The Ramsey Show - App - Make Sure Your Degree Has a Return on Investment! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

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Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Real Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America.

Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is Will in New Hampshire. Hi, Will. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Thank you for taking my call today. My pleasure, sir. How can I help? Dave, I need your help. Sadly, I could say I'm over $500,000 in debt. I don't know where to start. I've been listening to you for about a few weeks. I just don't know what to tackle.

I don't know exactly where to go from here. My wife and I pretty much just don't know exactly what to start. I'm sorry. You sounded, and I'm sure you are, overwhelmed. What kind of debt is the $500,000? I got a rental property that I own about $212,000 currently. I got my own house, which I live on. We owe about $180,000. My wife has a car, and I know you're going to scream on this one, $41,000 loan on that car that we bought. I got a $55,000 credit card, and the final, I took a loan from my 401k for $25,000.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And what do you make a year, sir? Household income? Well, between her and I, we made about $110,000 a year. Well, that's good news. Okay. Oh, yeah, but I don't even know where it's going. I hear you. I hear you. Well, the good news is you got your wake-up call. And my dad used to say when I was growing up, he would send me down to clean up the basement. And I'd say, are you going to help? And he would say, no, I recognize the problem.

You're going to go do it. Recognizing the problem is half the work, he used to say. So you recognize there's a problem. And so now we got something we can work with here. So is the rental property, does it make money? Yeah, it makes about $100 every month, but that only comes with the water because we have to pay water anyway, so basically it just breaks even. Yeah, and if something big breaks, it loses money.

Pretty much, yeah. it just breaks even yeah and if something big breaks it loses money pretty much yeah so it's probably a bigger problem than it is an asset so why don't we go ahead and sell it okay so what's it worth uh right now but uh i last time i checked because the taxes went up so we're looking about a 270 270 000 maybe So when we sell it, we could throw a whole bunch of the money at your credit card debt, your car, your 401k loan, that kind of stuff, right? Because you're going to make some money on it when you sell it. You make $40,000, $50,000 on it, right? Net of everything, it sounds like. Yeah, well, we have to pay in the real estate and all that. Yeah, I mean're you're going to

75 80 000 in equity plus or minus some expenses and so you're going to make some money on it and we'll throw that at the other day so that's going to help that's good news okay you got a good income your house is not too big it's not out of control uh you're right the car is pretty much in stupid land uh what's the other car worth? Well, that's the only car we have. One car? We all. Oh, no, no, no.

Okay. What's the other car worth? Oh, it's a Mercedes, Ben. I think we're not even breaking even with that thing because last time I checked. No, I didn't ask that. I asked what the value of your other vehicle is. The one that I owe the money? No, sir, the other one.

The other ones, I don't even know. I got a Pilot, so I would think about if I sell it, it would be $4,000, $5,000. I think I got a Honda Accord. I could probably sell it for $2,000, $3,000, I would say, the most. Okay. So other cars aren't worth nearly as much as this one big dumb one, right? No, because the other ones I don't have to pay anybody. Well, I don't mean that, but, I mean, the value, if you sold it, that thing would bring, like, $30,000.

Your other cars are, like, $5,000 cars. So is there three drivers in your house? Yeah, currently, yeah, my wife my wife myself my daughter okay thing gotcha okay all right so here's the rule of thumb on cars if the total of all your vehicles in value added together equals more than half your annual income you have too much tied up in car and you're probably right on the bubble on that you're probably a little under half but up high enough that this car does look like it's crazy land so you can keep it if you want to keep it but you're going to have to plow through this stuff so we sell the rental and we get you on a tight budget beans and rice rice and beans

no life you're not going to go on vacation you're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there we're getting out of debt because life is too rough living in New Jersey, making $110,000 being this freaking broke. So you're going to get with it. It's game on. Okay? Okay. And lean in and sell the rental, throw it.

