Episode 137

full
Published on:

11th Dec 2025

Only 3% of Careers Actually Pay More With a Degree (Full)

College used to be the golden ticket. Now it’s a $1.7 trillion debt trap for millions while only 3% of careers actually reward the degree with higher pay.

Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley rip apart the myth: exploding admin costs, profit-driven schools, bias against non-degree paths, and why trades and on-the-job training are quietly eating college’s lunch. No sacred cows survive.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) College Wrap Up – cold open on the real ROI
  • (00:47) Introduction and Overview
  • (01:00) Questioning the Value of College – the numbers don’t lie
  • (01:52) Exploring Alternatives to College – trades, apprenticeships, self-taught
  • (12:46) The Bias Against Non-Degree Holders – how HR filters kill opportunity
  • (15:13) Trade Schools and Other Career Paths – where the money actually is
  • (26:38) The Student Debt Crisis – scale and who profits
  • (29:31) Industry Collaboration in Education – what works when companies train
  • (30:32) The Changing Classroom Experience – Zoom U vs 1995
  • (33:28) Rising Costs and Administrative Inflation – where your tuition really goes
  • (34:56) The Profit Motive in Education – universities as hedge funds
  • (40:00) Student Loan Forgiveness Debate – moral hazard vs bailout
  • (51:29) The Future of Jobs and AI Impact – degrees about to matter even less
  • (55:10) Advice for the Next Generation – what parents and kids need to hear
  • (59:42) Final Thoughts on Education Reform

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Transcript
Jerremy Newsome:

Ladies and gentlemen.

Jerremy Newsome:

Welcome back over the last few episodes, Dave and myself and to our guests.

Jerremy Newsome:

We've been digging into one of the biggest questions out there.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is college still worth it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And after everything we've uncovered, I can say this.

Jerremy Newsome:

We are not in the same place we were when we started.

Jerremy Newsome:

We have all been told that college is the best path to success.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is it?

Dave Conley:

So that was really cool about doing these episodes is that we

Dave Conley:

start in one place and we have this like thesis, we have this assumption and it's

Dave Conley:

okay, we come in with our own biases and our own like life experiences and

Dave Conley:

we were questioning, even if a degree.

Dave Conley:

With the student debt and whether, whether any of it made any sense anymore.

Dave Conley:

It's Oh, you got YouTube, you got AI, you got all these other

Dave Conley:

things that are available to you.

Dave Conley:

And I think I know through my lens, it was like, man, there was no way

Dave Conley:

I've been trying to get students.

Dave Conley:

out of the system.

Dave Conley:

It's I want to go to college.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, no, don't do it.

Dave Conley:

So as we talked with the educators, the entrepreneurs and the

Dave Conley:

experts, I think we realized it's not just about college itself.

Dave Conley:

That's a huge component, right?

Dave Conley:

But it's affordability.

Dave Conley:

It's outdated education models.

Dave Conley:

It's the lack of emphasis on different ways that people can be successful

Dave Conley:

and how they might be able to do that.

Dave Conley:

And I think you brought it up, several times and we'll get into it.

Dave Conley:

It's look, this there's lots of there's lots of ways to get there.

Dave Conley:

And the amount of education that goes in at the beginning of telling

Dave Conley:

a student or a prospective student, let's do this is like nil, but here's

Dave Conley:

a hundred thousand dollars of debt.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

The one that just frustrates me the most, I think Is some shift between how hard it

Jerremy Newsome:

is to get an SBA loan, business loan, new startup loan, new venture loan, something

Jerremy Newsome:

versus getting a loan for college.

Jerremy Newsome:

That is an easy shift.

Jerremy Newsome:

Very easy to change right out the gate is okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

If we're going to make it very simple to get a college loan and for whatever

Jerremy Newsome:

reason, go for it, you're gonna get a liberal arts degree where you will

Jerremy Newsome:

literally never ever pay that off.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

Hey, Microsoft help.

