Julian Dorey Podcast - #3 - College Part 3: WHAT HAPPENED

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

SOLO POD - Consider this discussion a reckoning for the college system. Despite the astronomical costs and sickening student debt—schools and universities, continue to enroll millions of new students every year. But even though the student population has remained consistent, the underlying anger at a system that’s failed far too many is growing.   To close off our 3-part conversation on the state of US colleges—Julian explores how the system built its cultural power, the “business” it has become, trends that threaten it moving forward, and why—despite all its problems that must be fixed--higher education needs to *remain* a critical institution in America. ~ YouTube FULL EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  YouTube CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChs-BsSX71a_leuqUk7vtDg  ~ Show Notes: https://www.trendifier.com/podcastnotes  TRENDIFIER Website: https://www.trendifier.com  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Produced by White Hot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Like I try to look at things and say like, does it pass the eye test? Yes or no? No. Okay, move on. Like that doesn't pass the eye test to me. Doesn't pass the shit test, whatever your test is, it doesn't pass. Whenever you want to make major changes to a system, a process, or an institution, one of the first things you should do is figure out what's gone wrong to get you to this point in the first place. And that's really what this three-part arc on college was all about i've heard the complaints just like you people have really started to question the worth of college because the costs are out of control and the debt that students are taking on as a result is out of control and so instead of just taking that as creed and just saying, oh, it's a problem, we spent the first two episodes of this three-part series going through the numerical and statistical context of that problem.

We identified the massively increasing costs since 1980 and the fact that they've gone up from 1980 to 2017 by 141 percent editors note we don't like fuck-ups around here so let's fix this right now that number you just heard me give of 141 percent which was referring to the increase in the average cost of college for u.s students since 1980 in real dollars inflation adjusted is actually not bad enough it's worse than that the real increase is 165 before this episode i accidentally wrote down the increase since the end of the 1982-83 school year and not since the end of the 1980-81 school year and by the way if you remember from two episodes ago when i first correctly cited that 165 percent increase number this data was from the nces and the data ran through the 2016-2017 school year in real dollars now that i got that mouthful out of the way you will hear me come in

two more times about 40 or 45 minutes into the episode where I again state the 141 number and not the 165 number. I want to make sure we're all clear here. So as always, sources are in the show notes on trendifier.com. Check out where I got everything. Just want to make sure all the information is correct so that we can move on. And if's nothing else take it away on a real dollar basis we've identified the astronomical levels of debt that have come out of that that are into the trillions now for students who are just trying to go get an education and now in this episode we're going to dig into how it was enabled to happen within our culture we talked about the gi bill we talked about how that was a huge push post-world war ii and certainly you get the stamp of approval from the federal government and the encouragement there good things are going to

happen but college has essentially gotten to a point since then that they have convinced all students in high school around the country that not only is going to college a critical component of the american dream basically like a must but it's unfathomable to consider not taking out five to six figures of debt just to be able to go. Regardless of the results it may get you or may not get you in your life. They don't care about that. And we don't question it. And even today, we are still not at the point where people are legitimately questioning if they're not failing out of high school, oh, am I going to go to college or not?

It's like assumed. So we'll go through that. And then we will close the episode with me making a case as to why college needs to remain a critical institution in this country moving forward. And not something that we should rebel back against. But we will pose the questions to start some conversations around how we can look to improve it and how we can ask some of the harder things, including like, are there some people who maybe should be encouraged not to go? Are there some colleges who maybe shouldn't be around because they're not worth the cost or even close to the cost?

But I don't want to waste any more time with the intro here. Let's finish this thing. College part three. I'm Julian Dory, and this is Trendify. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts.

You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. I'm always amazed at how quickly new norms can develop in societies and even among small social groups. Meaning, one day you think something, you've been thinking it for a long time, and the next day suddenly this entirely new thing is this accepted reality. And I would argue today it happens faster and more than ever because of our constant forget it 24 hour news cycle it's a 24 second news cycle and the constant flow of information and sharing that we have as a result of the internet and

things like that but anyway i think about this a lot when it comes to the institution of college because after World War II, very, very, very quickly, especially once the government gave their huge seal of approval on the whole deal, you saw factions among parents form. Parents are the first people I'm going to pick on here. But it simply became a question of us versus them. Us being, oh, my kid's going to college. Them being, oh, their kid's not. And I don't think any of us would argue that one of the nastiest places of competition in this country is among parents when it comes to their kids. I mean, sometimes it's just flat out unhealthy.

And the amazing thing is that college, the institution, leapt on this trend big time and pushed that narrative. Like, yes, if your kid is not going to college big problem for johnny or suzy there and then they built it even more out such that by the time we started getting past the baby boomers and into the gen x going to college for example the conversation switched from us versus them to who went to the better school out of the kids like now it wasn't even did they go to college or didn't they but in the average middle class suburban society in america it was just a constant growth.