You're going to list these other debts, the credit cards and the car and the 401K, smallest to largest. I suspect the smallest debts are credit cards because there's probably several in that $55,000. And so you're going to plow through those with the proceeds of the sale of the rental house. You're going to plow through those with the proceeds of your newly formed very, very, very, very, very, very tight budget where you have no life. All you're doing is getting out of debt so you get your life back. Because if you didn't have any payments but your house payment,'d be in dreamland wouldn't you sir yes i would it's just it's disorganized exactly you can do this so jump on every dollar

i'm going to put you and your wife through financial peace university i'm going to give you the one-year membership do what wow that's great i'll give you the one-year membership. Do what? Wow, that's great. I'll give you the one-year membership, and that includes the nine-week class. It includes connectivity to the bank on your EveryDollarPlus with your budget. And you and your wife both have to go to the class because if one of you goes without the other one, you kill them.

It'll create a big fight, okay, because all of a sudden one of you will have knowledge the other one doesn't have, and it won't be fun at your house. You mix in a little marital disagreement with some financial stress, we got real gumbo going here. So we don't need that. You going to do this if I give it to you? Yes, sir, of course.

All right. Oh, my God. So I want to talk to you again if you're struggling, if you're hurting and you don't know what to do, I'm here for you. Or at a minimum, I want to talk to you when you do your debt-free scream, okay? Yes, sir. All right, you hold on. Madison's going to pick up.

We'll get you signed up for Financial Peace, the membership, which has all that stuff in it, including the nine-week class. It's pretty cool. Hey, thank you for calling, sir. Honored to speak with you. You're why we are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.

We'll talk about your life and your money. Have you ever done something stupid? If you didn't just say yes, you just did something stupid. Because we all know that we all have done something stupid. That brought pain into our life and regret. We had this sense of overwhelm, this sense of shame, this sense of condemnation. We've all been there. Doing something stupid is not the thing.

Staying in it? Now that is a problem. I try to not do the same stupid thing twice. And now that I'm getting old, I have fewer and fewer stupid things because I got most of them in my rearview mirror. Because I try not to repeat the same one. That's all we're trying to do here is help you not repeat. Continuing to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? That's insanity.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. guys i'm so excited around here today a lot of stuff going on we have a brand new podcast that launched today. It's eight episodes, and it's a different podcast for the Ramsey Network. Most of our, not most of them, all of our other podcasts are somehow personality driven, and it's us answering questions, or were you listening to us because you want to hear what one of us has got to say?

That's not what this one is. This podcast is called Borrowed Future, and it is a detailed, in-depth documentary by audio on podcast of the entire student loan problem. It will, the stuff we've uncovered will blow your mind and no i'm not a conspiracy theorist there's just a bunch of freaking crooks out there and it just blows my mind when i find it because most people i interact with are like real good people and i forget that there's just a bunch of slime balls running around out there too and there are they've been taking an entire generation to the cleaners and some of them are your congressmen and senators they're just this student loan thing man so jump on itunes jump on google play wherever it is you get your podcast and it came out today the first episode did and we'll release an episode every so often which uh it's called borrowed future uncovering the student loan crisis it's revealing and again

it's stylistically very different from anything you've gotten from ramsey network before uh so i mean like there's probably 40 or 50 people interviewed and voices on the very first episode just as an example and people like seth godin mark cuban um i'm of course have a lot to say about student loans so i'm in there george camel our uh uh host of the video channel is the host of this and he did a phenomenal job and our team has really put together eight episodes of borrowed future you're going to be blown away you're going to be blown away so uh go get it and go ahead and subscribe to the whole eight thing and get it and download it i promise you it will be worth your time borroweduture.com. If you want to see the video trailer of us showing

you what's going on, it's pretty impressive. It's a big deal. And of course, our debt-free degree town hall is tonight, and I will tell you more about that throughout the day. If you text the word town hall to 33789, we'll send you a link, and you can watch the town hall for free. It will be live on Monday night tonight here in Nashville in our building. We've already given away all the tickets. Tickets have been gone a long time, so if you don't have a ticket, you'll just have to watch at home. Townhall, and text it to 33 789 you