Jerremy Newsome:

You can sign on the dotted line and you can go get all of your money, all

Jerremy Newsome:

the money that you want, and then go to Belmont and, quarter million dollars

Jerremy Newsome:

a year, get your liberal arts degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

But then the government or the institutions or that same lending

Jerremy Newsome:

institution should be available for anyone who wants to start a business

Jerremy Newsome:

as well, have a business plan, have it drawn out, have it written out.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is what you should be able to do.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the same speed at which they will get approved for a student loan,

Jerremy Newsome:

get approved for a business loan.

Dave Conley:

Yes, and I think that's absolutely one solution that, that's

Dave Conley:

right in the money spot because, here's the running theme that we keep on running

Dave Conley:

into, whether it's our first series on school safety and school shootings,

Dave Conley:

whether it was college, we talked a little bit of national debt, and we've

Dave Conley:

definitely hit it on some upcoming themes that we're hitting, is that

Dave Conley:

there's no cheerleaders for any of this.

Dave Conley:

There's nobody yet that we have found that is saying, Hey, this is working great.

Dave Conley:

Don't touch it.

Dave Conley:

Don't mess with it.

Dave Conley:

And it seems almost ludicrous that the people who are actually empowered to

Dave Conley:

actually make the changes to do this, are, they seem to be living in, I

Dave Conley:

don't know what it is, they seem to be living in some sort of fantasy land.

Dave Conley:

You Where all of the policy, whether it's government or these institutions,

Dave Conley:

the colleges, or the, even the companies that are getting college graduates

Dave Conley:

that are saying, Hey, this isn't, everybody is saying this isn't working.

Dave Conley:

What is it?

Dave Conley:

What is it?

Dave Conley:

So let's back up a little bit.

Dave Conley:

Let's walk through the episodes.

Dave Conley:

We started this.

Dave Conley:

Is college worse than cost?

Dave Conley:

And we started with Rob and Jeremy.

Jerremy Newsome:

huh.

Dave Conley:

Couple of cool guys.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

Super cool dudes.

Dave Conley:

What was their story?

Dave Conley:

I recall that I think it seemed like we had 20 degrees between

Dave Conley:

the four of us in that room.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was so fun.

Jerremy Newsome:

Jeremy with his 412 different degrees.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's like constant, like I need to get degrees, like it has to happen.

Jerremy Newsome:

and then Rob really, what was fascinating is Rob also had a more pro take on

Jerremy Newsome:

college for a lot of different reasons, but one of them he famously said listen,

Jerremy Newsome:

if you're a black man in America, get a college degree, end of story, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

End of the story, because you're going to be looked at differently.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you don't, and that is a way to continually distinguish yourself right

Jerremy Newsome:

from black man to black man, like that's what he mentioned as a really beautiful

Jerremy Newsome:

direction for a lot of men in this country who want to create distinguishing

Jerremy Newsome:

differentiation between themselves and someone else of the same skin color.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right, go get a degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Got it.

Jerremy Newsome:

So for him it was also awesome because we had that really great conversation.

Jerremy Newsome:

It was mandatory in his household There was no other choice You had to get a

Jerremy Newsome:

college degree And that is because his parents did find really good success and

Jerremy Newsome:

for those of you who remember in that conversation Their parents did choose

Jerremy Newsome:

the degrees that do pay relatively well essentially both engineering degrees and

Jerremy Newsome:

so for his parents, they got a good degree because those jobs were very relevant.

Jerremy Newsome:

They were high paying.

Jerremy Newsome:

They were very strategic and very specific falling really into the

Jerremy Newsome:

stem right aspect of degrees.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so for his parents making it mandatory and the entire time of you growing up for

Jerremy Newsome:

Rob, his parents were saying, you have to go to college, you have to go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

But.

Jerremy Newsome:

No, you have to go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is the type of degree that you have to get.

