And a lot of people will make the argument.
• 37:48
  It's only a 10 month, a year job.
• 37:51
  They have the summers off great teachers.
• 37:53
  The job doesn't stop at two 45 or three o'clock.
• 37:57
  Your great teachers are making connections with parents.
• 37:59
  They're calling home.
• 38:01
  They're making sure that they have food that they have a jacket.
• 38:05
  They're preparing materials.
• 38:07
  They're all in for these kids and those people are special and the
• 38:14
  impact that they can have on the life of a child and influencing the
• 38:19
  trajectory of their quality of life.
• 38:21
  You can't put a price tag on it.
• 38:23
  If you want to create the greatest country ever or the, our best state of
• 38:30
  existence ever, that's what it takes.
• 38:32
  jerremynewsome: Yep, it does.
• 38:33
  And that was a vision that I've had for a while.
• 38:35
  I think some of our previous episodes talk about how do we
• 38:37
  change the educational system.
• 38:39
  Changing the educational system really does look like putting the best teachers
• 38:43
  in front of the students the most.
• 38:45
  It doesn't matter if it's a blend of virtual and also definitely in person,
• 38:50
  but if you have, and I'm just going to pick a person that's taught me a lot,
• 38:53
  although I wouldn't specifically say he's a teacher, but let's just say Tony Robbins
• 38:56
  has the ability to be in front of 12, 000 people physically with another 20, 000
• 39:04
  people online over a week, just one week.
• 39:08
  giving them for 12 hours a day, extremely intense, very immersive learning
• 39:14
  experiences to help the individuals, the grown individuals, and also
• 39:18
  kids be aware of how to change their internal composition, how to change
• 39:23
  their physical and emotional states.
• 39:25
  But let's just imagine for you, Jeremy, again, I would
• 39:28
  call you an incredible teacher.
• 39:29
  Both you and I love teaching at our core and you've heard me
• 39:34
  say it a million times, right?
• 39:34
  If a high school history teacher can make 600, 000 a year, travel the
• 39:38
  world, live wherever they want to live and do whatever they want to do.
• 39:41
  And so important to the world, I'd probably be a high school
• 39:43
  history teacher right now.
• 39:45
  But to that point, There are certain his teachers like John Green who
• 39:49
  did just that, where he's like, all right I can't do this in person, so
• 39:53
  I'm going to create YouTube channels and pour in on a massive scale.
• 39:59
  So ironically, the answer to the question I asked earlier, which was
• 40:03
  like, how can we decrease some of the costs of some of these schools
• 40:05
  really would be get better teachers.
• 40:09
  Decrease the cost of the amount of teachers that we currently have, who
• 40:12
  are not amazing, who are not reaching certain standards, who are not pouring
• 40:16
  in their heart and soul into becoming an amazing teacher, and then take the
• 40:20
  ones who are just absolutely terrific and find ways to put them on a larger
• 40:24
  pedestal so they can impact and influence more case in point, Jordan Peterson,
• 40:29
  going from a teacher that no one knew about, except the people in class to now
• 40:34
  being able to impact millions of people every single month, what's your take on
• 40:39
  Jeremy Hritz: yeah, again, amplifying, bringing up your best
• 40:42
  teachers and putting your resources
• 40:45
  jerremynewsome: To support them.
• 40:46
  Yeah.
• 40:46
  Jeremy Hritz: support them.
• 40:47
  I think that makes so much sense.
• 40:49
  And just the flip side of that too, just to paint a just the other side here to
• 40:54
  consider is, For every great teacher that you have and not to focus on the
• 41:00
  negative, but you have your bad teachers who the good teachers look at and say,
• 41:05
  all right this person right at two 45, they're walking right out, out the door.
• 41:08
  They're not doing a damn thing in home.
• 41:09
  They're not calling home to the parents.
• 41:11
  They're not doing anything.
• 41:12
  And they're getting paid the same that I am.
• 41:14
  And if you're going to start doing things to reward your teachers who are
• 41:19
  succeeding at a high level, then you also have to take into account the teacher's
• 41:22
  unions who protect these shitheads.
• 41:25
  That's the other part of it.
• 41:27
  As we're talking about solving these problems that exist in public
• 41:30
  education, I know this is more, your high school, middle school,
• 41:33
  elementary, but you can do that.
• 41:36
  But there has to be something to that into account and
• 41:41
  overcome that obstacle as well.
• 41:44
  jerremynewsome: Rob, let's hear your take on that.
• 41:47
  Robert Wallace: I agree with what Rich said.
• 41:49
  I think that it is important that you be able to levelize, but that's
• 41:53
  the same across any industry.
• 41:54
  You got shitheads that are doctors.
• 41:56
  Some are good.
• 41:57
  Some are bad.
• 41:57
  You got the same thing.
• 41:58
  They're engineers, CEOs, you name it.
• 42:01
  So I think what you're saying though, is because the education piece is so critical
• 42:05
  to our success, we should put extra focus on making sure that we're pouring into our
• 42:09
  kids in a way that will build the country.
• 42:12
  One of the epiphanies or ideas I had as part of this conversation
• 42:16
  was, how do we flip it a little bit?
• 42:18
  Is there a world where we not only reduce the cost, But we also have some
• 42:23
  type of federal subsidy, maybe reduce tax bracket or tax taxable income for
• 42:27
  those to those who decide to be teachers or those who go in the fields that are
• 42:32
  more critical for our infrastructure.
• 42:33
  Maybe they get a, maybe they pay 10 percent versus the 38 percent
• 42:37
  or whatever that number is.
• 42:39
  So we can make up.
• 42:40
  The Delta, but not just maybe not increasing their salaries, but also
• 42:45
  reducing some of their debt or costs.
• 42:47
  And that's something we can control as a nation because the folks who make
• 42:50
  it more cool to pay into the bucket.
• 42:52
  Great.
• 42:52
  The folks who are making less, but are critical, we reduce
• 42:56
  their tax taxable income.
• 42:58
  So they pay less in taxes, which means they keep more money.
• 43:01
  And now we help stabilize the ship a little bit.
• 43:03
  That could be something that we can consider.
• 43:05
  jerremynewsome: it is, that's a, that's an interesting proposition
• 43:08
  because, one of my things that I love a flat tax system personally.
• 43:12
  I really do.
• 43:13
  I think it's like you, you gotta pay.
• 43:14
  And believe it or not, when I had a ginormous panel of entrepreneurs
• 43:19
  talking about America's debt.
• 43:20
  I proposed a flat tax and they're all like, yeah, it makes sense.
• 43:24
  Whereas like you, you can't not for the double negatives lovers of the world.
• 43:30
  You not do it.
• 43:31
  Like you have to pay, we all know as entrepreneurs, you have ways to skirt
• 43:35
  around the tax code with the IRS and buy depreciation and pay less taxes.
• 43:41
  No.
• 43:41
  You pay this amount as an individual, a corporation, an S corp, a SQL, you
• 43:46
  pay this amount of taxes, high five.
• 43:48
  Thanks for playing the game.
• 43:50
  And to your point, how awesome would it be as like, all right, if you are
• 43:54
  registered as a teacher, if that is your profession, if you list that as
• 43:59
  a. Your primary focus for income and for creation, you could pay less taxes.
• 44:04
  I think that's a really unique idea.
• 44:06
  I
• 44:08
  Jeremy Hritz: That comes back again to discussions about what we value
• 44:12
  because that has to be, everybody would have to be on board with that and
• 44:17
  agree with those greater principles so that it can then funnel down into the
• 44:22
  practicality component, the brass tacks.
• 44:26
  jerremynewsome: mean, it's, the big thing is also that the reason this
• 44:30
  is so important for my listeners is 85 percent of student loan borrowers.
• 44:37
  are delaying home ownership.
• 44:40
  So if you have this ginormous debt if you are a student loan situation, and
• 44:45
  that's something we can talk about now too, is how do we just essentially
• 44:50
  for those who have debt now, is there something that we should do?
• 44:52
  We know that Biden at least attempted to do something with it.
• 44:55
  Which was if you have student loan over a certain amount and over a certain
• 45:00
  age that everyone across the board got like a 10, 000 reduction, 85 percent
• 45:06
  of those who have student loans are simply not going to pay or buy a home.
