The Ramsey Show - App - How AI Is Going To Change the Way We Work (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "Should I study software engineering even with advancements in AI?" "Where should I keep my emergency fund?" from the blog: What Is a High-Yield Savings Account and Do I Need One? "How can I expand my business?" "I used a personal loan to pay off my home", "How do we pay for grad school without debt?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author

and host of The Ken Coleman Show, podcast, Sirius XM, 75 radio stations, is my co-host. Thanks for being with us, America. Giovanni is going to start off this hour in New York City. Hi, Giovanni. How are you? How are you doing, Dave? I'm great.

Good. How can we help? So my question is pretty brief. I work at a cell phone retail company, and I'm looking to increase my income. I'm studying to be a software engineer. I don't know if you guys were aware of the Google Keynote that came out not too long ago regarding their new AI. And they stated that their new AI knows over 200 plus different coding languages. So in your opinion, should it still be worth it

for me to study software engineering or should I be doing something else? Yes. And the reason is, is even though that is true, it is their AI that can do that because of the software engineers they employ. So I've interviewed two AI experts. And if you want to get into software engineering, AI is not going to eliminate your abilities to work. In fact, AI can only do what a human programs it to do. Is it intelligent? Yes. But the reason they call it AI, artificial intelligence, is because a human software engineer, software developers, are creating the code that give the AI the ability to do what it's going to do. So you're

going to be in more demand than ever because AI is coming like a freight train. It's here. It's going to continue to expand. But you will be as valuable as ever. So I would not let that headline in any way deter you. Let me give you a parallel. Lots and lots of industries have been disrupted by technology.

AI is a technology. And it is a major disruptor. It's going to cause all kinds of things to happen. It's pretty, pretty, uh, wonderful in one sense and scary in another because the level of piracy, the level of counterfeits, uh, that are going to come out of those are just, if it's, if some boundaries of some kind even if they are put on it you've always got the russian mafia or whatever hackers are going to do what they're going to do right so you you know this thing is it's it's a powerful uh for good or for evil weapon that has been unleashed and it is there so that's the reality now on a much simpler

plane about the time i came out of high school, when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, computers were starting to kind of come on the scene. And three of my buddies were studying to be architects. And computers suddenly were able to do drafting with what's called the CAD system that is still in use today, although a much more sophisticated version than 30 or 40 years ago. But the CAD, you know, computer automated drafting, it's a lot easier to draw a house plan or draw a building plan today, a lot faster than it was in the old days when you had to draw it by hand. Now your computer program can do it. But you still need people with draftsman skills,

and you still need architects to tell the CAD what to do, and engineers to tell the CAD what to do. And so that's the situation that we're doing. The exact same thing we're talking about here. It did not do away with the need for professionals in the industry. It made them much more efficient. That's right. And people sitting, if you wanted to sit at a draftsman's board with a ruler and uh whatever the tools were and draw all day long oh you're out of business you're done because no one does that

anymore because they it's no one it's it's impossible to keep up with how fast a computer can do that, much faster than a human. But to be able to tell the computer what to do requires the exact same set of skills. I want to give our audience that may resonate with this question here from Giovanni two pieces of news so that you can get over the fear factor. Number one, we are seeing right now there's about a job and a half available, a technology job, just in general, tech jobs, for every person that wants to get in it. So the opportunity is massive in tech. Number two, most of you have seen headlines throughout the last six months about major companies like Meta, Facebook's parent company, Google, laying tens and tens of thousands of technology workers off. And people go, oh, no, but here's the deal. Now the data has come back, Dave, that those workers are getting hired within a month for other smaller companies. And these big tech companies, this is what they do. They staff up.

You had companies like Redfin, their CEOs, Google, Salesforce, admitting that they overhired to keep talent away from their competition. And so the minute that the recession word gets uttered, these public companies worry about their stock price and they drop talent. But here's the deal. Those people are getting rehired quickly. So all that to say, if you want to go into software, I can't think of a better field to get into right now. Yeah.

And, you know, creatives and content producers of any kind, audio, video, bloggingging all of that is going to be affected yes but enhanced here here's the thing you have in order to be a thought leader you have to have a thought isn't that true and and so you know the ai cannot replace that and and so art artistry you know quality graphic production um has to be installed by someone who has the eye that's correct even if it is then reproduced and replicated in its various forms by ai so it's still there and you still got to look at it and go i think i'm going to use human judgment here and say that sucks yeah i mean you

can still have that as a possibility my guys typed in the other day that just to make fun of me oh no in the in the chat thing yeah chat thing you know dave ramsey does a rant against ai and it in it formulated something oh it wrote out a really long yeah nasty, how mad I was at AI. And it was pretty nasty. Oh, wow. I mean, not nasty like vulgar. Okay, I was going to say, they didn't add some color that you normally add. No, no, no. Because AI wouldn't have found me saying that because I'm not vulgar.