Jerremy Newsome:

You can't just go to college and get a basket weaving degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

You got to go and become an engineer or you got to go and work in finance

Jerremy Newsome:

or systems arbitrage or whatever.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that those are the requirements.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think that was just really a beautiful paint portrait and picture because

Jerremy Newsome:

the more that family unit encourages children to go after, not any degree,

Jerremy Newsome:

because they, even 30 years ago, his parents, We're very aware that there are

Jerremy Newsome:

some degrees that are better and there are some degrees that are worth it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there are some degrees that you definitely shouldn't

Jerremy Newsome:

even waste your time with.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think is an obvious direction to implore.

Dave Conley:

I went to graduate school with a lot of Indian nationals and

Dave Conley:

their running joke was in their family.

Dave Conley:

They were either.

Dave Conley:

Engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, or failures.

Dave Conley:

Because it was so in, just in the culture, in their family, like

Dave Conley:

there was no question that the family units and the culture that

Dave Conley:

they were in valued education.

Dave Conley:

I think you see that in across, Asian communities for sure.

Dave Conley:

And.

Dave Conley:

I, so I got a question for you because I want to hit this on a future episode when

Dave Conley:

we're talking maybe race, we'll just talk about race and, as such a big thing here.

Dave Conley:

And I'm curious if I absolutely believe Rob as far as saying, Hey, as

Dave Conley:

a black man you have to go to college in order to to, to how did he put it?

Dave Conley:

He said, To just to gain access and higher level of opportunities.

Dave Conley:

There was no other way to succeed without a degree.

Dave Conley:

And I'm curious if that is true.

Dave Conley:

My, my understanding again it's really basic.

Dave Conley:

My understanding is that.

Dave Conley:

If you look at anybody from a given zip code, meaning that they're in, like if

Dave Conley:

they're in a upper income zip code, like right on Washington DC or in New York

Dave Conley:

or in LA or San Francisco, no matter their race, no matter who they are male

Dave Conley:

or female, no matter what their race is, they will have similar outcomes

Dave Conley:

in life because of the zip code that they're in, the schools that they go

Dave Conley:

to, the high schools, the people that they surround themselves, that if you're

Dave Conley:

in an upper, if you're in a middle.

Dave Conley:

Solid middle class or an upper middle class, or an upper class zip code, those

Dave Conley:

people tend, it seems to just go out in the wash saying that race isn't the most

Dave Conley:

critical factor when it comes to that.

Dave Conley:

I do believe that if you are not in those zip codes, then race is more

Dave Conley:

tightly correlated with income, and if it's correlated with income, then all of

Dave Conley:

those opportunities go out the window.

Dave Conley:

So I'm, I wanna figure that one out.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah, that's a really.

Dave Conley:

Now, I might be wrong, right?

Dave Conley:

But that is, but it's I don't know.

Dave Conley:

It's not saying that race isn't important, but I'm saying, is it

Dave Conley:

that important for, upper middle class and middle class families?

Dave Conley:

Is it the same?

Dave Conley:

I don't know.

Dave Conley:

I don't know the answer.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think what you said is the zip code is that's probably worth definitely

Jerremy Newsome:

finding and doing some good research on.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because if you're in the zip code and you have a race that stands out, that's

Jerremy Newsome:

potentially different than others.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you are not doing what the other people in that zip code do, you probably

Jerremy Newsome:

still will be relatively ostracized.

Jerremy Newsome:

Example, if 85 percent of this zip code is race car drivers

Jerremy Newsome:

and you're the only dentist,

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

I get it.

Jerremy Newsome:

you're right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Exactly.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're probably, people are gonna probably think you're a stranger.

Jerremy Newsome:

If everyone in the zip code or the vast majority of software engineers,

Jerremy Newsome:

and you're the only influencer.

Jerremy Newsome:

That it doesn't matter your age.

Jerremy Newsome:

It doesn't matter your race.

Jerremy Newsome:

People are gonna think you're weird anyway, and you're probably

Jerremy Newsome:

gonna have tons of friends.

Jerremy Newsome:

So it for me the perspective really is the ability for you to distinguish

Jerremy Newsome:

yourself, not only from societal norms, but also to just be aware of how you're

Jerremy Newsome:

going down your trajectory of education.