can watch it this evening at six o'clock central time and again several experts anthony o'neill and i will be on the stage we are addressing this student loan mess head on we're gonna make a ruckus baby all right line two is next justin's with us in colorado hi justin how are you good dave how are you better than i deserve how can i help yes so i'm kind of piggybacking off the student loans that's why i'm calling so collectively um first of all one of my best friends tyler introduced me to you guys and it's been we, we've been on, we've been a hundred percent on Dave for about three months now, and we were able to wipe out all of our credit cards, which is about 1800 in debt. Um, so yeah, the biggest reason why we're asking is I'm actually getting ready to relocate from Colorado out to Chattanooga in which real estate is about half the price as it is out here.

So I got a $20,000 a year raise. Plus we're going to be saving almost 900 a month in rent. Um, so we'll be able to really kind of add toward the snowball. So collectively me and my wife are 460,000 in debt in which 435,000 of it is student loan. Who's the doctor? Who's the lawyer? I am lawyer i am okay i am i'm a chiropractor you're a chiropractor what did you pay for chiropractic school chiropractic school was probably pretty close to with grad plus probably 350 and how many chiropractors make enough to justify anywhere near that none maybe one percent like the upper one percent yeah that's probably true

okay so with your twenty thousand dollar raise what are you going to be making uh we'll be with the raise and once bonus, because we get per adjustment bonuses and stuff like that, I'll be roughly between, it's going to fluctuate between 100 and about 115 for now. Yeah, you got a good job. And then what about your wife? What does she do? We have, well, she is a cancer survivor. So November of last year, she was diagnosed with stage three small intestinal cancer. So we have three kids and she's actually cooking number four. Um, so right now with us being in Colorado, it was a lot cheaper for her to leave her job to take care of the kids full time instead of paying almost 1800 a week in childcare. Okay.

So we have a $450,000 problem with $100,000 income and four kids in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's going to take a while. Yeah. It's going to take a while. Yeah. So that's my question. You know, just rough numbers, if you did $50,000 a year and lived on 50, that's 10 years still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's kind of a question, right? Because we can get into a very modest single-family home for the family for probably between $200,000 and $250,000-ish. No, you're $500,000 in debt. You don't need to be buying a house. You need to rent as cheaply as you can and really fight and struggle and scratch with your income. And as your kids age and get towards school, mama probably needs to re-up her career again. This household's in desperate need of income, not expenses.

Okay. And right now what I see for you is a long slog. The number of chiropractors that make $200 a year, as you said, is very small. But you need to be one of them because the number of chiropractors that go $350 in debt to be a chiropractor is really low too. Most of them are more like $150 to $200. And even then it's not worth it. Yeah. 50 to 200 and even then it's not worth it but um yeah i uh um for the benefit not of you calling i mean for you calling you got a long slog i'll walk with you we're going to be friends for a long time and you're going to get through this and you're going to fight to get your income up

um for the benefit of a young person out there listening, would you agree with me that $350,000 in debt is not worth it for a $110,000 job? Hello? Yeah. Oh, no, I would agree with you 100 okay okay i just um i don't want to put words in your mouth and i didn't want to trash you because you're there you know uh and i want to walk with you and help you i'm not here to shame you that's not my point but um you know i'd like to catch you before you did this and you're and that version of you is

out there listening right now and thinking about going to chiropractic school. And the return on investment, it's not an MD. You know, it's not an MD. In terms of income production, we can have a discussion about the philosophy of medicine. We can have a discussion about the treatments that are provided versus the other treatments that are provided, traditional medicine versus other kinds of medicine. We can have all those philosophical and legitimate discussions.