For parents, college became an arms race. And their kids were the fucking weapons. And this is extended way beyond college too, when you look at it. I mean, I drive around the corner. I see 10 signs and a full out front of the house congratulations statue letter by letter about some girl graduating fifth grade i didn't even know that was a thing but that's where we're at like that's what parents do and don't get me wrong like pride in your kids is awesome i don't have kids i'm sure i will be extremely proud of them if they're not total fuck-ups when I do. And I'm sure I will want to beam their efforts and accomplishments out to the

world. I will practice some restraint in doing that though because it is insane how much parents do this. And you know what makes it all even worse?'s so obvious what i'm gonna say i mean it's so fucking obvious social media i i love the idea many people have said this so i don't know who to attribute it to but a million people have said this at this point. But I love the idea of social media didn't change us. It just revealed us. So true, man. So true. People have always wanted to put their opinions out there as if other people cared. They have always wanted to talk about their lives and what's going on. have always wanted to make people think that you know they're doing fine and and they got a great life social media just gave them the ultimate clickability to do it all day every day on multiple platforms so yeah it's happened

through college as well i mean even during like coronavirus this year how many times did you go through your feed and suddenly see a three paragraph post about my kid got into Georgetown I mean that's great he should be commended for that but half the people reading the fucking post are out of job

and you're taking up my entire screen to talk about how Johnny applied to Georgetown it was the school of his dreams I get it. But here's the thing. All the people who read that with the attitude that I did,

who are parents, yeah, they wish their kid was getting into Georgetown if he didn't or a school like that. It's a part of it. It's a part of the competition. Like, that's the winner right there.

That's the parent whose kid got in. And it's not just the parents competition like that's the winner right there that's the parent whose kid got in and it's not just the parents you look at the workforce the workforce has made every fucking job under the sun require a degree i mean if you want to go get a secretary job a lot of these require degrees it could be at a five-person company and they write on the expectations for your bachelor degree really really come on man the reason it happens though is because every industry small and large they have competition everyone looks at what each other does so when they see company x who they compete with another business over here suddenly requiring a degree on this type of job oh i gotta do that too and we're now at the point where pretty much any non-labor job or better, any job that's even like slightly desirable is mentioning something about a college degree.

And we're going to talk about some of the underemployment that's happening later. That's a whole other issue. But the workforce has just continued to churn this out. And especially as the recruiting business has just exploded. There's a recruiter for everything now. Well, that's a part of their package. They want to make everything seem serious. So yes, we will find you.

Yes, sir, our new client, Company X. We will find you and your company the best secretary imaginable, and we will make sure they went to a school that requires X, Y, and Z and have a four-year degree. That's how this goes it's like a part of they're doing it so we have to do it same concept finally you got the politicians now we mentioned how like i guess i think it probably legit was like Bernie Sanders on like a mass scale who first like really raised an issue out of this. And now you've seen a lot of politicians copy it and just throw on the – and we got to fix the college thing on the end of every speech. Not that they've ever actually looked at it or plan on doing anything about it. But that's when the conversation first shifted there because for 60 years 70 years whatever it was every politician in every speech ever would hit on the same things jobs

freedom or whatever going to college kids going to college getting an education living the american dream it just it's the same jumbled expression for every single speech every single issue every single stump and that's a continued endorsement not just of college which is great but of everything that college is doing so when politicians continued that, even when prices were starting to get out of control and were basically ripping away from the equilibrium, so to speak, of where the worth of the actual degree was, as that was happening, politicians were still out there saying,

part of the American dream, you have to go. It just gets ingrained in you like people wonder why things when when trump was running for office why some of his immigrant stances resonated with some people so much he just repeated the same line day one he came out there and said we're going to build a wall. Mexico's going to pay for it. Everyone understands the concept of a wall. Everyone understands that Mexico is not us. So someone else is paying for it. Doesn't matter if he could actually do it. He just said it a bunch of times and it became, people were like, oh yeah, we're going to build a wall. Mexico's going to pay for it. They legitimately were like, yeah's gonna happen simply because you repeated it so now

imagine every single political candidate not to mention everyone in communities parents teachers just people bullshitting around town everywhere across the country it's just getting it repeated in a circle over and over and over again that you have to go to college and you have to compete to go to the best college regardless of how much college is costing and regardless of the value it puts out. Over time, that just gets ingrained in your head.

And that's what happened. Now here's the thing. College has played right into it. I mean, I didn't even bury that lead out front. Like, it was obvious. Like, colleges played right the fuck into it. And they did it and have done it. I mean, it's genius.

It's why, you know, I consider them an incredible brand as far as what they've been able to accomplish as an institution. But colleges got the cost so out of control because they started spending on everything else outside the classroom when you go to visit a college it's been a few years for me unfortunately but when you go to visit a college they don't take you into two classrooms and have you sit in

on the classes for 30 minutes a piece that's not what they do they take you to show you the latest bougie ass building that some old guy who went to that school 70 fucking years ago and probably doesn't even know that he donated to build this building.