Jerremy Newsome:

As long as people are comfortable that you put in the work, the time and the

Jerremy Newsome:

elegance of the grind, the evidence of the grind where it's like, Whoa, okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

You didn't go to college, but you flipped 150 houses and you have a story

Jerremy Newsome:

or you didn't go to college, but you went to jail and you got out of jail

Jerremy Newsome:

and then you've learned what not to do.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you studied on the backs of Individuals that taught you and

Jerremy Newsome:

you read a bunch of books and now you are an incredibly high echelon

Jerremy Newsome:

tax paying individual of the united states of america, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

That's a story of Resilience that's really the human emotion is the reason

Jerremy Newsome:

that college is there is because it is hard To get a good degree as you

Jerremy Newsome:

go through college right going to university of florida, which was a big

Jerremy Newsome:

college still is obviously at the time, we have a mutual friend, Dave, that his

Jerremy Newsome:

son got a 1520 on his SATs and couldn't get into the University of Florida.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, I'm not saying that's probably a bad thing for UF, by the way, like

Jerremy Newsome:

you're missing out on someone that almost got a perfect SAT score, that's rare.

Jerremy Newsome:

But to the same degree that if someone's going to any college and

Jerremy Newsome:

graduates from that college, If it's a high end, upper echelon college,

Jerremy Newsome:

that still comes with some marker of this person put in the time, the

Jerremy Newsome:

energy and the effort to actually win.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it doesn't obviously ultimately probably even matter if it's college or

Jerremy Newsome:

if it's a four year work experience where you went to work for four years versus

Jerremy Newsome:

going to college and now you have work experience and your boss or your bosses

Jerremy Newsome:

have this glowing report that, Hey.

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave knows how to put in the work.

Jerremy Newsome:

Dave knows how to put in the time.

Jerremy Newsome:

He did X, Y, Z proficiently.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're probably still going to get a really good job placement

Jerremy Newsome:

because you showed resilience.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what most people are putting out there.

Jerremy Newsome:

And a lot of times college does show that resiliency.

Dave Conley:

So do you, is another way of saying that, do you think that

Dave Conley:

there's a bias or a prejudice even of people who don't have a degree?

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh, is there a prejudice?

Jerremy Newsome:

There is, yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

In fact, I would say this, there's a prejudice.

Jerremy Newsome:

Whereas if you don't have a degree, you better have a story.

Jerremy Newsome:

There, there better be a reason why.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for example who right now is going, Oh, Zuckerberg, what a failure?

Jerremy Newsome:

No one,

Dave Conley:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

Not a single person ever.

Jerremy Newsome:

Cause the guy was in Harvard, but dropped out.

Jerremy Newsome:

Could he get finished?

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Could have.

Jerremy Newsome:

But now he donates 3 billion a year to the endowment fund.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I was like he's good.

Jerremy Newsome:

That perspective though, he doesn't have a college degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now, I don't know if he's actually gone out and got one since just for

Jerremy Newsome:

the giggles, but there's tons of people that if you do not have a

Jerremy Newsome:

degree and this country, yeah, you better have a really remarkable story.

Dave Conley:

This is, so this is what I heard here.

Dave Conley:

Here's where it was because I, I did come into this first episode in particular and

Dave Conley:

being like no, don't go and get a degree.

Dave Conley:

Even though we know that college graduates they, over the

Dave Conley:

longterm, they do make more money.

Dave Conley:

They do have better health outcomes.

Dave Conley:

They, there's you live longer.

Dave Conley:

There's a lot of things that like go into it, but here's some things.

Dave Conley:

We learned from Anya in the second episode that like the biggest debt

Dave Conley:

that people have are the people who didn't finish their degree.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, Oh no.

Dave Conley:

Like they actually got in, they started doing it and they couldn't

Dave Conley:

afford it or something happened or life got in the way and it's oh, no.

Dave Conley:

So that's the worst of all worlds.

Dave Conley:

It's like you started, but you didn't.

Dave Conley:

And then we learned like a bunch of people are in jobs that don't even

Dave Conley:

require a degree or they're not using it.