• 45:13
  Now they're going to continue to rent and then random statistic, 33 percent
• 45:18
  of those who have student loan debt and we're also Hispanic, they delay marriage.
• 45:25
  And that same statistic, right?
• 45:27
  37 percent of Hispanic borrowers are also delaying having children.
• 45:31
  So if you can see this and that's just one one economic statistic where
• 45:36
  it's like the people that are in debt, you all know how much debt sucks.
• 45:42
  And the pressure and the stress that brings on, and then you know
• 45:46
  that you don't want to add to it.
• 45:48
  So then getting additional degrees decreases, and then getting married,
• 45:52
  having children decreases, and buying homes decrease because it's just debt on
• 45:55
  top of debt on top of debt on top of debt.
• 45:57
  Is there a world where the majority of college kids could graduate something
• 46:06
  without Any real debt, or can we make it where it is less targeted and less
• 46:16
  focused where you can potentially file bankruptcy if you have too much debt?
• 46:21
  Should that be a possibility?
• 46:24
  Should it be a possibility where The debt structure is created
• 46:27
  where it's not as egregious.
• 46:30
  It's not as amateur immortalized where it's really just
• 46:34
  battling against the end user.
• 46:36
  And there's so many things that we have to address and we have to really
• 46:38
  take up on here because ultimately.
• 46:40
  If we can start getting down to the real core issue, which is if you go
• 46:45
  to college, regardless of your current career, and you're getting a four year
• 46:49
  degree, the likelihood that you're going to go into debt is over 90%.
• 46:54
  And if you're going into debt, that's going to create a cause, a
• 46:57
  huge financial strain continually going forward in the future.
• 47:01
  And we can say that universities are experiencing more debt for or raising
• 47:06
  their prices for a large sum of Reasons.
• 47:09
  So I'm asked a systemic question, Robert, if every college went away in
• 47:15
  the nation right now, the major main colleges, if they just were closed and
• 47:19
  could no longer operate, where would the children go and what impact do
• 47:24
  you think would have on the nation?
• 47:26
  Robert Wallace: Great question.
• 47:27
  It's a great question.
• 47:28
  I think you would see a lot more homeschooling, right?
• 47:30
  So you'd have individuals where the parents, whatever sector they're in,
• 47:34
  they begin to pull more into their children to get them prepared either
• 47:37
  for that sector, because they know it.
• 47:39
  I still go back to the technical schools because you're always going
• 47:43
  to have infrastructure challenges, whether it be fixing your water
• 47:46
  heater, whether it be building a home, whether it be generating electricity.
• 47:50
  There's a whole, there's so many technical hands on pieces
• 47:53
  that would have to take place.
• 47:55
  But I think you would see a lot more homeschooling, man.
• 47:57
  It's like you, you would just like, for example, if you and your kids you'd be
• 48:01
  pouring into them on how to do trades, to invest in real estate, all the things
• 48:06
  that took you 20 years to learn, you would package it up and try and teach
• 48:09
  to them in four years or two years.
• 48:11
  And then give them the resources to actually go take advantage of
• 48:13
  it so they can build from there.
• 48:15
  And I think it would also make more families responsible for
• 48:18
  educating their kids, man.
• 48:20
  So we should do two things.
• 48:21
  One, make you think twice about having kids.
• 48:23
  To make sure there's something that you can do and you can invest in.
• 48:26
  But two, you're going to pick careers and or sectors that you
• 48:29
  know that your kids can have a sustainable life after you're gone.
• 48:33
  And so I think you would see both of those kind of shift across
• 48:35
  the country if that was the case.
• 48:37
  But that's a great question.
• 48:39
  jerremynewsome: Yeah, just an interesting one to pose.
• 48:41
  What's your thoughts, Ritz?
• 48:42
  Colleges go away tomorrow.
• 48:43
  What happens?
• 48:44
  Jeremy Hritz: So the first thing that jumped into my mind was YouTube.
• 48:47
  jerremynewsome: Yeah.
• 48:48
  Yeah.
• 48:49
  Jeremy Hritz: you can learn anything and everything on YouTube and, going along
• 48:55
  with what Rob said, the homeschooling, there would just be more ownership and
• 48:59
  responsibilities that families would have to take for their children, which
• 49:04
  there's going to be a family strain there.
• 49:08
  To take on that responsibility.
• 49:10
  Because that's not something that's part of the common practice.
• 49:13
  I think there would be some unintended consequences that we would have
• 49:17
  to manage that way, but yeah, just, Taking that responsibility.
• 49:24
  jerremynewsome: We would change the standard of the American families.
• 49:27
  That's for sure.
• 49:28
  Yep.
• 49:29
  Dave, I know you had a question.
• 49:31
  Dave Conley: All right, I want you to put on your like American
• 49:33
  taxpayer hat on a moment.
• 49:35
  Robert Wallace: Yeah, I'll put it on.
• 49:37
  jerremynewsome: There you go.
• 49:38
  Rob said that Rob has a hat now.
• 49:40
  Dave Conley: I don't think we'd even be having much of a question
• 49:43
  or much of a discussion here if college wasn't so expensive.
• 49:48
  We'd be like yeah, whatever.
• 49:50
  And in most countries, almost all of them, it's not that expensive.
• 49:55
  So the inflation of this thing, it's gone up 196 percent outpacing regular
• 50:02
  inflation in the last 20 years.
• 50:05
  Average cost for bachelors is 50k.
• 50:09
  a year.
• 50:11
  That means that there's plenty of degrees that are a lot more expensive than that.
• 50:16
  And that's just for bachelors.
• 50:17
  If you go for an advanced degree, look out.
• 50:20
  And then average debt for bachelors is 32K.
• 50:25
  So I think inflation is the question.
• 50:27
  And I think that comes from where inflation comes from, which is
• 50:32
  too much money in the system.
• 50:35
  This is coming from being able to get these huge loans.
• 50:41
  Like, why are we letting Anybody who's 18 years old to
• 50:47
  take out these enormous loans.
• 50:49
  The other place that this comes from is research grants from the government.
• 50:54
  So it seems to me that here are some two, two of the policy issues.
• 51:00
  One is.
• 51:02
  We can cancel all this debt that's already been floated and
• 51:06
  or we could cancel all loans and grants What would you say to that?
• 51:12
  Robert Wallace: Or we could also reduce or to your points, I call subsidy loans
• 51:18
  and grants that will help offset the cost.
• 51:20
  I'm going to correlate it to the solar industry is the industry.
• 51:23
  So what I've noticed is the more subsidy we have on the federal level,
• 51:28
  the higher the subsidy, the higher the price to construct goes up.
• 51:32
  The lower the subsidy, we had this magical way of figuring it out so that
• 51:37
  it works with the number that we had.
• 51:39
  And I think we could apply that same thing across the school loans.
• 51:42
  Like for them, if you know you're going to get the Pell Grant and other grants
• 51:46
  and your overall cost will shrink by, let's call it 7, 000 on average.
• 51:50
  I think the school will say, okay, we can charge 7, 000 more because we
• 51:54
  know we're going to get that piece.
• 51:55
  And then now we can still cover our costs.
• 51:57
  I've seen it in the solar industry where with the inflation Reduction Act and
• 52:03
  the ITC, if we can give a 50 percent tax credit, you would think that savings
• 52:07
  passes on to the end user, where we give them a 50 percent savings on energy cost.
• 52:12
  It doesn't.
• 52:13
  It just causes the price of construction to go up and development
• 52:16
  fees Profitability to go up, but that end value to the user is the
• 52:21
  same, even with all the subsidies.
• 52:23
  And so what I'm looking forward to in this new generation, starting
• 52:27
  January is stabilizing the market.
• 52:29
  I don't think we need all these subsidies.
• 52:31
  I think if you pull them back.
• 52:33
  It'll stabilize the cost, which means now you're paying for value.
• 52:36
  And I think that same thing can be applied to the education system, is
• 52:40
  that if it should create enough value where it can stand on its own two
• 52:43
  feet, not be as expensive as it is right now, but cover the cost, right?
• 52:47
  The cost of the cost.