But ROI, there's no planet in which you spend $350,000, folks, to be a chiropractor and then have four kids. And mama's not working and is a cancer survivor. So you guys got to, you know, you're just going to have to be very austere for a while, and you'll begin to make progress, and you'll push your way through it. And, again, we'll be here with you. We're going to help you. I'm not saying it's hopeless.

I'm just saying to anybody out there considering it, take a lesson from him that this is not a path you want to do. That was fairly gentle. Fairly. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, if you're not using LinkedIn jobs, you're missing out. Our Ramsey Solutions Company page on LinkedIn has over 100,000 followers. That's 100,000 potential like-minded people our team communicates our current openings to. We also post our jobs on LinkedIn because we know the best candidates already have jobs.

And LinkedIn makes it easy by doing the legwork for you. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn and over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals and discover new job opportunities. Get started today with LinkedIn jobs and get $50 off your first job post. Visit LinkedIn.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Kristen is with us. Hey, Kristen, how are you? Hey, Dave. I am so excited to be here right now. We are so honored to have you.

Where do you live? I'm from Carmel, Indiana, which is just north of Indianapolis. Well, welcome to Nashville. Thank you very much. And all the way down here to do your debt-free scream. Oh, yes. I love it. How much have you paid off?

Dave, I have paid off $99,493.31. Dangerously close to $100,000. I wanted it done before I hit $100,000. I love it. So I worked hard. Good for you. And how long did this take? It took 37 months and 8 days.

Okay. And your range of income during that time? I started at $86,000. And a few weeks before I paid off my final debt payment, I broke $100,000. Good for you. So what do you do for a living? I'm a physician assistant. Oh, PA.

Good for you. Yep. And how old are you? I'm 31. Awesome. How long have you been out of PA school? December will be four years. So I started work on December 15th of 2015. My first paycheck rolled in on January 1st, 2016. And that's the day my budget started for my first month of doing financial peace. So you were game on immediately. Game on immediately. I wanted it out of my life as fast as possible.

So the 99,000 primarily PA school? 100% my master's degree. Okay. All right. Look at you. Wow. Wow. But you've got a great career.

Yes. Absolutely love it. I work for a busy and fast-growing orthopedic practice up in Fishers, Indiana. We're one of the busiest revision practices for hip and knee replacements. So the population who's needing hip and knee replacements is growing rapidly, and we're taking them all on. It's been really fun. I bet a couple of young guys got hips.

It really is. We do see people in their 20s, 30s, you know, a lot of 60s. But, you know, it's a surgery that everyone can get nowadays. Well done. Thank you. Very cool. So what made you know to do this, and how was this part of your plan? Tell me your story.

Dave, thankfully I have some incredible parents who are very faithful financially. They are debt-free. They are well-planned for retirement. They're outrageously generous, and I wanted to be like them. So I am thankful that they set my brother and I up well for financial success. I obviously did take out loans for grad school, but I got them out of my life as fast as possible. Were you a little freaked out because you grew up in a house that didn't do debt, taking those loans out? Yeah. Were you a little freaked out because you grew up in a house that didn't do debt, taking those loans out?

Yeah. Were they a little freaked out that you were doing it? They're big numbers, so I think everyone was a little nervous. But I did take a year off between undergrad and graduate school to work. I worked two jobs. I saved like crazy, and unfortunately, this PA school is just so outrageously expensive that it barely made a dent. I think it got me some living expenses for the two and a half years I was in school. So, but I knew there was a risk of not getting through PA school, but I told myself I would.

And I was going to get an excellent income out of it and that I'd pay off debt as fast as possible. So, you went through all this. I mean, you're basically a doc you know for all practical purposes and um you delayed pleasure all this time yes and then your first thing as soon as you get the certificate that says woohoo i got a big income now uh first thing you got to do was nothing all we're gonna do is get out of that it was hard a lot of my peers were um purchasing new cars and taking amazing vacations and buying homes. And sitting on their student loan debt like it's an egg that's going to hatch.

