Bad Advice | College

This episode of Books for Men features another edition of “Bad Advice”—a new segment where I debunk advice that I think is given far too often. This edition speaks to the advice that "you must go to college." Should you, though? Listen for more!

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Welcome back, the Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so we have another edition of Bad Advice this month, and this is going to be an interesting one. I think that there are probably a lot of people on both sides of the fence with this debate, which is college. So should you go to college or should you not go to college? And look, I don't think that there's a right answer to this question, and I think that that's more or less what I want to talk about on this episode because I think the foregone conclusion that you absolutely should go is not as clear cut as it once was. And I don't want to deter people from going to college that are thinking about going and that know why they want to go. But I think that that is the key thing that I want to point out here is, why do you want to go to college?

(01:10)

And that's not attempting to be rhetorical. I'm asking you, what is the intention behind your going to college? What is the reason for you going to college? It's maybe a second order of why. So if you answer the first thing, well, I want to get an education. Well, why do you want to get an education so you can learn so you can get a job? Well, how far down the orders of magnitude of why are we going till we get to the real reason why you're going to college? And I think that once you can get to the honest assessment of why you're going, then that's a good starting point. And so let me backtrack just a little bit and say that I have my own history with college and with going to school obviously. And so I'd be a hypocrite if I sat here and told you that I wasn't a benefactor of a college degree because I was.

(02:01)

But my story is unique sort of in its own right as well in that it took me close to six and a half years I think it was to get my degree. And that was by choice. I had originally gone away to school when I first came out of high school, and the first school that I went to was Assumption College up in Worcester, Mass. And it only took about a semester for me to realize that that wasn't the school that I wanted to be at. And I called my mother and I told her, and she was like, “You're fucking staying at school for a year. You're not coming home after a semester.” Or maybe she didn't swear, but she definitely said it with a raised voice. And she was absolutely certain that I wasn't leaving after one semester. So I stayed another semester. And right after that semester ended, so after year one, I came home and I went to a state school in Connecticut, Southern Connecticut State University, and went part-time.

(03:00)

And I began to work and I had a couple of different jobs when I first came home. One of 'em was actually unloading tractor trailers for UPS at like three, four in the morning. So before the packages go out on those brown trucks, there were guys like myself who would unload the 45 and 50-foot tractor-trailers that came in into the brown trucks so they can go out and they could deliver packages. I was also working at the nightclubs down in New Haven. So I was going from nightclub to unloading tractor trailers to school during the day, and that was my life for about a year or two. And then I quickly transferred into a new life where I was working for a local jeweler. And that's sort of how I started my sales career, which is what ultimately led me to realize if I wanted to work in business-to-business sales, I would need a college degree.

(04:00)

So that's when I made the commitment to go back to school full-time for my last year and a half to finish up and get my degree, and then I started working for ADP and my professional sales career started. So that was a very roundabout way to say that it took me six and a half years to finish college, and I worked my way through it. I took out loans, I paid back all those loans. But I will tell you that I was just as clueless as most people listening to this who are pondering whether they should go to college, what they should do when they go to college, should their kids go to college. I had no idea. And I was just going by instinct and by experience and following what felt right to me. And I will say that looking back on that story now, I am proud of the fact that I was able to work my way through school, get the degree and get the job that I was seeking, and that morphed into the next opportunity, which will led to the next opportunity.

(05:04)

And I was fortunate to have a relatively successful career to date. However, I now have a little bit of perspective on the situation because I'm farther removed from it. So I want to go back to how I led this in saying, why do you want to go to college? That is obviously the first question that needs to be answered, and you need to have a very honest discussion about that. Why is that important? Because, college has gotten to be incredibly, incredibly expensive. And so in the absence of understanding why you're going, you could just be settling yourself with a tremendous amount of debt with no prospects of a job. And this is a big problem for a lot of people. This one problem alone will affect your life way more than the degree that you're out to achieve. And I am not suggesting that you don't go get the degree I'm suggesting you understand why you're going to college before you get the degree.

(06:07)

And I get it at 18 years old. That is a very daunting question, which is why I would probably propose to you that in the absence of why go the cheapest route possible until you know why. So if you don't understand why you want to go to school, go to the cheapest school available to you. It might be community college, it might be a state school until you understand why you want to go, and then you could transfer out of there if need be, or you could get your degree and finish through there. Now, if you actually want to go to college, I can make the case for you not going to college. Now that doesn't mean that you shouldn't go to college. It just means I can easily make the case because let's call a spade a spade. Most people are going because they're looking to get educated to then find a job that pays them money to live.