Dave Conley:

And then it's like there is that mismatch of, yeah, there's a

Dave Conley:

bias against people who don't have degrees and the value of it.

Dave Conley:

In the workplace.

Dave Conley:

I don't know.

Dave Conley:

I don't know how I'm saying, you know what I'm saying?

Dave Conley:

I'm trying to, I'm trying to get it.

Dave Conley:

I was like, look, it, the college degree doesn't matter a whole lot,

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

but there's this heavy prejudice against it and there's

Dave Conley:

a lot of places that, require a college degree and like on and on.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, when we talked about reforming this thing, I think it

Dave Conley:

happened in the later episodes, which will, you know, which is

Dave Conley:

this does need to be redone.

Dave Conley:

I don't know, but let's talk about the, in this first episode, we also talked

Dave Conley:

about trade schools and the value of that.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I love trade schools, man.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm a big, huge proponent of those.

Jerremy Newsome:

Huge.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because my, my theory again for how we can radically shifts the business

Jerremy Newsome:

model that is college that is failing this nation is if you don't know

Jerremy Newsome:

exactly what you want to do, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

So someone goes, I don't like you fill out a form.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you know what you want to do?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yay or nay, nay, go to a trade school, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

If you know what you want to do, it's still not an exact.

Jerremy Newsome:

You have to go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

So here would be a form.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you know what I want to do?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes, I want to go finance degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay, why you want to get a finance degree?

Jerremy Newsome:

So I can make a bunch of money trading the stock market.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay, Jeremy Newsom, don't go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

Bye.

Jerremy Newsome:

if you do go to college, you're going to pay more because

Jerremy Newsome:

you're going to make more.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're going for, you're going for finance literally to make money.

Jerremy Newsome:

So your whole job is going to be to make money.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, that's why you pay for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's why you have to pay for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

You don't have to do anything.

Jerremy Newsome:

You don't have to pay for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's no scholarships here.

Jerremy Newsome:

Enjoy.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right.

Jerremy Newsome:

So that depends on how bad that I want it now.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if I go out and get that degree, I have to pay for that degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I have now understood that's something that I want to do.

Jerremy Newsome:

So I'm going to go to college so they can figure out what they want to do.

Jerremy Newsome:

And they're going to spend five, six, seven years, like to your point, growing

Jerremy Newsome:

their debt and then maybe getting a job.

Jerremy Newsome:

Probably doesn't pay for their tuition.

Jerremy Newsome:

College experience or if they drop out two years in and they hated it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now they go get a job.

Jerremy Newsome:

They still have that debt for those two three years Yeah, if you don't know why

Jerremy Newsome:

you're going to go to college You're not really sure you have to slash you

Jerremy Newsome:

should go to a trade school because trade schools is hey You're going to get a on

Jerremy Newsome:

the job training ojt like you're going to learn something that probably AI is not

Jerremy Newsome:

going to take away from you anytime soon.

Jerremy Newsome:

These jobs are mechanical oil changes, welding, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Doing, working on HVAC systems, doing plumbing, electricity.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like these are jobs that robots will take a hundred years from

Jerremy Newsome:

now, like nice and far away.

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe maid services great people need their apartments or their house or the

Jerremy Newsome:

things clean is like people will pay for that all the time Laundry services like

Jerremy Newsome:

you can learn so many things in trade schools Because it is on the job train.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like I say, Hey, this is a job.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're going to teach you how to do this job.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the, in this job, you're going to make money because jobs pay money.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what they do.

Jerremy Newsome:

Huh.

Jerremy Newsome:

Huh.

Dave Conley:

That's a t shirt.

Dave Conley:

Jobs pay money.

Dave Conley:

I'm a a hundred percent yes on this and I'm going to say

Dave Conley:

this again, future episode.

Dave Conley:

Like I, I'm just like, okay.

Dave Conley:

For a future episode, I want to talk to more people in trade schools.

Dave Conley:

Because I think this also dovetails really well with what Karen was talking about in

Dave Conley:

our third episode, which is there's a lot of ways that we can reform the system.