And it's, yeah. But I knew that being single at this point in my life, that the only person I had to tell no was myself. And I did that a lot. What was the hardest sacrifice? The thing you sacrificed on that really like like ouch honestly every i paid between probably fifteen hundred and three thousand dollars a month on student loans and and eventually i realized that was like a tropical vacation every single month that i was paying to navion and i hated that because i am so ready for adventure uh i did um where are you gonna go

now that you're out uh well my parents being financially secure as Where are you going to go now that you're out? Well, my parents, being financially secure as they are, are taking us to Paris in November. That'll do. I'm looking at, hopefully, Iceland in the spring. Oh, that's cool. I have a college roommate who wants to travel with me. I did take one trip during my debt-free journey.

I cash-flowed a trip to do medical work in Haiti. It was warm. Not exactly a vacation. But it was still an incredible trip. It was a mission trip. Well done. Thank you. Good for you.

Good for you. Thank you. What do you tell people the secret is to getting out of debt? You did this in 37 months and eight days. So I think the two keys for me, one is the most practical, which was the budget. I made a budget. I'm a total nerd. I'm like my father, who's an accountant.

I made a budget every single month, and I stuck to it. In all honesty, that gave me freedom. I felt like there was freedom in the budget. I saved for holidays every single month a little bit. When I got to December, if I found a gift that I thought someone would love, then the budget gave me that freedom to buy that gift for someone as Rachel says permission to spend exactly and I and I try to explain that to people that it's not as limiting as it seems if you plan ahead you know what's coming in the month ahead it's not like someone else is in control you're in

control of it and there's permission to do that I gave myself a little bit of spending eating out money so I could still do some fun things with friends but a lot of times it. And there's permission to do that. I gave myself a little bit of spending, eating out money, so I could still do some fun things with friends. But a lot of times it was, hey, let's stay in. Let's order a pizza and watch a movie instead of going out every Friday night. So the budget was the key. And then learning contentment was huge. It's hard when we live in a world that says buy the newest and nicest and best things. My TV is currently like 15 years old, but it works totally fine.

So I've just been content with what I have, and that's been hard a lot of times. But just knowing that there was an end in sight and that eventually I'd be able to buy a new couch or go on a trip or you know i'm still renting it's weird once that contentment switch flips godliness with contentment is great gain the bible says once it's once it flips it doesn't mean that you will never buy nice things but you feel different about them yeah they don't feel as necessary exactly it's more like yeah it's okay. I know when the Amazon Prime Day rolled around just a month or two ago, it was like, buy this 48-inch screen TV. It was like $250. I'm like, that's like nothing for a new TV, and my TV's old.

Then I was like, my TV works perfectly fine. I don't need it yet. Maybe Thanksgiving, I don't know. Next Prime Day. Next Prime Day, yeah. So just, yeah, just being totally fine with where I'm at. There's a power in that, isn't there? There really is.

And I've since finished Baby Step 3, and I'm starting to save for retirement. And everything else right now is going to a home that I hope to purchase this time next year. I'll have a substantial down payment, and I'm excited about it, but I want a house to be a blessing. So I'm not rushing. You're a 31-year-old rock star. Thank you. Thank you. 31 year old rock star I am so proud of you. You are going places big. I really appreciate it. You are going places big. Who are your biggest cheerleaders? My parents. I bet I bet they're really proud. I have a good friend Mackenzie I want to give a quick shout out to she started her debt-free journey before I did while I was still

racking up debt in school and I was kind of her accountability because I knew the steps. She got married a few years ago and got her husband on board. And they recently celebrated their debt freedom as well. And she's been a huge supporter of me. And I hope I've been as good a supporter of her. I suspect. So she's awesome, and I'm thankful. And then my parents have heard, probably had over 100 conversations with me about my debt journey and dreaming with me. And I've had more than one conversation about Roth versus traditional 401ks with my dad over pancakes. And I'm just thankful that they're always there to listen and talk and dream with me.