Built. With all of its amenities and they can tell you about every single one. They'll show you my favorite one. At every college or any college where it's applicable. They will take you out to the quad. And they will say, look here. At this beautiful piece of grass real estate. And it even has a couple cement sidewalks running through it.

So you can walk through it without walking on the grass. And oh my god, you can study sitting on that grass right there. And they're in awe of it every time. And I'm like, it always looks great. It's a nice piece of grass. It's got some places for me to walk. I could sit there and study. They're right about all that.

But this is what you're showing me? I'm going to spend 50 G's a year for a fucking quad? That's what they do. They talk about the lifestyle that is that where we're deriving a lot of the expenses from do we need like constant buses to and from campus going wherever the fuck every day just automatically in case we want it that's an expense do we need the cafeteria to look like it's straight out of a magazine don't get me wrong i love looking at this stuff and and it helps like i there there's one college down in um i want to say like north carolina i've never been there but i've i've seen all of it and i've heard all about it and i've heard from people who went there i think it's called high point university i knew a girl who went there and then transferred and it is literally a resort i mean it's i guess it's like kind of a solid school i don't know much about it um but the way that they charge so much

and get all these students to go there is this campus puts like a really really high end one percent of the one percent of the one percent retirement community to absolute shame like to shame it is immaculate they have like pool clubs and shit that's like you're paying for that as a student like is that why you're going to college don't get me wrong it's great but when people go to college they are looking to get educated so they can go be someone who earns in society and in the world it's nice to have the views it's nice to have the amenities do they really need that but anyway that this is what college pushes they push the lifestyle they push the experience they push all these things and they really played off of the fact that the first major generation

besides the veterans right after the war to go through college after growing up and have it be a staple of american culture were the baby boomers and they were the ultimate counterculture movements a lot of them were going to college during the vietnam years and they were all about individualism getting out from underneath the traditional societies that they had grown up in so they wanted to go far away to school or they wanted to go do something entirely new, get an entirely new viewpoint. And schools at that point, colleges recognized like, oh, we're way more than classrooms. We're like all this other shit too. And so that's where the investments really started.

No coincidence that expenses for college have gone up like crazy really since 1980 because that was as the baby boomers were finishing up coming to college for the first time, like over that 15-year period, 20-year period. And colleges got to see what their expectations were and what kind of things they could sell to those students. And I say sell very carefully here because colleges essentially became businesses. There's really no way – there's no way to get around that. Now, back in 2018, Amanda Ripley wrote a great article on this in The Atlantic. I will have that link in the show notes.

And she cited some data from a report from the OECD throughout a lot of her numbers. But she mentioned very clearly in broad terms, and then even went into some detail on some of the different departments and areas that these expenditures are going and how they're then coming back on the shoulders of students who have to pay for the education and pay to come to college. So one of the first things she talks about is the non-teaching employee expenses. On this subject, Ripley writes, U.S. colleges spend relative to other countries a startling amount of money on their non-teaching staff so think administration like not working in the classroom according to the oec data oecd data some of these people

are librarians or career mental health counselors who directly benefit students fair enough but many others do tangential jobs that may have more to do with attracting students than with learning. Many U.S. colleges employ armies of fundraisers, athletic staff, lawyers, admissions and financial aid officers, diversity and inclusion managers, building operations and maintenance staff, security personnel, transportation workers, and food service workers. Furthermore, she says, the international data is not detailed enough to reveal exactly which jobs are diverting the most money, but we can say that the U.S. colleges spend more on non-teaching staff than on teachers,

which is upside down compared with every other country that provided data to the OECD, with the exception of Luxembourg. That paragraph there makes it crystal clear that as you invest in things outside the classroom, you also have to invest in a lot of people and a lot of jobs outside the classroom. And those jobs get competitive because there's 4,000, 5,000 fucking colleges around this country. So as they all start to add these jobs they drive up the prices of what each type of position costs maybe not with some basic things like maintenance

workers and stuff but with the actual administration yeah that's a real thing another thing that ripley points out is the increase in higher paying students as a percentage of the population on this she says some universities post the great recession in the context here began to enroll more full-paying foreign and out-of-state students to make up the difference and she's talking about the difference between the state cuts and subsidies that were that were cut as a result of the Great Recession and therefore the ways that colleges had to up tuition and things like that and higher paying students to make up for those losses. Anyway, she continues, over the past decade, for example, Purdue University has reduced its in-state student population by 4,300 while adding 5,300 out-of-state and foreign students who pay triple the tuition.

They moved away from working to educate people in their region to competing for the most elite wealthy students in a way that was unprecedented, Thompson says. So Thompson was somebody quoted in the article. But that also underscores another issue because it favors a system that favors people with more moolah so again the gi bill was created to make college something that's accessible to really all classes but especially working class americans to rise up through the class class structure and that right there is an example of a system that's starting to work against them to say nothing of the prices and costs that are already working against them. Now they're also getting discriminated against because colleges have to go find the people who can pay the most money so they can make their nut. Finally, another thing that Ripley really covers is the research spend culture.

