00:00 Speaker A
We’re talking about mere mortals, um, like myself, with a kid about to go to college in a few years. We got to talking about your new book. Uh, it’s called The Truth About College and it’s a guide for parents who want to help their teens answer difficult questions about higher education. It’s not just where you go, which is I think most of the literature is kind of aimed at that, but just how you think about like what you want to do with your life and how college fits into that. Is that a fair way to describe it?
00:23 Speaker B
It is. The question is fundamentally, should the child go to college? That is, there is no doubt that college remains the best path, but only if the child is ready for college and they choose the path and follow it correctly. So they come out with a degree in a field that is marketable, they can earn a good income. They can have a wonderful life. We know that college graduates make the most money in America. They are also healthier, live longer, are less likely to divorce. They have stronger family and community relationships. Going to college getting
00:59 Speaker B
degree is wonderful. But then how do you explain that 24% of freshman drop out, that only 62% graduate in six years, that the average person leaves college with $41,000 of student loan debt, that we have 37 million college dropouts in this country. That these days, 25% of college grads say they wish they never went.
01:23 Speaker B
Obviously, something is wrong with the way we are carrying out this plan. That’s what my book is about. Like I said, most books are all about choosing a college, choosing a major, how do I get accepted? No, ask the fundamental question, is my child a college candidate?
01:34 Speaker A
So, I and I feel like also a lot of the recent questions, um, um, centered around what you’re talking about is kind of focused on the return on investment from and focused more on what the college can provide me, which you have no control over. You have more control over what your child does and the conversations you have. So like, how do you have these? How do you think you understand this?
02:00 Speaker B
Therefore, in my book, The Truth About College, there are uh in the back part of the book, 20 conversation starters for parents to have with their teenagers, asking these fundamental questions to help you decide together is college the right path, knowing that there are so many alternative paths today for free education, for apprenticeships, for vocational school, to take just a yellow year or two. Let the kid grow a little more and mature and develop, see that world a little more to help them determine is college the right path. Is it now? What kind of school, what kind of major, so that the result is much more likely to be successful than to ruin their lives.
02:51 Speaker A
I mean, it’s pretty tricky though when you’re talking about a kid who’s 16, 17, 18 years old, even waiting another year, I mean, you know, in other words,
03:00 Speaker B
25% of college kids are over 25 years old. So, don’t just wait a year, maybe wait five. Go learn about yourself, go travel, go get a job, see what it’s like to have one and see what the economic realities of the world are. This can help you shape your decision making.
03:22 Speaker A
Yeah, I think I only think about myself and I don’t fully understand who I was until much later, which I think is true for a lot of people.
03:31 Speaker B
And that’s a big mistake parents make actually, is they’re thinking about their own college experience 20, 30, 40 years ago, or grandparents, 60 years ago. College today is not like when we went to school and we have to recognize the fundamental differences, the challenges that the children are facing. By the way, we haven’t even mentioned the AI.
03:52 Speaker A
I know I was going to ask you about AI.
03:53 Speaker B
And the incredible threats to most careers due to technological innovation. Many kids are majoring in fields that literally won’t exist by the time they graduate.
04:08 Speaker A
uu I don’t know if waiting a year will help with that. That is, those feel like questions that we will not necessarily have answered for a while.
04:14 Speaker B
And so I will tell you the path that I describe in the book. There are four main things you need to make sure your child learns. And any college can teach these: thinking, creating, managing and communicating. This is what you need to teach your children how to do because this is adaptable in almost any career. On the contrary, oh I’ll become an engineer, learn how to code. Well, great. We don’t need coders because of AI. So we have to learn how to think and create and communicate.
04:50 Speaker B
You are in the field of communication. This is transportable for cross-border industry. And this is what we need to help people realize that the college of the past is not what exists today. The cost is much higher, the challenge is much greater. We need to rethink and re-evaluate the approach we are taking. And that’s what I help people really understand about college.