That's right. Okay. It has to find something you've actually used to get the tone, right? Oh, yeah. And it picked it up. But it was pretty much like me ranting against credit card debt or student loan debt but just ai and they just oh that's an overlay and that's fun obviously i didn't do that but um because i'm not anti-ai and i'm not freaked out about it uh the only thing i'm actually worried about is just that the stinking stuff steals everything

that in honestly uh person in your piracy the piracy and i mean the number of copyrights and trademarks and images and brands that we have developed at great expense uh you know a a nefarious use well here's another steal it well here's what i'm concerned about people doing deep fake stuff yeah where they can put words in your mouth yeah and literally create you saying something you never said and i would just say as a caution yeah please folks yeah we've joke about don't believe everything you read or see on the internet i think ai is going to make a lot of crazy wacky stuff out there you better consider your source yeah that's the kind of stuff like an effective presidential election yes sir you know come out has yeah biden saying something that made sense or something oh oh that's an interesting use of it maybe they should try that.

He strung a sentence together. What happened? This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Ken, lots of people graduating from high school right now. Yes, it's that time of year. And I got to tell you, I can't think of anything we've ever done at Ramsey that is as good as the Get Clear assessment for a high school graduate that you and the research team put

together. This assessment is pretty incredible, and've got it one specifically built for teenagers right yeah the get clear assessment that i created a few years ago has been really popular for adults and so i got with ramsey ed and we said let's make a student version is it possible for your high school student to actually have some pretty clear ideas about the direction they want to go and the answer is yes career yeah career wise but you got to give them the tools to be able to dig in and get some self-awareness. And parents, here's why it's important. Very simply, it's going to help you help them make that right education choice. What

is that right next step for them so that you're spending that money you've been saving wisely and their time wisely? And so that's why we built this, Dave. It's the student version of the Get Clear Assessment. Perfect time, perfect graduation gift for the student in your life. Yeah. The Get Clear Assessment for students is available right now. It's only $30. Get it for a student. Absolutely the best $30 they could possibly spend.

Know thyself, right? RamseySolutions.com slash store the Get Clear Assessment. Takes just a few minutes to take it and the results the report it spits out is pretty stinking amazing promise you it's worth a lot more than 30 bucks and so yeah that you just don't want to be the parent of the kid that goes on to uh american idol right and can't sing yeah and you never had the guts to tell them, so Simon Cowell gets to trash them on national TV. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, like, you know, son, you should not be an artist.

All of your drawings are stick figures. That's right. You're really not up for this, son. The flip side of this, too, is over 50% of American college students right now are spending five years or more. And parents, you don't want that either. so help helping them get an idea early on covering themselves right well we actually have a tool that'll help them see themselves and you can verify it parents because when you see this report you're going to be able to put new language and new words around what you've always known about your kiddo so it's a fun tool telling Telling the truth is important. It is. Marie is, whoops, that's not Marie.

Hello. Let me try again. All right. Marie is there. She's in Los Angeles. Hi, Marie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Hi, Ken. How are you? Great. How can we help? My question is, is it wise for my husband and I to put all the money we've saved for our emergency fund and our down payment into a high yield savings account and if we move that much money at once is that going to set off any red flags for the IRS? Answer number two is no it doesn't set off anything for the IRS. How much money is in your emergency fund?

We are kind of padding it at about $50,000 right now. Okay. How do you kind of? It either is or it isn't. How much is in your emergency fund? Oh, you've got it mixed together. Right now it's all in one. No, no, no, no, no, no. You need to separate these two into two different accounts.

Okay. Because you will accidentally use up your emergency fund for your down payment when you get a house fever. Okay. No, you need to separate them. So let's declare right now, for purposes of our discussion, you can change it later, an amount for your emergency fund is $50,000. How much then is in the down payment fund? $240,000.

$240,000. Yes. So fund? $240,000. $240,000. Yes. So there's $290,000 total. Yes. Good. Okay. Yeah, these definitely need to be in separate accounts. High yield savings that you've looked up as paying what?