And this is one we don't talk about much but she says most global rankings there's those rankings again of universities heavily weight the amount of research published by faculty a metric that has no relationship to whether students are learning so that could mean you have faculty on who literally aren't teaching classes they're paid to be faculty of this university and go write their next teaching classes they're paid to be faculty of this university and go write their next book that they're going to make a lot of money on because they're very smart but they're not adding any value to the students who are paying for the right for the college to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be there and say

they're there anyway but in a heated race for students, these rankings get the attention of college administrators who push faculty to focus on research and pay star professors accordingly. Closing that point off. Folks, colleges are a business. It's plain and simple. They're trying to tell you it has turned into a business. It's plain and simple. They're trying to tell you it has turned into a business. It's a business. And there was a book written a few years ago, I think like 2017-ish maybe, called The Coddling of the American Mind. And it was by two NYU psychologists and professors, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukanoff.

And they covered a lot of different things in there, much of which is not on our topic, and I don't want to get into it. But one of the chapters in there focused on how college as an institution has taken on the mentality of corporate America rather than education America. So they point out that in the 2015-2016 school year, combined revenues at U.S. post-secondary institutions totaled $548 billion, which would make U.S. colleges as an institution the 21st largest country in the world by GDP. So just keep that in mind for a second. They also mentioned that endowments at the top 120 universities alone was about the same number at $547 billion. So to put that number in context, both of those numbers in context, in 2016, Apple, the biggest company in the world, did $214 billion in revenue globally. They have, in 2016, I think they had 1.2 or 1.3 billion global customers. For context, there were 20 million college students. So, yeah.

Colleges are making money hand over fist. And the thing is, what these two authors argue in this chapter is that somewhere along the way, they stopped looking, colleges that is, stopped looking at students as students and started considering them customers. And that has a whole bunch of slippery slope implications. But one of them is they want to give them all the things that have nothing to do with the number one thing they should be there for which is the education itself and it's a mentality that unfortunately is actually a consequence of capitalism now i'm a huge fan of capitalism i'll put that out there I know a lot of people argue this these days, but I believe it is the best system that we can have. I do believe it's a heavily flawed system, no doubt

about that. There's a lot of things that I'm not sure will ever be fixed. That said, I will take the best system in my view over other systems because it's the best, and that's how I think of it. However, the education system in college in this respect, or in the context we're talking, is a little bit of a potential downside example of capitalism because you have colleges who have to make enough revenue to stay open, and they have to compete with other colleges at every level. So they are therefore in a position where they have to mimic or feel like they have to mimic competition, do as they do, and do better than they do. So this creates an endless cycle of constant innovation, but a lot of the innovation is happening outside the classrooms and increasing costs on things that have nothing to do with the education. Because what do they need? They need students to come through the fucking doors. If Johnny goes and visits. College X in LA. And the campus is fire.

And then goes to visit College Y in Wyoming. And the campus sucks. He's not going to the college in Wyoming. By and large. Most kids 9 out of 10 in that situation. Aren't going to the college in wyoming by and large most kids nine out of ten in that situation aren't going to go there because they're going to make the if they're similar schools in their mind education wise they're going to go the one that has nicer amenities that's how it is and the saddest part of all of this is that while costs are astronomical at every level

of rankings across colleges and i would even say they're way too astronomical at the best institutions. The spread between the best institutions and the worst institutions is not far. On a value-adjusted basis, we're so out of whack. I'll say it again. I'll say it a million times. The number one value going to college is your ability to get an education that is therefore going to make you have opportunities in the world. And let's call it what it is, opportunities to earn and opportunities to do well. And most people's goal to eventually be wealthy. So I picked out a ridiculous example to go through this. I picked out Harvard against another school I'll give in a second.

But Harvard obviously is always viewed as a top three school. It's probably the most recognizable college in the country, usually the first best, but that's a matter of opinion i guess but anyway harvard cost around 70 just under 70 000 for the 2019 2020 school year now that is everything tuition fees room and board all of it so i went and identified like a really good state school one where i know a lot of people who went there some people who go there now it's it's got a good reputation the whole nine and in this case i picked university of delaware so university of delaware in the same school year for out-of-state students cost over fifty one thousand dollars now if i round those two numbers to whole numbers here,

50 and 70, because they're actually a little closer than that even, but let's just say they're 50 and 70. That's just round math off the top of my head, raw math. That means Delaware costs, I think, slightly more than 70% of what Harvard costs. And Delaware is a good school. It's got a good reputation.