• 52:49
  And I think that's something we could look at as a nation.
• 52:51
  Dave Conley: Oh, wait.
• 52:51
  Okay.
• 52:52
  Let's talk about this cost is the cost I get it But you know going up
• 52:56
  196 percent right having these things being like 50 50 50, 000 a year.
• 53:02
  That money is not going to professors.
• 53:05
  I know plenty of professors and they are in poverty.
• 53:08
  Harvard's endowment is 50 billion dollars.
• 53:12
  Why anybody is paying for tuition as Harvard is beyond me.
• 53:18
  So like
• 53:19
  jerremynewsome: It
• 53:19
  Jeremy Hritz: I throw it?
• 53:20
  Yeah.
• 53:20
  Robert Wallace: And I'm agreeing with you, Dave.
• 53:22
  When I say for clarity I'm saying exactly what you're saying is
• 53:24
  that, the cost is the hard cost.
• 53:26
  The cost should be the cost for the teachers, eight hours a day cost for
• 53:30
  the facility, electrical bill and the vendor facility and the cost of food.
• 53:35
  That's what I'm saying.
• 53:35
  So if you look at I'm agreeing with you and the cost should be the fixed
• 53:40
  actual cost to operate, not all the additional benefits of the subsidies
• 53:44
  Raise subsidy and then say, okay, now student pay more.
• 53:47
  I know you're getting 10 grand free.
• 53:49
  So I'm going to increase tuition by 10 grand.
• 53:51
  That's I'm so I'm agreeing with you.
• 53:52
  There's been a clarify that point.
• 53:53
  But
• 53:55
  Jeremy Hritz: so what about having controls and checks and balances in place?
• 53:58
  And what I mean by that is okay.
• 54:02
  50, 000 a year for a bachelor's degree, a hundred thousand dollars
• 54:05
  a year, whatever, over four years.
• 54:07
  Great.
• 54:07
  You can charge that.
• 54:09
  However, we want to see the return on investment for your graduate in
• 54:15
  the equivalent of this amount or percentage of what they are paying in.
• 54:19
  Okay.
• 54:20
  If that is not met, there is some sort of government control, some sort of
• 54:24
  sanction that penalizes that institution or university, because what accountability
• 54:29
  is there for these institutions of higher learning, their graduates are actually
• 54:35
  achieving or earning at the level of what the institution is earning at.
• 54:42
  Now that's a level of accountability.
• 54:43
  Would they be willing to put their money where their mouth is?
• 54:47
  Robert Wallace: you create I'm not going to call it segregation, but I'm going to
• 54:50
  call it back to what's a good investment.
• 54:52
  If I know I'm accountable for this person and their ability to create wealth after
• 54:57
  college, I'm going to start scrutinizing SATs more, PSATs more, your family
• 55:01
  pedigree, probably your credit score and see, okay, is this person like.
• 55:07
  Even if they get a degree, can I place them?
• 55:09
  We look at, we see this in the technical side in our SOAR training.
• 55:12
  We do a TAE test when they first come in and see if they
• 55:14
  understand basic math and English.
• 55:16
  Then we go through a one on one test to make sure that they are,
• 55:19
  the individual themselves can learn.
• 55:21
  Then we have them do a sample hands on piece to see, are you scared of heights?
• 55:25
  Can you use power tools?
• 55:26
  And to your point, it costs us 17, 000 per student to train them.
• 55:31
  But I know they're going to get out and make it 60, 000 a year if
• 55:34
  they can't complete the course.
• 55:36
  And so we spent a lot of time on the beginning side, weeding out.
• 55:40
  Those folks who may not cut it so that we can get that return on investment.
• 55:44
  And I think if we did that, the same thing would apply to colleges
• 55:47
  now, where you start looking at other factors to see if the person
• 55:50
  would be able to cover their end.
• 55:52
  Otherwise, there would be some costs.
• 55:55
  So I think it's a great idea.
• 55:56
  I'm just trying to think how you would.
• 55:58
  How you can roll that out and make sure it's apples to apples across the board.
• 56:02
  Do you know what I mean?
• 56:04
  jerremynewsome: Yeah, but it doesn't have to be apples.
• 56:05
  Apples don't necessarily, you can have certain colleges that are hard to get
• 56:07
  into that scrutinize their students more that make it more of a challenge,
• 56:11
  just any, anything else, right?
• 56:13
  Like you have the NBA and you have other leagues, you have professional baseball
• 56:16
  and you have minor league baseball.
• 56:18
  There, there can certainly be.
• 56:20
  Standards that are are more geared towards those that have
• 56:24
  better learning capacities, right?
• 56:28
  You said, you mentioned SATs and credit scores.
• 56:29
  I don't think that has to be terrifying.
• 56:31
  We don't have to be afraid of those that have the awareness Or the
• 56:36
  capacity or the mental bandwidth to score higher or to do better either.
• 56:41
  Robert Wallace: comes down to upbringing now.
• 56:42
  So if you didn't have access to good schools as a youth, cause you lived
• 56:45
  in a Baltimore city, now you have no shot at getting into a good school.
• 56:49
  And so I think if we want to take that approach, we have to take it all the
• 56:52
  way back to like sixth grade and kind of really rebuild those pieces to make
• 56:56
  sure that when they get to college level, they're ready to compete.
• 57:00
  jerremynewsome: Exactly.
• 57:01
  And back to my point, because the thing is, every single time every discussion
• 57:07
  that we have and that we will continue to have in solving America's problems, always
• 57:12
  is going to come back to better education.
• 57:14
  Better schools, better education.
• 57:16
  Like it always comes back to that.
• 57:18
  You said sixth grade, but that's middle school.
• 57:20
  Like how important is it for us as a nation?
• 57:23
  Rich, you mentioned value.
• 57:25
  Is it time for us to start valuing our children at the number one value system?
• 57:33
  Yes.
• 57:34
  Where I, yeah.
• 57:35
  So where I was like, that has to be, if that can become at some point,
• 57:38
  the forefront Or a campaign or for our awareness as a country where
• 57:43
  it's this is what we need to do.
• 57:45
  We need to change what we're being taught, who is teaching it, how it's being taught,
• 57:52
  where it's being taught making sure our schools are extremely safe and doing that.
• 57:57
  across the board, right?
• 57:58
  An inner city school in Baltimore, to your point, Rob, should have almost the
• 58:03
  exact same, if not even the same standard of a school in the suburbans of Atlanta
• 58:09
  or Nashville, Tennessee, because it's like the government and the local state
• 58:15
  cares so much that it's protected, that it's cared for, that it's provided for,
• 58:21
  that we spread out Awarenesses and wealth and help and teachers and infrastructure
• 58:30
  that makes it situationally easy.
• 58:33
  So that the best of the best can be in the schools that need it to be the best
• 58:36
  of the best and you have the best of the best in schools that have easier access
• 58:39
  as well because they have access to more wealth and more awareness at home.
• 58:45
  So yes, and yes, to your point, Rob, I totally agree.
• 58:47
  Quick question.
• 58:49
  I think this will be fun for their listeners who may be in
• 58:52
  financial debt or student loan debt at this exact moment in time.
• 58:56
  Dave Colling mentioned, should we just wipe it all away?
• 58:59
  I'm actually a huge advocate of no on that personally because I do believe
• 59:04
  that debt and income and wealth is second grade math repeated consistently.
• 59:09
  So we do have to sit down and learn how that this problem happens.
• 59:13
  And so just instead of.
• 59:14
  Fixing the problem because it's here.
• 59:16
  We changed the problem at the root core and that root core probably
• 59:20
  stems from the awareness of debt.
• 59:21
  So Jeremy, this is going to be a question that's going to be
• 59:23
  potentially directed towards just you.
• 59:27
  Tell me how much debt did you have and how the heck did you get out of it?
• 59:34
  150 grand.
• 59:35
  And trump, Biden, or Obama didn't wave a wand for you.
• 59:40
  How did you get out of that much debt?
• 59:42
  You got kids, bro.
• 59:43
  You got a wife.
• 59:44
  You got a house.
• 59:45
  Jeremy Hritz: yeah, there's this beautiful thing called the stock
• 59:48
  market it has blessed me abundantly and continues to bless me abundantly.