Dave Conley:

And one of them is lifelong learning and micro credentials.

Dave Conley:

Now, when I think about a trade school, this is why I want

Dave Conley:

to talk to people in trades.

Dave Conley:

is that often it's very, no pun intended, but labor intensive.

Dave Conley:

And those labor intensive jobs will take a toll on your body.

Dave Conley:

And not only do these jobs need to have good pensions and maybe unions

Dave Conley:

involved, but also ensuring that, you do make a lot of money in this, that,

Dave Conley:

in particular, something happens on the job that, you're taken care of,

Dave Conley:

that there's also, career paths inside your trades and those micro credentials

Dave Conley:

can teach you all sorts of things.

Dave Conley:

Maybe it's managing people.

Dave Conley:

Maybe it's getting into the business side of things.

Dave Conley:

Maybe it's starting a business on your trade.

Dave Conley:

Maybe it's some other aspect of your trade that isn't so labor intensive.

Dave Conley:

And so that's where I'm like, okay, let's talk to people in trades because

Dave Conley:

I want to understand What those career paths are, because you're a

Dave Conley:

different human being in your early twenties than you are in your fifties.

Dave Conley:

And it's you're not, if you're still slinging bricks in your fifties.

Dave Conley:

Wow, God bless you.

Dave Conley:

But that's tough.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

Exactly.

Jerremy Newsome:

You don't have to, I think there's probably a lot of other things

Jerremy Newsome:

you can do in that situation.

Dave Conley:

And there was other things around this, right?

Dave Conley:

There was also like, okay, we didn't talk enough about military.

Dave Conley:

We have a lot of, people in the military that listened to us

Dave Conley:

and they're friends of ours.

Dave Conley:

That's a career path.

Dave Conley:

If you don't know where if you're like, I'm a, I don't know.

Dave Conley:

It's not just, Trade school or college.

Dave Conley:

It's and there's service it's there's gap years.

Dave Conley:

That's go and be an intern.

Dave Conley:

I know I, I was not emotionally prepared to go to college and the

Dave Conley:

type of college that I went to.

Dave Conley:

And the, just the idea of man, just to go and take a year when I was 18 and

Dave Conley:

travel and work and intern for a year, just get some education social education

Dave Conley:

around making money and people and, just try some things and just do some

Dave Conley:

intern work for real estate or whatever.

Dave Conley:

And just see what it's all about before I went to college.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think those are, I think those are big pieces and I think that's something that

Jerremy Newsome:

can easily be constructed, probably.

Jerremy Newsome:

More just from the top down approach, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Imagine if you have the president just openly talking about this relatively

Jerremy Newsome:

often, where Hey, this is the education experience going forward, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

This is what's available.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is what's opportunistic.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is what's possible.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is the changes that we need to make going forward.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is what we should make going forward.

Jerremy Newsome:

These are the tiny micro adjustments and tweaks that we can make on this education

Jerremy Newsome:

system and really the mindset behind the education system about what's available.

Jerremy Newsome:

I mean imagine more and more teenagers 18 and 19 taking their leap years or it

Jerremy Newsome:

being relatively mandatory before you even go into college unless you have a 3.

Jerremy Newsome:

8 GPA or higher you now need to go and you have to do a year of work as a

Jerremy Newsome:

submission before you go into college.

Jerremy Newsome:

And yes, you're going to reward the ones that are academically

Jerremy Newsome:

like ready to go, they're on fire.

Jerremy Newsome:

But if they're, a Jeremy Newsome and they're going to, they're

Jerremy Newsome:

just squeaking by and they want to just go make a bunch of money.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's like, all right let's go work first.

Jerremy Newsome:

And thankfully nationwide insurance was one of the companies and there

Jerremy Newsome:

are companies Out there that will pay you to go to college if you're working

Jerremy Newsome:

for them And that's a mind blowing opportunity in itself But nationwide was

Jerremy Newsome:

one of those companies and the hilarious caveat was I had to work 60 hours a

Jerremy Newsome:

week And so I was like, wait a minute.