My question is, is the University of Delaware really worth more than 70% what Harvard is worth. I don't know that there's. 15 schools in this country. That are worth 70% of what Harvard's worth. That might be a little bit of a stretch, but you get my point. There's 4,500 schools, colleges in this country. And I just picked out like a really good one. Not like a top 50 one, but a really good school, and its cost is not that far off the literal gold standard of college. So we've taken,

think about that, Delaware Good School, think about all the schools that are costing a similar number or a ridiculous number, whatever it is, who are way worse schools than Delaware. Now think about their percentage to Harvard. You could be going to a shit number, whatever it is, who are way worse schools than Delaware. Now think about their percentage to Harvard. You could be going to a shit college, like a shit college, and paying 55%, 60% what you'd be paying if you went to Harvard. That doesn't make sense. I try to look at things and say, does it pass the eye test, yes or no? No. Okay, move on. That doesn't pass the eye test to me doesn't pass the shit test whatever your test is it doesn't pass now i mentioned in the intro we

were also going to talk about some of the things that are creeping into conversations around society that are now for the first time leading some people to question college a little bit beyond just complaining about its costs which has been happening righteously so for a while and i mean i feel like this is the answer to a lot of things but we'll go into some detail the internet man like the the internet is the number one root cause and to start down that rabbit hole as to how it really brings people to the point where they're scratching their head and second guessing the institution of college it's the resources the internet provides for your own self-education i mean now look we live in a world where two-year-olds have an iPhone in their hand.

So the internet by the youngest generations now was something we grew up with, like I grew up with it. And anyone after me and even a little before me, like they completely grew up with it too. We grew up with iPhones in our hands before high school or right at the beginning of high school and that was that now people are seeing the value of things like moocs so massive online open courses which in some cases have like major league big-time professors who have their content available online for you to follow with a set structure and learn about whatever topics you want to learn about. YouTube. YouTube is the ultimate open forum.

The number of things that you can... I mean, the interaction you can have on YouTube alone, going down the rabbit hole and digging through topics, both good and bad, but let's just focus on the educational end of things like if you want to really dig into psychology you can go find guys who post their courses on there that are from legit places you can go find experts in the field posting up content around topics that you want to learn more about and they will direct you to places where you can learn more you don't have to go to a library anymore haven't had to for a while

your library is google and as long as you get pointed in the right directions you're going to get pointed in more right directions as you go down farther and farther and farther and i don't know if you saw this but i remember especially, especially at the beginning of Corona, I mean, these guys, I don't know what their revenues are, but they had to just put all the chips. They had just almost killed my mic there. But these guys who run this masterclass thing, which I'll get into in a second here, but they must've just pushed all their chips into the middle right at the beginning of corona because i'm telling you every single feed i went on on any social platform every other ad or every ad was like neil degrasse tyson hans zimmer skrillex or whoever they had teaching the

edm course bob eiger all these huge names who they had teaching courses. And for those of you that don't know, when I refer to Masterclass, Masterclass is this relatively new company that creates – let's call it what it is. It's literal 4K content, like beautiful high-end video with leaders in fields. So like Jane Goodall teaching you about like animal behavior. I mentioned some of the names out front like Iger and Hans Zimmer teaching you about music and stuff like that. And you sign up for $15 a month and you have access to all these different experts who teach their field, their expertise. Now, I haven't done it myself. I'd be curious to hear about some people who tried it.

But it fits the subscription model. You get access to some of the most brilliant minds in the world. And you get the resources to figure out how to further educate yourself in their fields, like from these people directly. Now, it's not like a classroom where you can go up and talk to the professor after class. That part doesn't exist. And that's another – that's a question that the internet is still trying to figure out on some of this stuff. But it just goes to show you it's another resource that the crowd and the ability for instantaneous access is allowing people to look into to educate themselves.

Now, I may not give you a degree, which still presents an issue, but my point is, these things are starting to add up. And as they add up, we get to the point where, you know, a levy could break on this, and suddenly people are saying, fuck it, you know what? I'm not going to, certain workforce places are going to say, I'm not going to require a degree to get a job here, and then their competition will start doing it and it'll happen because they're starting to find that people are self-educating well we're not there yet people aren't good enough at doing this and i think by the way one of the major problems is a big part of education is having a curriculum and someone else or who's an expert organizing it for you and keeping you accountable.

And everything I just mentioned minus the massive online open course scenario depending on what course it is, it's kind of up to you to be accountable. So in our ADHD world, a lot of people don't have the ability to do that. So this is not a substitute yet. I'm saying starting to formulate a way that it could end up serving as a substitute for education. Beyond that though, the content sharing and consumption alone that occurs online much of which is you know mindless fodder about the latest news cycle but the stuff that's not on socials i'm really looking directly square at those is another form of just constant adding information and adding context to what we know about the world and our worldview and things we're aware of and then maybe skills we can acquire through being aware of these things but i've always been curious about if

some studies exist that can measure on a macro and really even micro scale growth in IQ and knowledge and the effect on human beings over time, just using tools like Google search or just interacting with X number of pieces of content in all these different potential topics on their social media per day. I haven't seen anything like that. I'll go digging for that. But that's another thing to keep in mind. Because in some ways, while it's not an organized curriculum, people are, we are amassing more knowledge on stuff than ever before. But remember, we have way more to consume than ever before. So we, you know, we get really knowledgeable on some stuff, and then just get totally left in the dust on other stuff that it would be great to know about.