• 59:53
  And had it not been for that, my last year As high school principal, I made
• 59:58
  157, 000, which was a great salary.
• 1:00:01
  I thought it was great.
• 1:00:02
  And my goal superintendent, I'm going to make, 200, 250, 280, maybe max out
• 1:00:07
  at 300, but this other world that exists in trading and investing, those numbers.
• 1:00:15
  Don't scratch the surface of what is available.
• 1:00:18
  So the markets made it able for me to, take care of that.
• 1:00:24
  And then some, so
• 1:00:26
  jerremynewsome: But how though?
• 1:00:27
  How'd you do it?
• 1:00:28
  So there's a stock market okay.
• 1:00:30
  But how though?
• 1:00:30
  You just looked at it and made more
• 1:00:32
  Jeremy Hritz: No.
• 1:00:32
  Obviously you're part of that personal story with me and teaching me the
• 1:00:36
  ropes of how to trade the markets, but studying and learning and really giving.
• 1:00:42
  Giving myself an education outside of what I learned through courses, through
• 1:00:47
  coaching you and just studying and becoming obsessed with it and practicing
• 1:00:52
  back trading, paper trading, and being in the market and exposed to the risk,
• 1:00:58
  even though you can lose, you protect your downside, but when you have that
• 1:01:03
  opportunity sometimes you're going to have these incredible moments.
• 1:01:08
  And I had an incredible moment.
• 1:01:10
  I haven't, I had some this year, but none like this one where, you
• 1:01:13
  make a half a million dollars on a trade and life changes forever.
• 1:01:18
  jerremynewsome: Sure.
• 1:01:18
  So walk me through then the very, very first interaction that you have
• 1:01:21
  with the stock market as again this, for the listeners out there, this can
• 1:01:26
  be, should be, is a tool for you to understand wealth and understand money
• 1:01:33
  expansion in currency expansion, because the smartest people in the world.
• 1:01:38
  Still find the stock market mysterious.
• 1:01:40
  And that's what my professional was for 15 years.
• 1:01:43
  So what was the very first interaction that you had with the stock market?
• 1:01:47
  Rich, the very, very first one.
• 1:01:49
  What did it look like?
• 1:01:50
  Walk us through that picture.
• 1:01:51
  Jeremy Hritz: So was it, was this just buying a stock and just
• 1:01:55
  holding it or like actual trading?
• 1:01:57
  jerremynewsome: Either one.
• 1:01:58
  Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  Jeremy Hritz: school principal at the time.
• 1:02:08
  The reason why I left education was because as high school principal,
• 1:02:11
  you're working 60, 70 hours a week.
• 1:02:12
  You're gone at nights.
• 1:02:13
  I have three young kids.
• 1:02:14
  I wanted to prioritize my family.
• 1:02:16
  So something had to change.
• 1:02:18
  And so starting to learn trading, I had the the Robin Hood app on
• 1:02:23
  my phone, which is just a broker.
• 1:02:25
  I took a trade on Snapchat in my office as high school principal.
• 1:02:29
  I had a little bit of downtime.
• 1:02:30
  This was a day trade and I made 284 in five minutes.
• 1:02:36
  I saw this happen right on my phone, five minutes.
• 1:02:39
  And I made about 396 a day.
• 1:02:43
  When you break it down as principal, I called my wife.
• 1:02:45
  I said, I'm done.
• 1:02:47
  Like this is it.
• 1:02:48
  I, and I'm not, there's no way this is stupid.
• 1:02:52
  And so you just, you there's fear around the markets because everybody says
• 1:03:00
  that the market's going to go to zero.
• 1:03:01
  You can lose all your money.
• 1:03:02
  And that's true if you're an idiot and you're a gambler and
• 1:03:05
  you don't protect your risk.
• 1:03:07
  But what is available every single day, even on weekends, if you're a crypto
• 1:03:12
  trader, even on the, in the evenings, if you're a futures trader it's incredible,
• 1:03:18
  and so we need to, in talking about education, we need to make sure that our
• 1:03:23
  constituents, our population understands how this works, because there's enough.
• 1:03:29
  Out there for everyone.
• 1:03:30
  And then some and it truly is life changing.
• 1:03:34
  It
• 1:03:35
  jerremynewsome: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:36
  100 percent agree.
• 1:03:37
  So I'm gonna walk people through it, right?
• 1:03:38
  So Jeremy gets an app on a phone, which is free.
• 1:03:42
  It's called Robin hood.
• 1:03:44
  It's free application to cost 0.
• 1:03:47
  You download this application for 0.
• 1:03:49
  He's sitting there behind his principal desk and opens up Robin hood, transfers
• 1:03:55
  some cash that he had saved from his checking account in the Robin hood
• 1:04:00
  and places a trade on Robin hood.
• 1:04:03
  Guess how much that trade costs.
• 1:04:05
  0 and purchases a stock of a company that he knows uses and probably
• 1:04:11
  every single one of his students interacts with on a daily basis.
• 1:04:16
  So his whole job as principal is to get kids off of Snapchat.
• 1:04:20
  That was his job as a principal.
• 1:04:22
  So he goes, all right, why is everyone using this thing?
• 1:04:25
  If everyone's using it, what's the stock price probably going to do?
• 1:04:30
  Every single person that I'm teaching uses it.
• 1:04:32
  It's probably going to go higher.
• 1:04:33
  So he buys some Snapchat shares.
• 1:04:36
  The stock goes up a little bit that day, sells it, makes almost 300 bucks in that
• 1:04:40
  five minute trade, fascinating to see.
• 1:04:43
  But what the reason I want to bring that up is because every single
• 1:04:47
  person who's listening has the ability and has access to do that.
• 1:04:51
  It doesn't matter if you're black, brown, what skin color you got, or if
• 1:04:54
  you are a felon, if you have gotten out of prison, if you have gotten out
• 1:04:59
  of jail, the stock market does not care if you're a Jehovah's witness, a
• 1:05:03
  Catholic, a Protestant, or a Mormon.
• 1:05:05
  It is welcoming you with open arms to increase your wealth and
• 1:05:11
  or force you to study it because you can lose a bunch of money.
• 1:05:18
  I've done it.
• 1:05:19
  It has happened, but it's not because the market did something that I was
• 1:05:24
  unaware of it because I simply had not taken time or energy to truly
• 1:05:29
  study and understand the downsides, the upsides and the math behind it.
• 1:05:34
  So I know Dave has a question, but I want to share all that with you.
• 1:05:36
  Whereas after Jeremy starts interacting with.
• 1:05:40
  A free application.
• 1:05:41
  Every single person listening to this podcast can use to start
• 1:05:45
  with 12 and you start with 12 and take a trade, make a dollar a day.
• 1:05:51
  Obviously this doesn't change your economics at all, but what it does
• 1:05:55
  do is it starts telling your brain.
• 1:05:57
  Wait a minute me, I deserve to make more money.
• 1:06:01
  I deserve to be more wealthy.
• 1:06:02
  I just took money and made it bigger, pressing buttons and using
• 1:06:06
  my mind, thinking and growing rich.
• 1:06:09
  It starts to expand the opportunities of what's really available.
• 1:06:13
  So Dave, go ahead.
• 1:06:15
  Dave Conley: So what's working about college?
• 1:06:17
  We're pumping out Nobel prizes.
• 1:06:20
  We're creating an enormous amount of wealth in America.
• 1:06:24
  America is like the leader in global innovation.
• 1:06:28
  What's working?
• 1:06:30
  jerremynewsome: Start with Rob.
• 1:06:31
  Rob, what's working in college?
• 1:06:32
  You have brothers that are just absolutely crushing it.
• 1:06:36
  Robert Wallace: I think one of the biggest Pieces of them attending
• 1:06:40
  the schools they went to is the network of people they met, right?
• 1:06:44
  So beyond just the education they got, their circle of friends come from an
• 1:06:49
  influential group now who not only learn to think together, but also
• 1:06:53
  maintain relationships after school.
• 1:06:55
  And a lot of those deals and wealth they created was through those
• 1:06:58
  relationships after they got out.