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you telling me I only have to work 60 hours a week?

Jerremy Newsome:

And you guys will also help pay for my college and I can

Jerremy Newsome:

take any degree that I want.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're like Bro, if you work 60 hours a week, we'll pay

Jerremy Newsome:

for whatever college you want.

Jerremy Newsome:

I was like Yeah, that's a no brainer, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

We're talking with us 12 hours a day for five days a week.

Jerremy Newsome:

What do you want me to do with all my other time?

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm confused.

Jerremy Newsome:

60 hours.

Dave Conley:

Was it enterprise that does that to enterprise rent a car?

Jerremy Newsome:

Enterprise rental is one of them.

Jerremy Newsome:

Verizon used to be one of them that there's a few man out there, like

Jerremy Newsome:

pretty big companies that will pay their employees to go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

And here's the crazy part though.

Jerremy Newsome:

Imagine, Dave, how many people at Danish Hawaiian Insurance were

Jerremy Newsome:

not working 60 10 other people, I was like, what are you doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't get it.

Jerremy Newsome:

So again, it's just one of those things that wasn't, I don't think this message

Jerremy Newsome:

is championed enough by people where if you're not going to college, I've been a

Jerremy Newsome:

big proponent of, Yes, there's a reason if and if you don't know, then there

Jerremy Newsome:

absolutely should be a very easy path for you to learn to figure it out, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

You just mentioned the military.

Jerremy Newsome:

We talked about trade schools.

Jerremy Newsome:

We talked about internships.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's going to be on the job trainings.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's another, I'm a big fan of, which is apprenticeships,

Jerremy Newsome:

even better than internships.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think there's tons and tons of companies that could offer

Jerremy Newsome:

should offer apprenticeship roles.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where again, you can still pay someone very nicely because interns

Jerremy Newsome:

essentially is just free and they're just working for no reason.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like they got bills too.

Jerremy Newsome:

But apprenticeships, it's probably even a better program.

Dave Conley:

There's a, there's an attitude shift I would love to see,

Dave Conley:

which is also in most of the rest of the world, like retail jobs and food

Dave Conley:

services, jobs are professions And you can make good money doing those things.

Dave Conley:

And here it's often equated with like people who are in school or

Dave Conley:

young people or people who are, wanting to go off and do something

Dave Conley:

else it's seen as temporary work.

Dave Conley:

And I think there's this attitude shift of not only is blue collar

Dave Conley:

work valuable and needed trades and people who are in trades valuable and

Dave Conley:

needed that, most people in the United States don't have a college degree and

Dave Conley:

that people who are doing jobs like.

Dave Conley:

Like food services

Dave Conley:

those, they, to elevate them as professionals and not just treat

Dave Conley:

it as a job that anybody can do.

Dave Conley:

I waited tables and I did not last long.

Dave Conley:

, it's it's hard.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

But it is, to your point, like those should be, there should be certain some of

Jerremy Newsome:

those that some people should experience.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, everyone should just have that yep, this is a role that I can

Jerremy Newsome:

go into as a someone in a certain age to potentially try to go to college.

Jerremy Newsome:

Should I also work myself through school, go into the food industry,

Jerremy Newsome:

the service industry, just so you can learn interaction.

Jerremy Newsome:

You, I think you said the word earlier, societal, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Just learn your societal roles, your societal norms, wherever you are in the

Jerremy Newsome:

country to just understand how to be with people and talk to people because

Jerremy Newsome:

if it was made, if it became this.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's call it a life credit you go to college And if you are going to

Jerremy Newsome:

college, you can submit a W 2 or you can submit a, I have worked for another

Jerremy Newsome:

organization for more than a year.

Jerremy Newsome:

You automatically get a reduction of four credit hours, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

That would be an awesome solution because now you're going to

Jerremy Newsome:

incentivize and reward people who do work before slash while they're in

Jerremy Newsome:

college, because Dave, guess what?

Jerremy Newsome:

All the people don't.