Another thing that's led to some of these conversations is a totally different point. So we just covered the internet, but the lack of utilized degrees is a real problem. In 2012, the New York Fed did a study study and i like that because it's literally the federal reserve it's a really good source but they found that across 15 popular college majors so some of the big ones it was like you know business and accounting electrical engineering journalism it was basic ones like that they found that across 15 popular college majors only 62.1 percent of all degree holders were holding jobs that required that that required a degree at all not even just their degree 27.3 percent were holding jobs that match their degree skill set

now i have less of a problem with the second number. I still have a problem with it, but the concept of getting a broader education and then doing a different specialization in your career, I think that's an argument for another day, and that's one where you can make a case on both sides. I'm much more concerned about the fact that 38% of people are doing jobs that literally don't require a degree. And if you remember, I pointed out how many jobs out there, how many jobs out there require degrees now that shouldn't. So if you added that, if you bake that into the number, which you can't, it's way more than 38 and the other thing is the underemployment for recent and long-term

grads since 1990 so two different metrics recent would be like graduating the last year and then long-term would be anyone that has been out of college more than one year the average underemployment since 1990 literally hasn't changed it has not gone down it has stayed basically the same for both of those groups while the cost of college i think since 1990 the cost has gone up like on real dollars if i remember correctly it was like 91 or 92 percent so we're not employing more people or i shouldn't say employing we're not employing to a degree skill set more people and costs are going way up like there's nothing worse than seeing frankly really smart kids who are 24 25 years old who aren't like trying to go be an actor or something like that where it would be perfectly acceptable but are trying to do something else there's nothing worse than seeing them work at

starbucks and i you know i appreciate companies like that creating a lot of jobs so people can at least earn something but that sucks because half those kids are carrying dead up to their fucking eyeballs and they're you know they're making a mocha latte or whatever. That's not right. I hate seeing that. Another thing that's happened is the earnability. The earnability growth for college graduates over time. I think I alluded to this earlier. In 1980, on a real dollar basis, the average college graduate in their first job was making just over $51,000. By 2015, that number was down at just above $50,000.

So it decreased by 1.62% while the costs of college went up 141%. Hi, me again. Remember, 165, not 141. 165, not 141. Okay, go ahead. Now, average numbers can skew. We know that. We like to look at medians because medians give you more of a data set across the board.

So when you look at the median view of all college grads, not just recent college grads, all college graduates holding a degree, when you look at the median view for that, and their real wages, the median real wages over time, since 1980, bachelor degree grads were making an average in real dollars of $25.95 per hour, and today, 2018, they're making $28.37. So I think it was an increase from – or that was from 1979, I'm sorry, through 2018. So that was an increase of 9.3% in the median wage. So even when you measure it across all graduates, not just recent graduates, all graduates, using the median, not the average, costs up 141%. 165, not 141. I'm done now, I promise. Earnability up 10, less than 10. The other thing I'd be remiss to not mention here is the unbearable debt.

We already covered that, but that's another thing. That's life. When people are making their financial decisions based on the debt they carry from college that they went to 15 years ago, you know it's a problem. When parents can't retire because they took out a loan 20 years ago for their kid to go to college, that's a problem. The last thing I do want to hit here that is critical – and look, my list is longer than what I'm giving out in our political spectrum across the entire spectrum. It's a common theme, and that top 1% and the bottom 99%. It's inarguable. It has increased. We've even seen the top 10.00001% accrue more wealth than ever before. And that is thanks to the internet and its viral ability to, if you create the best thing, instantly get customers anywhere in the world. So one of the things that really dropped my jaw to put this in context for you is just looking in the united states out on the west coast in circa silicon valley

eight of the 10 richest tech moguls in the world live out there and this is as of 2019 so these numbers you know after corona and all that they're worse. But eight of the ten richest tech moguls in the world live out on the West Coast in the Silicon Valley area. And that would be Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Michael Dell. I don't think Dell, does he live out there? Either way, Dell founded Dell. He might be a Texas guy, but either way, lives in the United States. Those guys hold 0.4676% of all the net wealth of the United States. Eight people own almost a half of percent of all the wealth in this country when you add in the next 4 or the next 6 so we make it 14 instead of 8 now the next 6 in the United States

on the billionaire list now it's at.57% 14 people out of 328 or whatever it is, 330 million people in this country own well over a half a percent of all the wealth. And by the way, I'm not coming at them either. Don't get me wrong. I don't think they could spend that in a lifetime. I don't think they need it. But for the record, I'm talking about people who changed the game here mostly at

least like jeff bezos reinvented how we buy products and gave it brings it to our doorstep everything i look at is from amazon so fuck if i appreciate it you know but does jeff need 150 billion probably not and i don't really care but a lot of people care about that. And this anger is now happening because people are stuck in this debt they can never pay off and they're stuck in a system where they feel like they can't have these problems. And we are now in the internet era living more and more in a winner-take-all society. I mean, you look at it. If I ask you, name me a search engine, you say Google. I tell you, name me another one. Some of you will be able to name me Bing. And when you do, you'll laugh.