And that's the most exciting part is the dreams I get to have now. Good parents. Incredible now. Good parents. Incredible parents. Good job. Well done. Thank you so much. Well done. We are proud of you here.

I just want to be an encouragement to others. You are. I had a big hole, and I know a lot of people have big holes, but just stick with it. It's totally worth it in the end. Yeah. I mean, you started this, you were 27 years old. There's a whole bunch of 27-year-olds listening. Yeah.

Yeah, and here you are free thank you it's great we got a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires you're going to be one in about 20 minutes with the way you do things that's the next chapter in your story and they're holding this one back wow absolutely incredible kristin from indianapolis 99 Oh, we'll call it 100. 37 months and 8 days paid off in making 86 to 100 a year as a PA. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

I'm debt-free! If you're listening to this, you know what it means. You're not accidentally here. If you're listening, it means it's your turn. Yeah, I'm talking to you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Brandon's in Utah. Hey, Brandon. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

How can I help? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I wanted to speak with you. So right now I'm in baby step two. I've been listening to you for a couple months now, and I'm really wanting to finish school.

I'm going for construction management. I have about two years left, but I also have a bunch of debt, and i'm trying to figure out what the best route would be to take are you currently in school i'm not right now i stopped probably about a year ago a few different things happened in my life and i'm wanting to get back in gotcha okay and uh so how old are you i'm 32 okay so you're a non-traditional student to say the least okay yeah and uh so what do you what have you been doing for a living like in the last year and before that were you full-time in school when you quit i was okay yeah you quit your job went to school for two years. Some stuff happened, and you've been off from school for a year.

I was doing part-time, just delivering pizzas while I was at school. I mean, you quit your big boy job. I mean, you're like a grown man. Yeah. So what were you doing and what were you making before you started school, and what have you been doing in the last year? So before I started school school i guess it wasn't that much of a big boy job i was in a call center um i was probably making 30 000 okay and you were

like 28 years old though yeah okay yeah and um since then um i've i just started doing HVAC installs or construction. I used to do that for my dad a long time ago. Okay. Right now, I'm making, well, total income or household income is probably about $65. You're married? I am. Okay. How much of the 65 are you making?

About 50 to 55. Okay. So she works part-time? Yeah, she does. Okay. Full-time mom, part-time. Gotcha. Okay.

So you've got a job making 55 to 60, depending on the install rate and what you're doing, kind of going back to your family roots a little bit, but you want to do construction on a big scale as a GC or as a construction manager or something, right? Exactly. Okay, and you've got two years of it under your belt towards a four-year degree. Correct. Okay. What type of construction or management are you wanting to do?

What do you want to do in the construction business? I'm wanting to do residential. So you want to build houses? Yeah, building houses. Working for a large general contractor. Okay. All right. Depending on which large general contractor you're working for,

I would submit to you that a large number of the people building those houses do not have a four-year degree in construction management. The vast majority of home builders do not. You would see a construction management degree show up more in large commercial projects, if at all, if you see it at all. We just completed a 70 million dollar project and i'm pretty sure the guy running the entire project does not have a four-year degree in construction management i've never asked him but i'm pretty sure he doesn't and that's a commercial project building houses i don't know what the percentage

is but i would guess fewer than 20 of home buildersbuilders had one. That would be my guess. So my point is it's not a requirement to become a homebuilder. Okay. The knowledge would be handy. Knowledge is always a good thing, right? But it's not like it's a barrier of you going and doing what you want to do. So what I would tell you to do is begin to talk to some home builders, some of those big home builders, and see if you can get your foot in the door as a junior entry-level floor sweeper supervisor or something. I don't know, hate and error inspector.