(07:06)

And so ultimately what you're looking for is money to live in a livelihood. And there's a lot of livelihoods out there that you could do that could be very fulfilling and provide you income to live. This is a completely different world. I literally just read a book at the beginning of this year or at the end of last year, rather called Don't Trust Your Gut, and it's a statistician's book on making life decisions. So basically looks at real data that he compiled from all kinds of sources and uses it to look at real-life situations. Something like this one, what do I do for a job? And utilizing US tax return data, he evaluated the top five jobs in which those individuals earned a seven-figure income. So what jobs represented the most millionaires in the US? And three of those top five were real estate, independent, creative, and regional business owners.

(08:02)

All three of those jobs you do not need a college education to do. I found that to be pretty remarkable. Now that doesn't mean you have to do one of three of those jobs. With that being said, you could. And so ultimately looking at your life through, well, why do I want to do this? And if the answer is money, well, there are a lot of things that you could do for money, and I'm not suggesting that that is the North Star because I can go on a whole spiel about why that probably isn't the best route to take in your life either that still doesn't relegate the fact that most people make decisions based on money alone. And so I'm just offering you an alternative way to look at that. And I will say, just to tie a bow on this from my own personal experience, I have a lot of friends who have not gone to college.

(08:53)

And honestly, if I look at it through an objective lens, the ones who didn't go to college probably on average earn more than the ones that did. Now, their livelihood might not be as secure or as safe, but they own a lot of businesses and those businesses do very well. And so you don't need a college education to live in this country. In fact, this is probably the best country to live in without a college education. And so again, I am not saying don't go to college. I am saying there is an alternative. And I think the real problem for me is the thoughtlessness behind the whole thing in saying, yeah, of course, you got to go to college because if you look at the numbers closely, they will tell you that the average college graduate makes X, Y, and Z more than the non-average college graduate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(09:46)

And I'm not here to say that that is wrong, but what I am here to say is you're living your life as an anecdote, so you have a lot more control over what happens to your life than you think you have. And that's why no matter whether you have a college degree or you don't have a college degree, there are three things that you need to focus on that will determine your success in this world. And that's one work ethic. You have to work really hard no matter what you choose to do, whether it is a life in business or a life in the arts, it doesn't matter. I know that is a loaded gun and that is something that you've probably heard time and time again, but it really is the biggest difference maker. I've seen it throughout my career time and time again, I watch it.

(10:38)

People just don't want to work and they don't have the work ethic and the discipline in order to do it. And I get it. Everyone's situation is different, and I empathize with that. That still doesn't mean that it's not important because it is. The other aspect that is really important is likability. People work with people they like, period, and communication. If you can get better at communication, reading, writing, and speaking, those three things, you are going to be exponentially better than the next person at whatever your job is. So work ethic, likability, and communication, go start a business and work really hard, communicate effectively, and be likable. You're going to kill it, period. And look, I'm not here again to say don't go to college. I think that there are plenty of good reasons to go to college life experience travel, right? It's an excuse to actually go someplace new.

(11:36)

And as you get older, those excuses become harder and harder to come by. So that reason alone, I feel like is a great reason to go away to school and let's call spade a spade to get the degree for the job that you want, right? If you want to be a doctor, you've got to go to be a doctor. If you want to be an attorney, you've got to go to school to be an attorney. There are certain things that you have to go to school for and whether you're actually learning or you're just getting a degree, that's really a moot point. But I will say the question of why you're going to college is probably the most important question that you have to ask. And in the absence of why go the cheapest route possible. And if you have the opportunity to go to school for free and you're fortunate in that regard, then it's a no-brainer.

(12:22)

Of course, go, you're silly if you have the opportunity to go for free and you don't go. But here's the question that you have to ask yourself. And where we're at right now with the cost of school and the irrelevancy of a lot of these universities and the audacity they have to charge the amount of money that they have is the degree you're getting worth the debt that you will be walking away from school from. And that needs to be a really honest evaluation. And it takes a really honest assessment because it's not as clear cut as it once was. All right? So I've been talking way too long and crazily enough, I could probably go for another 15 to 20 minutes on this easily because I only scratched the surface with so much that I said in this episode, but I hope it was at least mildly beneficial for you.

(13:15)

And if you know anybody who you think would benefit from listening to this, please share it with them. Whether they're friends, they're family members, or they're people that just might like it. If you liked it, share it with somebody, please. Word of mouth is everything to spreading awareness. And the main goal of this show is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And by the way, you could read and read a lot whether you go to college or you don't go to college. And remember, if you want more information, head over to BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast, as well as quotes, excerpts, links to episodes, and a whole lot more. We're looking to continually evolve the newsletter, and I think it's going to get better and better as we go here. And again, you could sign up for that at BooksforMen.org.