Because the only reason they exist is because Microsoft started it But it's a total failure if I ask you to name another one that still exists some people may be able to give me Yahoo, but they don't even think of that as a Search engine they think of it as other stuff point is there is no other search engine. There's Google. That's it Because Google created the best algorithm. They have the engine there's google that's it because google created the best algorithm they have the best product they want that's how our world works and as that happens there's going to be a lot fewer winners with a lot more money and we have seen that effect come into play over the last 30 40 years more and more and more and as technology continues to develop at a rapid pace

things become more mechanized i don't know is that a word might not be a word anyway that problem is only going to get worse and and by the way i'm sorry i gotta mention this one i don't have this in here but now with like corona, you know, people going back to school this fall now, these schools are still charging like full price. And they're not going back to school. They're going back online, on Zoom. You're paying debt.

For now, what's going to amount to at least two semesters because we already had one mostly maybe three who knows where you are paying for a full college education and you're not even fucking there we just covered how these campuses charge for all the expenses they have on campus to go there the experience the shit they sell and now students won't even be there and they're still paying full nut you think you've seen anger on this you think you've seen conversations on this wait till this next semester you know gets underway here We're getting into the fall now. So wait till those complaints start really coming in.

All right. Now that I got all the negativity off our chest for however long that was, I told you I was going to close on some things that support college. So first, some things i found that i i think got to get mentioned that aren't a part of the broad case they're a little more exact number one the lower income bracket there's no arguing across america has seen consistent growth in attendance over time and so this is where the system has worked in the sense that we are at least granting access to people that don't have as many resources or aren't from as much and have the ability to at

least get a higher education and maybe move up the class structure that's a great thing as i did cover in the last episode unfortunately we're not doing enough because too many of these kids are actually carrying like the most debt and they never even get a chance to go after their dreams in many cases because that becomes the center of their life and how they make every career and personal decision that said it's a very positive trend and it's one i mean it's inarguable i'll have that link in the show notes but it's since 1975 college enrollment by income level the low income was at like 30 it's up at around 60th percent now so that that's a serious serious increase number two and this one's a little less positive but it's true the societal contract constructs we talked about jobs are requiring degrees as a minimum threshold to be able to go after any desirable job you got to get a degree and as of right now that is still not

really changing we did see like ernst and young This was interesting to me, and I thought more might happen. But in like 2015 or 2016, Ernst & Young, one of the big four, announced that they were no longer requiring bachelor degrees for their like entry-level consultant jobs. And their reasoning was like light on detail, but if I remember correctly, a part of it was they were saying that a lot of the skills that they look for to be able to go in and solve problems for their clientele don't necessarily require the collegiate curriculum due to resources that kids have, basically the internet, now coming into the workforce for the first time having had it growing up interesting to keep your eye on that but i thought that it would open up more of a levy than it did and it didn't i don't put as much stock in it you know when elon says you don't

need a college degree to work at tesla because again tesla and companies like that in silicon valley are some of the places that haven't always required that for certain jobs because some brilliant coders are people who train themselves in their basement when they were six or seven. As long as degrees are a minimum threshold for most of society, college is going to continue to have that same level of importance, and that is very much a part of its case right now. Another one is the wage premium between college graduates or from college graduates over high school only graduates. That premium has increased consistently forever, and it's increased a lot since 1990. One thing I would say is that the populations at colleges have continued to increase though, until a few years ago when

they've been pretty much plateaued since like 2016. 2016 to now is not enough data for this. We'll need to see these answers 20 years from now. But seeing that trend, you have to remember that as population increases, you are, at least on some level, taking some kids who in previous generations would have only gone to high school and not gone to college, and you're now putting them in college. So think of it like mean to put it this way but i'm just trying to use an example if you have an a team a varsity team and a jv team if you take the best degree versus having it and what your earnability is. great case for college but what i want to focus on for my own case here is some of the broad level

points those are some specific ones i i felt like i needed needed to put some context like that out there to prove i'm not just talking out of my ass but when when i think of college here i look at when it grew and it as i as I've said, I don't know, 600 million times now? Since World War II, the population at colleges has grown from whatever it was, as a part of a movement to cement America as the preeminent world power coming out of the World War II victory. And that, among other things, helped cement that. I mean we have been the preeminent power in the world since then. There's really – I could go into metrics, but there's no arguing that. And I do believe that having a more advanced educated society is one of the biggest reasons for that because it adds talent. It also attracts