Somewhere around $4,000. Some are in the high $3,700. Some are in the $4,300. That's about right. That's about right okay and so um the fifty thousand dollar account is going to pay two thousand dollars a year okay or if you put in not a high yield it's not going to pay half that right but one thousand or two thousand does not change your life on your emergency fund it's okay to do it i'd like to

get a little more so yeah move it to a high yield. That's fine. But don't act like you did something because it's not enough money to worry about. Okay. The other account, you're hopefully not going to leave that alone long. You're getting ready to buy a house soon, aren't you? Well, we're kind of leaving that in God's timing. If it was my timing, I would have been moved five years ago.

Okay. What is the sign for you that god is ready um well we're planning on moving out of state so we're just kind of looking at all the pieces and making sure that everything's right my husband would be basically starting his career fresh because he's a when are we going to do this if you think if god showed up and told you it was okay sorry when are you going to do this if it was okay? Sorry, what was the first half of your question? When are you going to do this if it all falls out similar to what you think it might? I mean, I'm ready this year.

Okay, let me ask this. Marie, is it because he hasn't found a job, there's a lot of trepidation and fear because he'd have to basically start over? Is that what you said? There's kind of a lot of different factors, but that is one of them. What are the other factors? It's really important. That's what we're digging at.

What are the factors besides him getting a good job? What else? Really, it's just, I mean, you guys are men of faith, and you know that when God puts it on your heart that now is the time, then now is the time, and we just haven't felt like now is the time yet. Okay, but there's not any observable variables in the marketplace or in your life that you're waiting on that. You're just waiting on peace from the Holy Spirit and prayer. Yes.

Okay, all right. So I'm going to give you a guess and say in 12 months we're probably doing this. That's what I was after. How long are we tying up this $240,000? Are we going to tie it up for five years, or are we going to tie it up for six or eight months? And it sounds like six or eight months or a year is probably right. So, yeah, you're going to make a little money in a high-yield savings account on this.

But once again, this is not a long-term play. It's a quality parking space for money that's all it is but we're not we don't park money for long we're parking it until we get ready to make this move and uh that you know the holy spirit releases you guys to go do with a sense of peace where you're going. And so that's cool. That's fine. But I'm going to give you a reasonable guess and say that these things are building up and it's about ready to go. This thing's about ready to happen.

Yeah, I don't want to take everybody to church here. I would just say to Marie, I think her peace would probably increase. His peace would increase if he had that job situation cleared up. And I think that sometimes we overthink, and I think we blame a lot of stuff on God. I'm not saying she's doing that, but I am saying that I think that at some point we have free will, and we have the option to make things happen. There's a good one-two punch here. There is.

It's the old St. Augustine's work like it all depends on you, pray like it all depends on God. If you want corn, you've got to plant it. Oh, and guess what? You don't get control of the rain or the sun. So that's his part. So you've got to do both. There's a one-two punch. You do all of your parts, and sometimes the peace and the timing lines up.

One of the ways I consider myself to be guided by god is that the circumstances are lining up and i have peace yes if the circumstances are lined up and i don't have peace then i wait if i have peace but the circumstances aren't lined up then i wait so uh and so i'm pushing on all of those things at the same time because there's this cause effect of works and faith that's faith that are that are a good part of a healthy mature believers process and it sounds like you're doing all of those things i'm not questioning we're not questioning that but uh since we uh got all mystical there for a second it's worth explaining how we go at this stuff open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll

talk about your life and your money. Let's circle back, though, for the rest of you, on emergency funds. Your emergency fund is not an investment. Everybody say, not an investment. Not an investment. It's not an investment. It is insurance. Insurance doesn't make you money. It costs you money.

It costs you money to protect the things that make you money. That's what insurance does. The emergency fund is not there to make money. It's a pad, an umbrella between you and the storms of life. That's what it's for. It keeps you from cashing out your 401k, which is making money, or having to put your home on the market and fire sale it because you can't pay the payments because you lost your job.

It protects the assets that are going up because it's a pad. It's an umbrella for the storms of life. And so what it makes is irrelevant because it's never really going to make much because it's going to be liquid. So if it makes 4 or 3.7 instead of 1.7 great but whoop-dee-doop-dee that's really not what it's for go ahead and get a little better parking spot but it's not necessary to build wealth what's necessary to build wealth is to have the emergency fund separate this is the Ramsey Show.

Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Now that the weather is warming up, it's time to enjoy your outdoor space. Neighborly's Mosquito Joe service can help make your outdoor area pest-free. So you can enjoy being outside in comfort. Visit Neighborly.com to reach your local Mosquito Joe today. Today's question comes from Jared in South Carolina.

He writes, my wife and I are currently in Baby Step 1, and I'm an associate marriage and family therapist. I work for a counseling job as well as I run my own counseling practice. I don't have enough clients on my caseload at this time, and of course, it's not enough income. I'm doing what I can to increase the load to bring more in, but no success. I specialize in couples, parenting, blended families, and I would love to do something with it such as workshops, but I don't know how to find these opportunities, any suggestions. Okay, First of all, if you want to get into the workshop space, you don't find them. You got to create them. And that leads to where I think you've got to go to increase your

pipeline. This is just like a sales job. I mean, for your own business, you have got to create leads that turn into opportunities. So let's look at those target clients, couples, parents, blended families. So I'd start with, in your zip code, your area, who's serving those people? So you've got churches, have couples in them. You've got schools are obviously taking care of these parents' children, the blended families. Who's serving these? Are these nonprofits? Are they government agencies faith

based organizations here's why if you make yourself known to those organizations that are serving your target clients that you are a counselor and you offer counseling services and you're going to do a workshop online or in person will they host a workshop if you take care of everything else they simply open up a room to you and make it open to their clients. And so that's where you've got to build the pipeline. There are a lot of people hurting right now, and you've just got to get in front of them. So I think that's the first thing. Now, the other advice I'd give, Dave, is this. While you're doing that, to get momentum in Baby Step 1, which is for if you're a new listener, new viewer, Baby Step 1 is we want to get $1,000 as that starter emergency fund.

I'm doing anything and everything, Jared, while I'm taking the advice I gave you to make $1,000. That's yard work. That's working a second or third job right now, just an hourly wage to get that first baby step underway. And that's going to be a big victory for you. Absolutely. Completely agree with that. And Ken is exactly right. What we know post-COVID is that there is a backlog, a waiting list to see a therapist, to see a counselor. You can't get in.

So the fact that you have all this open time is pretty disturbing. Yeah. So it means you've done absolutely no marketing of inequality. So, yeah, I would contact every business in the area that has 50 to 200 people working at it and talk to whoever, the HR director, the VP of operations, and tell them if you've got families in here that are struggling, we do marriage counseling. And if somebody's got marriage troubles, they're not really working well right now,

their productivity is low. So, uh, we'll help you with that. Uh, talk to the pat, every pastor in a 20 mile radius, just drop by and see them say, Hey, uh, because a lot of them, uh, have more counseling load than they can handle. That's correct. And they, and you can get into sometimes deeper stuff than they're want than they want to get into uh and more extensive longer term counseling situations than they want to get into um pastoral counseling is different than being a therapist and so um or it should be yeah so all of those things but yeah you need to

stir up some business is what amounts to uh if you let enough people know that you're there in the current environment that we're in you're going to be overwhelmed with business and that's where i would spend a lot of my time so good question man we appreciate you joining us phil is with us in roanoke virginia hi phil how are you hey dave i'm doing good Hey, Ken. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I just started listening to you guys here a couple months ago. Got my wife starting to get into it and stuff, but I'm not sure what baby step I'm on. I thought I was doing good.

I thought I was paying down my house early. What I did about a year and a half ago, I was having major problems with my mortgage company. So I went to my local bank and they gave me the option of either refinancing with a mortgage payment or taking an unsecured personal loan. So I ended up opting for the unsecured personal loan so that I had the title in my hand without a lien on it and stuff like that. And I've been paying it down. I'm tripling payments right now. It should be paid off within a couple of years. But the more I listen to your show and the more I look at your webpage and stuff like that, personal loans are considered consumer loans and should be baby step number two did i transfer my mortgage loan from

basically a mortgage to a baby step number two where i should deplete my um uh safety fund to pay it off and then build it back up or can i create what's the balance what's the balance on the loan it's only like 22 000. How much is in your savings account? About $22,000, but that includes my emergency fund, my fully funded emergency fund. And what's your household income? $120,000. Okay. So let's pay it off by September.