• 1:07:00
  So beyond just learning how to think in school, the networking, That
• 1:07:05
  came through that school is now what's also helped sustain them.
• 1:07:08
  So I think that part is huge, right?
• 1:07:10
  Cause if you go to Stanford business school, you're probably going to be
• 1:07:13
  in a room with 20 something other CEOs who of which two are going to
• 1:07:17
  hit blockbusters of which you could get a small piece by just being in a
• 1:07:20
  room and investing at the right time.
• 1:07:22
  And a lot of those decisions happen in that room.
• 1:07:24
  So I do think that part is working.
• 1:07:26
  I also think.
• 1:07:28
  That that the educational pieces that we've seen across the country has helped
• 1:07:32
  stabilize, how we look at help equalize.
• 1:07:35
  I'm sorry.
• 1:07:35
  I should say a lot of the sexism and racism and other isms we see across the
• 1:07:39
  country I think education is the key to breaking a lot of those things Because
• 1:07:44
  creating wealth whether it be education through Whether it be through trading,
• 1:07:48
  it helps stabilize a lot of those things.
• 1:07:50
  So I think those pieces are working.
• 1:07:52
  jerremynewsome: Which brings me back to, I said, Tony Robbins earlier,
• 1:07:55
  he taught me something a long time ago that proximity is power and
• 1:07:59
  your network is your net worth.
• 1:08:01
  So if you're bringing amazing men and women together and a a close or close
• 1:08:07
  facility, AKA a classroom, a lunch room, and you are in Stanford, you're
• 1:08:14
  in UCLA, you were in university of Florida, you're in Miami Dade, you're
• 1:08:18
  in these places where information.
• 1:08:22
  Innovation is brewing.
• 1:08:23
  What Dave mentioned earlier, the technology that is being created inside
• 1:08:30
  our college systems through these think tanks, through these masterminds,
• 1:08:35
  through these student led unions.
• 1:08:37
  We're talking DoorDash, right?
• 1:08:40
  We're talking Uber Eats, we're talking Uber, Airbnb.
• 1:08:43
  There's a lot of these companies that get spurred off by individuals
• 1:08:47
  being together, building something, creating something, open table.
• 1:08:52
  It's a large list.
• 1:08:54
  That has become innovated companies that have been created
• 1:08:57
  ideas that have been created.
• 1:09:00
  What's working in college, Ritz?
• 1:09:01
  You
• 1:09:03
  Jeremy Hritz: So I would have to agree with Rob, just the networking
• 1:09:06
  the social component the alumni groups, as a Penn state graduate,
• 1:09:10
  I know that's massive in terms of, graduates taking advantage of that.
• 1:09:15
  I also think there is.
• 1:09:18
  A component of soft skills that are developed during that time,
• 1:09:22
  because in high school, you're following a bell schedule.
• 1:09:26
  You have adults guiding you along the way, whereas in college, you
• 1:09:29
  become really, it's your first taste of true responsibility where.
• 1:09:33
  You have to manage yourself.
• 1:09:35
  Do you have to manage your time?
• 1:09:36
  You have to manage your schedule.
• 1:09:38
  You can't go getting sloshed on a Tuesday night and then wake up
• 1:09:40
  and take an exam the next day.
• 1:09:42
  Although that's debatable, right?
• 1:09:45
  Robert Wallace: You can,
• 1:09:46
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 1:09:46
  You can't, you
• 1:09:47
  jerremynewsome: laughed.
• 1:09:48
  All four of us laugh because all four of us did that.
• 1:09:51
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 1:09:53
  So I think there's an element of that.
• 1:09:55
  And then I think as well, just the social element where you're
• 1:09:58
  bringing young people together that are similar stages of their lives.
• 1:10:02
  They're learning how to interact relationships with each other.
• 1:10:06
  So I think there's power and benefit of that, but I think what you're
• 1:10:10
  seeing here, the one thing that's absent from all the benefits that we
• 1:10:14
  talked about is the true learning.
• 1:10:16
  The more learning that we're talking about here is more social or the
• 1:10:22
  altruistic, communal components.
• 1:10:24
  It's not so much the academics, really calls into question.
• 1:10:30
  It's an outdated system.
• 1:10:31
  It needs updated.
• 1:10:32
  It's almost obsolete.
• 1:10:35
  jerremynewsome: Cause you're, you bring me back in Ritz, you bring me
• 1:10:37
  back in with a statement like that, because then I would just simply say,
• 1:10:41
  can we create our own units like that?
• 1:10:44
  Can we create our own systems and our own groups and our own masterminds and
• 1:10:48
  our own think tanks, totally outside of college, where you start building
• 1:10:53
  companies, corporations, ideas.
• 1:10:55
  opportunities without college, right?
• 1:10:59
  Because again, is it really the ultimate academics?
• 1:11:02
  Wow, Professor Jones taught me this thing that I had no idea.
• 1:11:05
  And I took that thing and then made more money with it or grew my net worth
• 1:11:09
  with it or help my family with it.
• 1:11:11
  Or was it Oh man, Professor Jones is really cool.
• 1:11:14
  And he introduced me to Stephanie and I ended up creating this really awesome
• 1:11:18
  web application because she taught me how to go on YouTube and study and research.
• 1:11:25
  It is, man, it is a little bit of an outdated system because YouTube
• 1:11:29
  University is a very real thing.
• 1:11:31
  Jordan Peterson, who taught at Harvard, who taught at Toronto College.
• 1:11:37
  Is building and has built his own online college for the academics for the people
• 1:11:42
  who want to learn But he also puts together these groups and these small
• 1:11:45
  mentorships and these masterminds so that people can do just that Where education
• 1:11:50
  can be free And experiences can cost money
• 1:11:55
  Jeremy Hritz: I think education for whatever reason
• 1:11:59
  is very resistant to change.
• 1:12:02
  Especially at the K through 12 level.
• 1:12:05
  I'm sure it's probably just the same at the collegiate level, but they're
• 1:12:10
  the old heads that are protecting the cannon and don't want to let go.
• 1:12:17
  And I think COVID forced some of that innovation to occur and
• 1:12:22
  to, really, we learned that.
• 1:12:24
  It wasn't perfect, right?
• 1:12:26
  I saw some of the after effects of that in our students, but
• 1:12:30
  you can make, you can change it.
• 1:12:33
  It just, there has to be a collective agreement that, hey, it's time.
• 1:12:38
  jerremynewsome: Come on.
• 1:12:39
  Jeremy Hritz: We've got to break it down.
• 1:12:40
  It, that's what has to happen.
• 1:12:43
  jerremynewsome: Dave, help our listeners and myself put on a tinfoil hat.
• 1:12:47
  Dave Conley: I never take mine off.
• 1:12:48
  jerremynewsome: Is this whole thing systemic?
• 1:12:51
  Is it starting from some place?
• 1:12:53
  Some family, some corporation that's really trying to keep the populace
• 1:13:00
  dumb broke and working for a living.
• 1:13:03
  Dave Conley: No I think it's been tradition.
• 1:13:04
  We started this conversation with it was the pathway.
• 1:13:08
  for prosperity.
• 1:13:09
  And that was true for my my, not quite my dad's generation.
• 1:13:13
  They were just talking about that, that he was a bit older.
• 1:13:15
  So it was my mother.
• 1:13:16
  So almost no one got college degrees.
• 1:13:19
  And then it was like, okay, now if you get a college degree, you are guaranteed
• 1:13:24
  a solid middle class, upper middle class, And then that went away because
• 1:13:30
  with so much money in the system, so many options, so many different things,
• 1:13:36
  not a lot of guidance, I think, on, where people can spend their time and
• 1:13:41
  their money and also devaluing other options Going and doing gap years, or
• 1:13:47
  going into the military, or going into service or trade schools, or all of the
• 1:13:52
  other options, and then elevating those.
• 1:13:54
  I think we've created a laptop class, which has some
• 1:13:58
  value, but not all the value.
• 1:14:00
  I think this is just.
• 1:14:02
  This was grown from a lot of different things that said this
• 1:14:06
  is the American dream and that was being sold really a bill of goods.
• 1:14:11
  It's not true today.
• 1:14:12
  And so we have to redefine what this America dream is.