talent. We bring in international students who want to come get this education or after they get their education, want to come in and work among and maybe even become a citizen of our country but work among our citizens who are very well educated it's a giant cycle of life that in that respect has worked out very well our whole argument here is that certain people have been left behind because it's been painted it's gotten a little out of control with costs, a lot out of control with costs, and it's painted a broad brushstroke as to everyone should go. And that's kind of the issue at hand. But there's no arguing that one of the key pillars of any country is educating your society, and that's what we're doing. We've also mentioned the experience of college in a negative light throughout this episode. And I mention it in a negative light because there's a lot of unnecessary things that if we were looking at the brass tacks of what you're going there for, an education and to make friends, which doesn't cost anything, you don't really need all these amenities and all these experiences they sell and things like that but to take the devil's advocate side of at least some of that and support some of that because i do

when you leave your home at 17 or 18 years old to go to college for most kids it's it's your first and that's a resources of the internet for all 17-year-olds to go do that on their own without an organized place that helps them do that. I don't know that that's feasible. Maybe it is, but I don't know. So I will take the other side of the argument too and say that there is an aspect of what they sell there that is legitimate.

I just think it's a joke how much they oversell it and how much they invest in even when we see some of the brilliant people who dropped out of college or didn't go and made it big, I guess the most famous college dropouts would be Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. But even when we see that, first of all, guys like that at least went to great schools, Harvard, both of them, for a set amount of time. So they got some worldview there. They got some education there. They didn't get nothing. And secondly,

a lot of the people who are very successful, maybe even just went to college, no graduate school, whatever, they form their frames of thought in college. And one of the things I do really believe in from my own perspective, so take this as you will, but I look at college, at least the education I got, I also did hit – I went to business school and that's what I thought I wanted to do. And I was right about that. Like I knew I was into that kind of culture, I should say. So that worked out well for me. Other people, maybe they won't say this because their major or their field of study didn't work out this way, but I valued the focus of the education I got a lot. And I looked at the college as the education.

But what was abundantly clear to me within a year of being out in the real world and working in a job was college is the education. Your experience is the application. You can't educate that. How you attack things, what you go after, what you choose to do, where you move from, whatever, that's all on you. And so I think the value of college being built, that's what it was built on. It was built on education, not the other shit. I think that that value is still critical because I know that that helped me then make decisions for myself as I started to learn things as I applied them. I was able to relate back to some things I learned in college, which was great. And there were other things I couldn't, like real-world stuff, real-life shit. You can't always relate it back to education oftentimes you don't but when it comes to how you evaluate jobs

how you evaluate companies how you evaluate cultures things like that you you can use your worldview from college if you got an education that you valued in my case i was lucky i i think i did but i'm exhausted on this topic about out of bullets the bottom line is clear while it's still worth it we've identified a whole bunch of issues with the system i think we stand at a serious serious crossroads here because we live in a world where everything's zero or a hundred we're polarized on everything look no farther than our politics than to see that and the loudest voices in the room are the ones who get the attention and so the polarized sides get the attention and what worries me is that with college yes you have all the traditionalists who may be very very educated who are like nope most important thing let's keep doing it and they'll that, and they'll get some attention saying that.

You're going to form the other side though, and are seeing the early formations of the other side that says, fuck this. It's the system. The system's against us. It's the 1% versus the 99%. They're charging us an arm and a leg. they're fucking us for life and we shouldn't go we're not there yet i haven't seen a huge crowd saying that yet at all so it's not like a concern yet but a concern for that crowd forming is real because i understand why they would the opinions of those people are formulated from very legitimate areas of complaints. And no one's doing anything about it. We're just giving off the one-liners I've referred to.

That's it. And so before that group forms and then actually leads to a full movement that pulls so many people out of college and really puts this country backwards in a lot of ways before that happens I like to try to spark some conversation that can solve those problems and prevent it

so I came up with a few broad questions I'm hoping everyone else has a lot more questions of their own that they thought of throughout these three episodes that they come up with too but any way to start the conversation is a positive to me and that's all I'm trying to do so I'll close with this and then I'm going to shut the hell up

and I look forward to your feedback on the matter but question one is there an optimal population of total colleges slash college attendees a specific break-even area where some combination of education above replacement degree-based earnability wage growth over time and academic curriculum improvement over time can increase unhindered year after year i'm going to post these questions too in the show notes because you know they're they're pretty loaded um they do make sense but you know not the most simplistic way of going about it that's on Second question. If a potential answer is decreasing the number of

people attending college, how do we figure out who should not be going and what freedom oriented systems can help these people use other means to still pursue their dreams? That's a critical one. Number three, how do we change the stigma around companies not requiring college degrees for jobs where they currently do? Meaning, plenty of jobs require a college degree and carry them with little to no skills that must be picked up in a college education, yet the companies still require the degree because that's what's respected or expected by companies in their field and what they're supposed to do. How do we change that? Number four, without choking off competition between schools to provide the best education, how can we create a system that competes on said education

over things like amenities, most professor research works, biggest administrative resources, etc. So those are my questions. Thank you for listening to all three of these. If you did, thank you for listening to the show. I am kind of glad it's over. It was a lot to just continue to churn out there and try to make it make sense.

So I hope I did. And I will see you next time. Catch you later.