Yeah, I'm having little issues bringing my wife on board with it. We talked about financial planning university we haven't took forward steps on it yet she still has a credit card i don't have any credit card so i'm slowly working on her but it's going to die i don't know if i can take it by september unless i get her fully on board well that's another issue yeah yeah that's a lot bigger issue than whether to pay the mortgage off or what's baby step you're on you're not really on a baby step until the two of you get on the same page and then you could talk about baby steps because there's all the data says

that until you're on the same page your likelihood of building wealth is very low oh okay yeah there's just very few people drag a spouse kicking and screaming into rich yeah she's kind of on board she just i know you're covering for her yeah i am yeah so y'all gotta get on the same page dude i mean that's the that's the 100 pound gorilla or the 800 pound gorilla in the conversation so um yeah you guys gotta you get that fixed and then all of a sudden this other is going to fix itself. I don't really care whether you call it. It's only $22,000, man.

You make $120,000 and you got $22,000 in the bank. I mean, you know, it's not like it's going to, you can mess this up as long as you keep moving towards it. But it should not take you three years to clear this. Three months, maybe. But it shouldn't take you three years to clear it once the two of you are on the same page. That's the big deal there. All right, Dave, I've got to ask you, because you've been answering this question a long time,

I think this is a perfect setup. Again, a lot of new people all the time on the show. Here you've got a husband who gets it. He's all in. He's crushing it. His life's kind of there, in his words, still has a credit card. How do you get that vision to align? Well, I think we just start talking about, okay, number one cause of divorce in North America today,

money fights and money problems. Number one, disagreement in marriages, money fights and money problems. So if we can get rid of the number one thing in our marriage that causes negative situations, that's a big deal for any marriage it's the number one i mean if the number one reason you die of bear attacks is you wear red shirts then you would go i'm done with red shirts right you know i mean it's like that'd be it so um whatever whatever metaphor you want to use so that's number one so honey you know it's very important for the quality of our relationship that we get rid of the number one problem of relationships,

and that's for us to be on the same page. So let's sit down and dream together about what we want our future to look like. And let's get in detail. Let's make it in HD, high-definition dreams, not vague, fuzzy ones in the clouds because where there is no vision the people perish so we're going to get on the same page and as our friend henry cloud says we're going to have a desired future and and we're going to design the future in such a way that we both had a vote on it we both want to be there and we're both willing

to sacrifice to get to that future and then we say, what has to be true that's not true now to get to that future? Okay, it will be the stop of the use of the credit cards. It will be clearing off these debts. It will be us living on a budget together where every dollar has an assignment. We're in agreement. And then the dollars are all pointed at the agreed target. Once we've got an agreed target that we both had a vote on and buy in on, that's called vision. And it'll solve the whole thing.

Yep. That's so good. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 jake is in atlanta hi jake welcome to the ramsey show hi guys thank you for having me sure what's up uh so my wife and i are celebrating she just got accepted into uh grad school for her doctorate of physical therapy yesterday. However, yeah, we're super excited. However, we are also not sure how to go about paying for this. We are debt-free. We've been debt-free for the past three years, and we do not want to take out student loans,

but that's looking like our only option. Not entirely sure how to get her through grad school on a single income what uh okay i know what a master's in pt allows you to do pt what does a phd give you that the master's doesn't give you as far as career opportunities uh so that's a great question uh from my understanding it she'd be able to run her own practice and prescribe medicine and stuff like that. I think she can run her own practice otherwise, but she probably can't prescribe medicine without a supervising physician. I don't think there's anything that keeps you from running a practice, but the actual prescription, yeah, no doubt about that.

How much is it going to cost this particular school? I think the estimated cost is about $100,000. It's a two-year accelerated program. Okay. And she's been trying to get into this one, or she's been applying to multiple, and this is the one that said yes? That's right. She's applied to multiple, and this is the only one that said yes. Okay. Dave, my advice on this is I'd be patient until I save the money up, and I would be looking to get into other programs. If this is even a reality, I'll be honest with you,

I don't know the going rate. I don't know what a low, medium, high price is on physical therapy doctorates. But nobody cares. No one. Not one patient will ever care where she gets her doctorate. That's the first thing I'd say. Nor will they care if she has a doctorate. Even if she has it.

If you want to run the practice. But I know you're excited. If I go to a PT and I have, I have never once asked whether they had a doctorate or whether they had a master's. Nobody does. They're a PT. It's, I have never once asked whether they had a doctor or whether they had a master. Nobody does. They're a PT. It's what they do. So I'd be patient. I would be patient and save up the money, and I sure would like to find a place where I could go for 60, again, if that's realistic.