• 1:14:16
  jerremynewsome: Gotta redefine it.
• 1:14:17
  Robert, where do you think that red redefinition, where does it begin?
• 1:14:22
  Robert Wallace: Think it begins in the homes.
• 1:14:25
  But I also think it begins with the opportunities we got to look at where
• 1:14:29
  we're where this opportunity for growth in this country and where the country
• 1:14:33
  is going so we can begin to prepare the next generation of folks for that.
• 1:14:37
  And I think if we streamline that process and which means educating folks at a young
• 1:14:42
  age in terms of what the opportunities on where they can go, I think we can fix it.
• 1:14:46
  But going back to your first comment, one of your comments, Jay, is it
• 1:14:50
  starts like when they're elementary school, like middle school, it
• 1:14:53
  doesn't start like in high school.
• 1:14:56
  And so we're really going to have to cut the pipe, cut the hose,
• 1:14:59
  tie a knot in it for those folks who like, I'm going to say nice.
• 1:15:02
  We're going to be on there.
• 1:15:02
  All right.
• 1:15:02
  Sorry, too late.
• 1:15:04
  And then you're going to have to go all the way back down and begin to rebuild
• 1:15:06
  that process starting at elementary school, and it's a painful process.
• 1:15:10
  And so we may not see the benefits of it right now, but I think if we
• 1:15:14
  can begin to right the ship now, 10, 15, 20 years from now, the
• 1:15:18
  conversation is totally different.
• 1:15:20
  At that point,
• 1:15:22
  jerremynewsome: love that.
• 1:15:23
  Alright, then, since we're still listening to your perfect voice,
• 1:15:26
  Robert, what's one lesson that you would want a high school senior?
• 1:15:31
  Which you have one or approaching, right?
• 1:15:35
  What's one lesson you would want a high school senior or their parents
• 1:15:38
  to take from this conversation?
• 1:15:40
  Robert Wallace: think it's so important to look at both sides of the coin.
• 1:15:44
  There's a certain sector that says education is key, but you have to do
• 1:15:49
  a real assessment of your student.
• 1:15:52
  And their strengths and see what's the best path for them.
• 1:15:56
  And I think that changes per person per household because what's good
• 1:16:00
  for my son Zion, for example, who's interlocking art boarding school.
• 1:16:05
  He wants to go into theater, totally different sector.
• 1:16:08
  When I was young, that wasn't an option to go to theater.
• 1:16:11
  My parents said, you're going to be an engineer or you're
• 1:16:12
  not going to do anything.
• 1:16:14
  And so giving him that flexibility is totally different
• 1:16:16
  than where we were back then.
• 1:16:18
  But back to your point, Jay, two things, two words of advice, one,
• 1:16:22
  and this is, I don't want to take it too spiritual, but as a parent,
• 1:16:25
  what your kids dreams are, right?
• 1:16:27
  And each child has a purpose.
• 1:16:29
  God given purpose as opposed to achieving their lives.
• 1:16:31
  It's our responsibility as parents to help prepare them for whatever that purpose is.
• 1:16:36
  The challenge is that the kids don't see it yet.
• 1:16:39
  The parents may know what it is, but the kids that, that, that
• 1:16:42
  relaying that mission is challenging.
• 1:16:45
  So as a student, I would say, listen to your parents.
• 1:16:48
  They're trying to help and guide you.
• 1:16:50
  They see things differently than you see at the moment.
• 1:16:52
  And as a parent, I would say, it's our responsibility to do the research,
• 1:16:57
  And where the future is 10, 20 years from now, so that our child's prepared
• 1:17:01
  to take full advantage of that when they get out of school, otherwise
• 1:17:04
  we'll set them up for failure.
• 1:17:05
  And so I, that would be my advice to both the student and the parent.
• 1:17:16
  Dave Conley: I'm going to guess that would cost somewhere between half a million and
• 1:17:20
  three quarters of a million, maybe even a million dollars to get all of those.
• 1:17:25
  I heard you guys say, Hey, the benefit.
• 1:17:28
  Benefits have been networking, changing minds, soft skills, some opportunities.
• 1:17:35
  So would you do this again?
• 1:17:36
  Would you go back and do all those degrees?
• 1:17:39
  jerremynewsome: Not me.
• 1:17:40
  I only have one.
• 1:17:40
  From a degree point, I'm the bottom, I'm the lowest tiered person here.
• 1:17:46
  I wouldn't know.
• 1:17:47
  I think college was an absolute waste of my time.
• 1:17:50
  And the thing that it gave me was a direction of what not to do.
• 1:17:54
  I didn't really meet anyone in my college that I currently talk to these days.
• 1:17:58
  I had no professors that were incredible that I still communicate
• 1:18:01
  with that changed my life.
• 1:18:02
  I think overall, it gave me more to do, aka probably kept me out of a little
• 1:18:09
  bit more, less trouble, but not really.
• 1:18:12
  I still try to find my way into plenty of trouble.
• 1:18:15
  And again, for me, college, personally, that's the reason that I want to continue.
• 1:18:21
  To do this where I'm focused so heavily on changing the educational system because
• 1:18:25
  I think the educational system failed me.
• 1:18:26
  Meaning how far along would I be?
• 1:18:29
  How much would I know?
• 1:18:29
  How much could I have poured into the world and even a bigger capacity
• 1:18:34
  if I had known and had been taught what I got taught in my late
• 1:18:39
  twenties by mentors, by books, and by online motivational personalities.
• 1:18:44
  Versus college professors, school professors, high school,
• 1:18:47
  high school teachers, education system failed me dramatically.
• 1:18:51
  And to the point of, I had to do most of it myself.
• 1:18:53
  And I had to do a lot of it where, when I got out, I didn't know what I did.
• 1:18:57
  I didn't know what I took.
• 1:18:58
  I didn't know why I took it.
• 1:18:59
  I didn't know the point of it.
• 1:18:59
  I didn't know the value of it.
• 1:19:00
  In fact, I actually went to my boss at the time.
• 1:19:03
  His name was Tom.
• 1:19:05
  After I graduated, I was like, bro, I got my degree.
• 1:19:08
  He was like, cool, congrats.
• 1:19:09
  And pat me on the shoulder and started walking away.
• 1:19:12
  And I was like hold on.
• 1:19:13
  Do we have a meeting about this now?
• 1:19:15
  At what point do I get a raise?
• 1:19:17
  And he literally laughed in my face.
• 1:19:20
  He laughed, he was like, what are you talking about?
• 1:19:23
  I just got a business degree and I was working at Nationwide Insurance
• 1:19:27
  and I did not get a pay raise.
• 1:19:29
  Again, this is not a slap to Nationwide, it's a slap to degrees
• 1:19:33
  are relatively worthless, I think.
• 1:19:36
  And this is a made up statistic, totally off my head, has no
• 1:19:39
  relevancy and no research.
• 1:19:41
  87 percent of all degrees are worthless and you can probably get everything
• 1:19:45
  that you need on line through YouTube University, through networking, through
• 1:19:50
  books, through mentorships, without ever paying a single dime for college.
• 1:19:54
  Ritz, what's your thanks?
• 1:19:55
  Would you do this again?
• 1:19:56
  Jeremy Hritz: So I, I gotta say the past is the path and I wouldn't change
• 1:20:01
  anything cause I'm here today and who's to say, had I not done that, I wouldn't
• 1:20:06
  have met the people who were in my life.
• 1:20:08
  I wouldn't have met.
• 1:20:08
  You wouldn't have, interacted with the markets.
• 1:20:12
  However, I will say that had I had a some insight into what my
• 1:20:18
  future was and what was coming.
• 1:20:20
  Hell no.
• 1:20:21
  I know because it was expensive and honestly, I'm not using, I'm not using my
• 1:20:27
  degrees now the soft skills the leadership elements of that the organization.
• 1:20:33
  Yeah.
• 1:20:33
  But yeah I'm a trader and investor.
• 1:20:37
  I'm not, supervising and evaluating teachers.
• 1:20:39
  I'm not so I'm giving, I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth here.
• 1:20:43
  Yes.
• 1:20:44
  No.
