The Greatest SCAM of All-Time
College is the greatest scam of all-time.
The reason is simple. The majority of students are sold on the wrong plan, for the wrong price, for the wrong reasons. Let me explain.
Wrong Plan
When the average 18-year-old graduates high school, they are presented with several realistic options: military, entry-level employment, entrepreneurship, or college. In some cases, young adults can receive basic training and get higher paying, non-degree jobs. However, not all of them need college degrees.
For instance, I estimate that there are four major types of working class adults:
20% Eventual College Graduates (executives, doctors, managers, etc.)
20% Non-Degree Jobs (sales, bus driver, secretary, etc.)
30% Laborers (sanitation, construction, etc.)
20% Entrepreneurs and Free Lancers
If you look at the numbers, it appears that only 20% of people need to attend and graduate college. Yet, the majority of people are pushed to go to college as their 1st option. Most families would NOT consider military, entry-level employment, or entrepreneurship to be a feasible option. Therefore, college becomes a 'one-size fits all' option for most households.
Often times, it is often frowned upon when a young adult doesn't want to go to college. Most young adults feel guilty, inadequate, and even stupid for not enrolling into school. Therefore, millions of students enroll into college and never finish their college degree.
Yet, many of them still have debt. Billions of dollars of debt.
Wrong Price
A broken college student reported to me, "After 3 years of college, I realized that couldn't finish. I was bored and ready to do something new in life. However, at 21 years old, I found myself in $70,000 in debt, which was something I didn't know I signed up for when I started."
Personally, I remember signing the college loan application. In big bold print, it said "PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY." However, since I had happy parents over my shoulders, I just went along and signed the documents without fully reading the information. After all, I thought it was the right thing to do.
However, even if I did read it carefully, how could I understand it at 18 years old?
For example, I remember one of the loans saying, "$15,000 with 14% interest." Because I wasn't savvy at math, I figured that it was a good number. However, I never encountered $15,000 in my life, nor had I learned anything about interest rates. How would I know if it was the right price? How could the value be proven to me before I signed the documents?
Wrong Reason
This is the dilemma that many college students face. They are thrown into a system that basically says, "You might need a degree. It's up to you to figure it out." Yet they aren't given ample reasons to go to school.
If they do get any reasoning, it's usually something simple like, "You need a degree to get a job and start your family" which is a superficial explanation to many young adults.
Many college students go to college for different reasons than their parents expect. A young lady wrote my wife's yearbook, "I hope I can find my husband at XYZ University." Another young man confided to me in economics class, "Dude, college is all about partying all night long." Obviously, college is a place to socialize and have fun rather than focusing on an education.
Speaking of education, some college students graduate college without even having basic skills. In fact, I have received countless applications for my business from students who have major writing errors in their resumes. One guy even wrote in his email headline, "i graduaded formm 'X' univicity, can u tke me in ur companny?" Sadly, he was from a prestigious university from the United States.
The Main Problem
I fully understand that many colleges are good, but most are not. The majority of college graduates don't learn the basic skills they need to become successful. They lack the fundamentals: decision making, time-management, reading, writing, mathematics, networking, and many others.
Yet, these same college graduates are expected to pay a third of their monthly salary within 6 months of graduation (if they could even find a job!). The average Millennial cannot even save $1,000 in America, yet most of them live at their parent's house!
The Future of College
Our broken educational systems have many flaws, which are too numerous to express in this article. However, one takeaway is that ALL people need to recognize that the college system will be overturned. In just a few years, many former students won't be able to pay off their loans, forcing them to default on their debt.
With today's market, failure to make payments on college loans are inevitable. This will cause our governmental system to crash. There are many severe financial consequences because of it:
Government will need to pay trillions of dollars to Baby Boomers (senior citizens) who retire, causing pension and welfare to sky-rocket
Young adults who fail to pay their loans may get bailed out by the government, which will cost them trillions of dollars in revenue
Young adults will either file for personal bankruptcy (chapter 7) or go delinquent on their loans, causing them to struggle obtaining loans for vehicles, businesses, and mortgages due to their lower credit scores; reducing government revenue in the process
Young adults will drop out at unprecedented rates and may have a limited income because of lack of jobs
Entrepreneurs will devise costly and unproven non-accredited schools which may or may not be effective
Inflation will occur because the government will print money to solve its problems (historically proven), causing the dollar to become weaker in value
Taxes will increase substantially to support the economy
What does this all mean? Low credit scores, diminishing dollar power, lack of confidence, lower lending standards (more leasing instead of owning), government interference in education and business, broken bank account, a resurgence of rebellion among the youth, and lack of real education. In fact, all of this is already happening.
Look at what happened in our last recession. It's exactly what will happen within the next 5-10 years. If this path continues, no president can do anything about it. The best way to solve the system is to change our expectations about college. It's not what it used to be anymore.
A 35-year old MBA remarked, "I can't even find an entry-level job. They say I'm too experienced and overqualified. I never thought I'd be a warehouse manager, making $40,000 annually. I expected $100,000 as an executive at a Fortune 500 firm."
The Real Solution:
Don't depend on our college as your only source of education. Truthfully, college doesn't automatically mean success. However, many aspiring college graduates are led to believe this erroneous thought. This multi-trillion-dollar industry is the greatest SCAM of all time.
Daniel Ally
www.danielally.com