Because nobody cares. Yeah. So there's two categories that we pursue something like this, two buckets that cause us to pursue something like this, Jake, and we're leaning heavily on one of them in this discussion. Bucket number one, when you pursue a degree or an advanced degree of some kind like this, we're looking for what does that open up for you as extra income potential or opportunities in the marketplace that you wouldn't have without it. Okay.

In other words, it's permission to play at a different level. Okay. And the point we're making here is other than the writing of prescriptions, unless I don't know what I'm talking about, and I probably don't actually, but other than the writing of prescriptions, I've been a patient to a PT, but I've not been in a PT program. And I've worked with a lot of PTs paying off their student loans over the years. And so I'm not sure this adds $100,000 in marketplace value to her career. That's my point in that bucket. The other bucket that is also a valid bucket is the pursuit of knowledge and the

academic pride of getting a phd and that is a valid thing to want to go get that okay you follow me so none of the none of the in none of these discussions are we trying to be a dream killer but um you guys need to sit down and talk about since you don't have the money to do this it needs to have marketplace value more than academic pride value academic pride value would be called a luxury to go get a phd in something that doesn't change my life. Okay? So whatever portion of this that falls into that is the luxury portion. The other portion is, yeah, there's legitimate opportunities. I can expand my practice. I can do things I can't do.

And I can make more money because I have this. And those are the two things you need to look at and compare and talk through. And then we've got to figure out a way to pay cash for it or I'm not doing it. But what happens, and it happens in the medical field more often probably than it does in other fields, is there is this pride, there is a prestige that goes with, i'm an md i'm not a nurse and uh they're taught that in the medical school right i mean so there's a pride uh it's a pecking order thing right that goes with it and the phd versus the lowly master's degree. But other than bragging rights, it needs to have some economic value. It does.

And, Jake, if you've not seen our amazing documentary, Borrowed Future, I really would like for you and your wife to watch it, and if nothing else, to specifically watch the testimony of the dentist in that. And that will just – he went in over a million dollars. We're talking about $100,000 here, but it is not worth it. And I think Dave laid this out beautifully, Jake. This is a need versus a want. If it is an absolute need, then it is worth the wait.

If it is a want and it has no redeeming value beyond just the prestige piece, then it's absolutely you must wait is there a health organization that desires to have a phd pt working on their team that would pay for this now that's a great point and i think that's right because we're in it we're in an environment right now if the job market's right in a certain part of the country they go you know what i'll move my license over there and work for you guys and you pay for my phd yeah, I like that. I like that approach. I would do that one in a heartbeat for either bucket. Yeah.

Just because you want a PhD. That's fine. Somebody else is paying for it. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's good. That's good.

Yeah. But so, guys, what has happened with the student loan debacle, $1.7 trillion dollars 44 million americans uh having their lives altered and higher education's expense rate going through the roof and this false worship at the altar of a degree now again i'm not aiming at jake's on this. That's right. Just making a general statement now as a follow-up. But instead of saying knowledge is the currency, now degrees are the currency. And then we got over into the land of any old degree and pay any amount to get any old degree.

Now we really got into a stupid zone and what the it what it started out being was to expand your mind and your view of the world yes so you would read english literature which does not have marketplace value does not does not change your income if you've read english literature but it does change your brain's ability to work it does change your critical thinking skills uh your vocabulary does that it opens doors for you all of those kinds of things method of speaking all of these kind of that's an educated person that that is there's a reality to those things but we got so far over there that now there's a bunch of us old rednecks that are going, look, it's got to pay for itself, or we're not doing it. So you've got to get a degree that's actually usable and that you see a measured change

in your income that is obvious, that is a reasonable change in your income versus what you paid for it, an ROI. That's right. Because here's the reality, and you'll see it in this documentary, Borrowed Future. Here's a dentist that I absolutely believe when he got into it, he was passionate about the work. He knew what he could do. But the weight of the debt was so bone-crushing that you don't even enjoy. You'll end up resenting the degree and the work you do because of the absolute hole that you have crawled into and it

feels impossible to get out. Now, we can help you get out, and we helped that dentist, and we've helped a lot of people, but the point is there's no need to rush into this $100,000 PhD. Don't rush. Save up. Get a grant. Do what Dave said. Maybe you get a company to fund it for you because they want your talent. There's a lot of ways to do this. Yeah. I just want you to think about why we're doing it, what we're getting for what we're paying. You know, everything else you do a value judgment on except education. And on education, it's like, anything!

We'll pay anything! That's right. Because it's important! No, it's not. Not at some point. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Ken. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey,

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