• 1:20:45
  jerremynewsome: Yes.
• 1:20:46
  I love that quote.
• 1:20:47
  Actually.
• 1:20:47
  I think it's amazing.
• 1:20:48
  The path, the past is the path.
• 1:20:51
  And I regret nothing.
• 1:20:52
  I'm just to that point.
• 1:20:53
  Wouldn't do it again.
• 1:20:53
  Knowing what I know.
• 1:20:54
  And me having kids, me having three boys presently where it's I'm not going
• 1:20:58
  to have them go to college at all.
• 1:21:00
  In fact, I'll do everything I can to not get them to go to college trade schools.
• 1:21:04
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:21:04
  High five.
• 1:21:05
  Totally.
• 1:21:06
  Jeremy Hritz: And if I could do it all over again, I would be, I'd be
• 1:21:09
  studying the markets at 12 years old or 10 years old, eight years old.
• 1:21:12
  And that's it be like rain man.
• 1:21:15
  When I look at a
• 1:21:16
  jerremynewsome: yes, dude, before I go, before we go to Rob Jeremy, is
• 1:21:20
  there a point in your life financially where you go, all right, I got the
• 1:21:25
  money now, let me go back into the school system and figure out a way
• 1:21:30
  to change this from the inside out.
• 1:21:32
  Jeremy Hritz: Yeah.
• 1:21:33
  I think that's one thing that's, Probably missing right now because that
• 1:21:38
  was such a huge part of what I did.
• 1:21:40
  It was helping kids and families and I do it a little bit now through
• 1:21:43
  trading, teaching people how to trade.
• 1:21:45
  But yeah that, that will happen at some point.
• 1:21:49
  Cause I want to be a part of changing how we teach kids and the
• 1:21:55
  opportunities that we give kids.
• 1:21:58
  So that'll definitely be something that I will do.
• 1:22:03
  jerremynewsome: Love it.
• 1:22:04
  Love it.
• 1:22:04
  Rob, we know that you love college.
• 1:22:06
  Would you do it again?
• 1:22:07
  Robert Wallace: I'm sitting here and thinking, I remember my, one of my two
• 1:22:10
  main reasons for going to school was number one, to get away from my parents.
• 1:22:14
  And so I don't care where I was going.
• 1:22:16
  I went and got the house.
• 1:22:17
  So that was cool.
• 1:22:19
  And I think Jeremy, it matters for me.
• 1:22:21
  If you were to ask me if I would, was 18 now, would I go?
• 1:22:27
  No, because like to your point, everything is online.
• 1:22:30
  Everything is, you have access to things.
• 1:22:33
  You have access to resources, but totally different though, than when it was.
• 1:22:37
  46 now.
• 1:22:38
  So 28 years ago, when internet was not in the place where it is now,
• 1:22:42
  you didn't have access to as much.
• 1:22:44
  And the only thing you saw was what was in your, at your community.
• 1:22:49
  I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, right?
• 1:22:50
  The most diverse.
• 1:22:51
  County, probably in the world or in the country.
• 1:22:54
  And so my friends were Asian black, they called their mom, and so on and so forth.
• 1:22:57
  I didn't really give an idea of culture and of the country until
• 1:23:00
  I went to Virginia tech, which is totally different background and
• 1:23:03
  total segregation around that piece.
• 1:23:06
  And if I look at the experiences I had, It really did prepare me for the real world.
• 1:23:12
  And I don't, I think if I did not have that and stayed at home, especially if
• 1:23:17
  my parents weren't investing in me, like we're talking about doing in terms of the
• 1:23:21
  training and mentorship, it would have been really challenging for me to hit
• 1:23:24
  the real world and be taken seriously.
• 1:23:27
  The second thing that came out of it was, but this is all from
• 1:23:29
  a position of no debt, right?
• 1:23:30
  So I came out of no debt, which is like, why would you not go?
• 1:23:32
  It's a party.
• 1:23:33
  You learn it's everything's paid for.
• 1:23:35
  It's great.
• 1:23:35
  It's great.
• 1:23:35
  The other piece, though, was that if I look back over my life, there
• 1:23:39
  were a lot of doors that were opened.
• 1:23:41
  Because of my background and because that door was opened, I was able to get
• 1:23:46
  in and then show that, yes, I am sharp.
• 1:23:48
  I am smart.
• 1:23:49
  So on and so forth.
• 1:23:50
  And I'm not sure what those same doors would have opened.
• 1:23:52
  If I say I'm a electrical engineer from Virginia tech, there's a certain
• 1:23:55
  amount of access you get just from completing that process, right?
• 1:24:00
  And so my job interview for my first job, we didn't even talk about.
• 1:24:05
  We talked about parties, because he was a Virginia Tech alumni.
• 1:24:08
  He stayed in the same dorm Niall stayed in.
• 1:24:10
  We talked about the throwing the Coke machine down the elevator shaft,
• 1:24:13
  which everyone does every year.
• 1:24:14
  And that was my interview, which got me into Northrop Grumman.
• 1:24:17
  And if you were to pull those experiences out, would I be where I am now?
• 1:24:22
  Probably not.
• 1:24:23
  Was it worth it?
• 1:24:24
  It was worth it for me, because it didn't cost me anything.
• 1:24:26
  But would it be worth it for someone back then?
• 1:24:29
  I don't know, man.
• 1:24:29
  It went a long way for me.
• 1:24:31
  Even getting my first loans, my first business.
• 1:24:33
  They say what's your occupation?
• 1:24:35
  Electrical engineer.
• 1:24:35
  Oh worst case, you'll make 150, 000 a year for the rest of your life.
• 1:24:38
  We'll give you this 100, 000 loan to start your first business.
• 1:24:42
  Versus if I said I was a psychologist, they might have said,
• 1:24:45
  no, we're not giving you this loan.
• 1:24:46
  And so how much did that actually played into where I am now?
• 1:24:49
  I don't know, but it did give me some access and through some doors
• 1:24:52
  that I don't think I would have been able to get through without it.
• 1:24:55
  jerremynewsome: Yeah valid.
• 1:24:56
  And again, I think over time that can or might or could shift depending
• 1:25:01
  on what, again, the country's value.
• 1:25:04
  Because at the same level, if you said, Hey, I created a startup incubator,
• 1:25:07
  never went to college and I got 4 million asset under management to
• 1:25:10
  go ahead and build an energy fund.
• 1:25:13
  Do you still get in the door?
• 1:25:15
  Robert Wallace: Correct.
• 1:25:15
  jerremynewsome: the answer is probably maybe not.
• 1:25:17
  And again, it's absolutely going to change who you connect with and
• 1:25:20
  how you connect with them for sure.
• 1:25:21
  And what you talk about, you're absolutely right.
• 1:25:22
  But it's going to be like the value system of if you go into
• 1:25:26
  any job interview now, could you look, could you be looked at more?
• 1:25:30
  If you go, Hey, I built on, I built an online community.
• 1:25:33
  I have 25, 000 followers on XYZ platform.
• 1:25:37
  I have three or four online businesses I've launched that
• 1:25:41
  have each done a million dollars.
• 1:25:42
  I want to come into this organization and do the same at a bigger scale, right?
• 1:25:46
  That's on the job training, essentially, maybe not on the job training, but it's
• 1:25:50
  a example that you've already done the work that you've done the building.
• 1:25:53
  Cause that's really, and I own a business, you own a business, Jeremy
• 1:25:57
  owns a business, Dave owns a business.
• 1:25:58
  We all know businesses.
• 1:26:00
  When we are hiring people, that's what we want to see is have
• 1:26:04
  you gotten kicked in the face.
• 1:26:06
  through some adversity and did you quit and cry about it?
• 1:26:10
  Or did you say, I'm going to figure this
• 1:26:12
  Robert Wallace: threw it.
• 1:26:13
  jerremynewsome: And did you work on completing the task that was
• 1:26:17
  given to you no matter the obstacle?
• 1:26:19
  And that's really what employers are looking for.
• 1:26:22
  Dave, You have to do it all over again.
• 1:26:25
  Go back through college.
• 1:26:26
  Everything you had was worth it.
• 1:26:27
  Would you do
• 1:26:30
  Dave Conley: answers.