I don't know. Something where you're not a home builder yet because they're probably not going to hire you to do that since you've never built a home, but get in there and walk along beside the home builders and start to learn how to build a house, and you probably can move up through the ranks with your knowledge that you get almost like an apprenticeship program. But as Ken Coleman says, you get in proximity where the job is being done that you want to do because I do not – I mean, a degree would be a fine thing, and I'm okay if you go get your degree, but I don't think you have to wait to get a degree to go be a home builder

or to get around the home building business to start to learn how to be a home builder. As a matter of fact, I'm sure you don't think you have to wait to get a degree to go be a home builder or to get around the home building business to start to learn how to be a home builder. As a matter of fact, I'm sure you don't. Would it be an advantage? Knowledge is always an advantage. But it's not like you have to sit over here doing one thing that you sort of kind of don't like doing just for money to feed your family. I'll bet you can get a job making what you make now in a junior supervisory role with a big home builder in your area and i think you need

to start poking around on that and start to meet some people over there you might meet them while you're installing heat and air over on their site too by the way i've been okay to get in the area but that's what i would do and then they might want to pay for you to take your you know your construction management stuff at night and that's how i do it. I don't think you need to quit work and go back to school to finish two years on a construction management degree. I wouldn't suggest it. I just don't think it's, again, it's not a barrier of entry into the industry. That's what we're talking about here.

Is knowledge a good thing? Always knowledge is a good thing. Being dumb is never a good option. So being ignorant, not knowing what's going on is never a good option. And I've been all those things. So anyway, that's what I would do. Hold on. I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle, and it will

help you. It's pretty incredible. One of my favorite, the proven strategy that will lead you to the career you love. I think that's what we're trying to do here. That's the message. So, guys, this is right on par with what we're in the middle of discussing around here. Today we have launched the Borrowed Future podcast, a unique podcast to the Ramsey Network. There's eight episodes unveiling, uncovering the details of the student loan crisis.

It is not a downer. It will make you mad. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. You're going to ride the gambit of emotions as you go through these eight podcast episodes. This is going to be one of the top podcasts on iTunes probably in the next 48 hours, I suspect. We're usually one of the top podcasts anyway, but this one's going to go Zoom, Zoom. But this is a unique podcast for us.

Very excited about it. We want you guys to check it out. The Debt-Free Degree Town Hall with Anthony O'Neill and I is tonight. Anthony O'Neill and me is tonight. And we will be talking about how to go to college debt-free, why you should go to college debt-free. We'll be talking with some people who went to college debt-free, showing you how to do it, what the steps are.

We'll have experts with us. We'll be taking questions from our live audience here in our main atrium. First time we've done a broadcast live from the atrium. And you can watch it. All you have to do is text the word town hall to 33789, 33789. Also on AO's website, Anthony O'Neill's website, we have launched the Debt-Free Degree Scholarship Giveaway. Along with our friends at Speedy Prep,

we're giving away $10,000 in college scholarships. The Debt-Free Degree Scholarship Giveaway. Along with our friends at Speedy Prep, we're giving away $10,000 in college scholarships. The Debt-Free Degree Scholarship Giveaway. Send the high schoolers to DaveRamsey.com slash scholarships, and you can enter at AnthonyO'Neill.com. You can learn about the debt-free degree tools. We've got a cost of college calculator there, a scholarship search tool there, searching tens of thousands of scholarships and grants, no borrowing.

And there's all kinds of other checklists and things to help you make the decision if college is right, what you can afford, how you can afford it. We're not against college. We're just against education done stupid. The paradox is, is in america we have done education in a stupid way that is the oxymoron that we all live in the middle of we congress are is full of boneheads and they've continued to issue the student loans at a breakneck speed to 18 year olds and it's not worked there's 1 $1.6 trillion of student loan debt.

It's an epic plague. Talked to that guy a while ago with $450,000 of student loan debt. My stomach still hurts. Now it's not even my debt. Well, it is my debt because if he doesn't pay it, I get to him. I'm a taxpayer. It's your debt, too. You ought to tell your Congress to stop making these loans.

Ugh. A lot of stuff going on around here, people. You need to check in. Check in at DaveRamsey.com. Check in with the debt-free degree town hall tonight. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for the Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register.

We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.