• 1:26:31
  I would have gone, I got into a good, a really good state school.
• 1:26:35
  And like Robert, I just needed to get away from my parents.
• 1:26:38
  I needed to get off the East Coast.
• 1:26:40
  He grew up in Columbia.
• 1:26:41
  I grew up in Falls Church.
• 1:26:42
  I gotta, I know, I just had to get out of the Washington DC bubble for sure.
• 1:26:48
  But saying that I got into a good state school, I was really immature.
• 1:26:51
  And I was coming from a really small all boys school and being dropped
• 1:26:59
  into one of the largest schools on the planet and known party school.
• 1:27:05
  No matter how good that school was, I lost my mind.
• 1:27:09
  And so I would have applied to a really good school.
• 1:27:15
  Like a really top tier school to get that networking and to get that world
• 1:27:21
  and to be around those folks and really explore in a much more structured
• 1:27:26
  way, maybe a smaller school or just a really high end Ivy League school.
• 1:27:31
  And if I couldn't get into those to get that maturity that I needed, it
• 1:27:37
  would have been a couple of gap years or a gap year or going into service or
• 1:27:43
  getting an internship or getting a job with the knowledge that I would learn
• 1:27:47
  something there and proceed from there.
• 1:27:50
  I'd either go back and go get a degree a little bit later, and military
• 1:27:54
  would have been really good for me.
• 1:27:55
  It would have given me a lot of discipline.
• 1:27:57
  So I, it would have been.
• 1:27:58
  Go to the best and best school I could get into and a high end
• 1:28:02
  school or a couple of gap years and then figure it out from there.
• 1:28:06
  jerremynewsome: Yeah, I'll take squad listeners from all around the world.
• 1:28:13
  Thank you so much for being a part of solving America's problems.
• 1:28:17
  Is college truly worth it?
• 1:28:20
  The answer here in this podcast is probably not, but there'll be
• 1:28:27
  certain situations where it could be.
• 1:28:29
  But what is beautiful is when this country gets together as a consensus and we
• 1:28:34
  start realizing that our number one value in this country needs to be education,
• 1:28:39
  it needs to be safety of our children.
• 1:28:41
  It needs to be the expansion and the beauty and the grace and the
• 1:28:45
  spirituality and the abundance of.
• 1:28:49
  our family unit intertwined in through our colleges and through our schools
• 1:28:54
  and then through the educational system.
• 1:28:56
  We start making the changes there.
• 1:28:58
  We all know that the ripple effects will be monumental.
• 1:29:01
  Robert Wallace, Jeremy Ritz.
• 1:29:02
  Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 1:29:05
  On this episode of solving America's problems.
• 1:29:08
  Robert Wallace: Appreciate it.
• 1:29:09
  Thank you.
• 1:29:10
  Jeremy Hritz: Thanks, Dave.
• 1:29:11
  Thanks, Jeremy.
• 1:29:12
  jerremynewsome: All right, Dave, man, two remarkable American citizens who
• 1:29:17
  have gone through the educational system in out backwards through it and
• 1:29:22
  sideways, what did you learn in this episode of solving America's problems?
• 1:29:28
  Dave Conley: I think okay, one, this is not to be king of the obvious,
• 1:29:31
  but this is a clear problem, right?
• 1:29:33
  Nobody's standing up and saying, hey, this is working great.
• 1:29:37
  For our students and for America, and it's, I don't think it's failing
• 1:29:40
  because there's a lot of benefits to, how people get into the workplace,
• 1:29:44
  how people get through college and it's not working real well.
• 1:29:49
  The other thing I learned is college absolutely doesn't work.
• 1:29:52
  Does matter.
• 1:29:53
  College degrees matter.
• 1:29:55
  And as long as they're at the right schools, as long as it's the right
• 1:30:00
  degrees, and then outside of that you're taking a much bigger gamble.
• 1:30:04
  And what we're not doing as a society, as Americans we're not, There are a lot
• 1:30:11
  of other paths, and we are not elevating those, either in our consciousness
• 1:30:17
  we're not elevating them as far as prestige goes, and value goes, and there
• 1:30:23
  are so many other paths, other than going to a college degree, or going
• 1:30:27
  to get a college degree right away.
• 1:30:29
  that are critical, and that, I think is, that's where the rubber hits the road.
• 1:30:35
  What about you?
• 1:30:37
  jerremynewsome: Man.
• 1:30:37
  One of my takeaways is that.
• 1:30:39
  There's obviously really unique and different perspectives from a
• 1:30:43
  race standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a family household
• 1:30:47
  standpoint, there's obviously going to be a lot of things to consider.
• 1:30:51
  But one of the points that I really loved the most is.
• 1:30:56
  That it is changeable and that every single person that we bring this up
• 1:31:01
  to your point, they are aware of this.
• 1:31:02
  Yeah, it's not going awesome.
• 1:31:04
  And there's definitely some type of radical change that needs to happen.
• 1:31:08
  Both of our guests really elaborate to the fact that.
• 1:31:11
  Yeah, it's not perfect.
• 1:31:12
  And it's probably far from perfect.
• 1:31:14
  And to speak on that for just a moment, like numerically, the average federal
• 1:31:19
  loan debt per borrower is 37, 853.
• 1:31:25
  The total average loan debt, including private loans is just north of 40, 000.
• 1:31:31
  Student loan debt has grown by 52 percent since 2013, and then 16
• 1:31:37
  percent of the American adults have outstanding undergraduate student debt.
• 1:31:42
  16%! Dude, that's really high.
• 1:31:46
  And then factoring in the tuition and fees have increased 192
• 1:31:50
  percent faster than inflation.
• 1:31:52
  So there has to be some issue there.
• 1:31:55
  And then the fact that you bring up the general populace of this
• 1:31:59
  country and you ask a college student, are you using your degree?
• 1:32:04
  83 percent say no.
• 1:32:06
  And that is probably pretty astronomical too.
• 1:32:09
  So you're going to college, you're paying for college, you're getting a degree.
• 1:32:13
  And you still don't use it in the job force and it's not necessary.
• 1:32:17
  I shared my own personal example of that too.
• 1:32:19
  And then ultimately having the awareness, having the notion that there needs
• 1:32:27
  to be some level of distinction or separation of who gets the money.
• 1:32:33
  Who gets scholarships having both Robert and Jeremy be like, yeah, I think
• 1:32:38
  that's a unique perspective, right?
• 1:32:39
  Being able to assist them systematize or create some level of industries or
• 1:32:45
  sectors of our job force that should get a reprieve from student loans.
• 1:32:51
  or that should at least get some type of lesser impact on the front
• 1:32:55
  or the back end was was a point and was a policy that was pretty widely
• 1:33:00
  accepted in our conversation as well.
• 1:33:02
  So what I'm learning is that it's an incredible opportunity right now to
• 1:33:07
  get a groundswell of people to come together and go, all right, it all is
• 1:33:12
  going to stem to education once again.
• 1:33:16
  And this is a component of education.
• 1:33:19
  It is something that we can broadly bring to the forefront
• 1:33:23
  that, Hey, this is a problem.
• 1:33:25
  Hey, we can make a change.
• 1:33:27
  Yes, we are having some success, but that's very similar to, in my
• 1:33:33
  opinion having a U. S. basketball team after they win a series say
• 1:33:39
  that they're world champions.
• 1:33:41
  When they beat everyone in the U. S. It's are we competing with ourselves?
• 1:33:46
  And it's I feel like we are.
• 1:33:47
  And because if we start comparing ourselves to other countries, we are
• 1:33:52
  losing in 96 percent of every, in any category that we would deem beneficial.
• 1:33:59
  So to that point, and to your point that you said, there's a
• 1:34:02
  lot of countries that are far less expensive than the U. S. And that are
• 1:34:07
  getting potentially better results.
• 1:34:09
  So it is a problem.
• 1:34:11
  That's what I've learned.
• 1:34:12
  I've learned that we are on the right track to solving it.
• 1:34:15
  We are bringing on amazing guests.
• 1:34:16
  We have incredible guests coming forward and putting their names down
• 1:34:20
  to be on this podcast so that they too can begin to solve America's problems.