Jerremy Newsome:

A lot of people like, man, this whole college thing I, this is enough for me.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm like, it's not, no, it's not 12 hours is a full time plate for college credit.

Jerremy Newsome:

Which is three, four hour classes essentially or four or

Jerremy Newsome:

three hour classes either way.

Jerremy Newsome:

So 12, 16 credit hours is oh, what are you doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

That's your, you're getting two.

Jerremy Newsome:

Oh boy.

Jerremy Newsome:

Sixteen.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's only four, four hour classes a week.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's what are you doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

There's so much more time left.

Jerremy Newsome:

So yeah, being able to reward children and rewarding our young teens who are

Jerremy Newsome:

going to college and working with some type of credit reduction bonus point

Jerremy Newsome:

system of some kind to have jobs also I think would be remarkable because

Jerremy Newsome:

then you're giving reasons to also be working and go to school simultaneously.

Dave Conley:

Love it.

Dave Conley:

Love it.

Dave Conley:

Let's talk about let's touch on the second episode in this series.

Dave Conley:

It was With Anya Cummins.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

20 years ago, she wrote these books saying, Hey, this whole

Dave Conley:

college debt thing, this isn't going to go into the right place 20 years ago.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

And everything that she talked about coming true.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

And she predicted a student debt crisis, and it's huge.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's huge.

Jerremy Newsome:

Debt keeps growing because college costs is outpacing inflation and

Jerremy Newsome:

graduation remains, graduation rates are remaining about the exact same.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think one of the things that she's made pretty clear is the need for

Jerremy Newsome:

policy and systemic change, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

The policymakers haven't adapted to any kind of these economical, economic shifts.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think ultimately just being aware that, that while the price

Jerremy Newsome:

of college is going up, that additional price, you're not really

Jerremy Newsome:

receiving anything extra for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Essentially saying hey, if you were to pay more, why can't you get on a.

Jerremy Newsome:

Higher likelihood graduation path, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

If you do pay more, can I get, does that come with tutoring?

Jerremy Newsome:

Does that come with, and some colleges might have this.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't know of any right now, but if, Hey, I pay for a little bit more.

Jerremy Newsome:

So instead of 55, It's not an extra 5, 000 a year that I'm paying.

Jerremy Newsome:

I get a tutor.

Jerremy Newsome:

I get office hours.

Jerremy Newsome:

I get.

Jerremy Newsome:

Classes that someone holds my hand and really just helps me out and answers

Jerremy Newsome:

and stayed over and, the teacher's assistant helps me and spends time

Jerremy Newsome:

with me and so on and so forth.

Jerremy Newsome:

So if you are going to pay extra, cause that's what happened,

Jerremy Newsome:

that's what's happening right now.

Jerremy Newsome:

People are paying extra.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're not getting anything extra for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And there are professions that stay in debt, including

Jerremy Newsome:

the medical licenses, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Medical degrees and medical debt is bananas.

Jerremy Newsome:

And they stay in that debt for 30, 40 years.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Into your fifties, right?

Dave Conley:

Because you don't get out of school until you're mid thirties.

Dave Conley:

What

Jerremy Newsome:

And you're not making actually any real

Jerremy Newsome:

money until you're mid forties.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like real legit good money.

Jerremy Newsome:

So yeah, it is.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's really mind blowing.

Jerremy Newsome:

The amount of debt that the people are just going under

Jerremy Newsome:

to just, to get into this.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think that's awesome.

Jerremy Newsome:

And she tracked that down and stated that the traditional four year

Jerremy Newsome:

college model is outdated, right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Which is really that simple.

Jerremy Newsome:

That standard go for four years.

Jerremy Newsome:

Outdated.

Dave Conley:

how did.

Dave Conley:

How did Karen put it that, Hey, the system does have, some value we've been doing

Dave Conley:

it, but we've been doing it basically the same way for a thousand years,

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Like it hasn't changed much since the dark ages, literally.

Dave Conley:

And, but Anya and Karen, they intersected in a really interesting

Dave Conley:

place, but we can focus on Anya first.

Dave Conley:

She said, there's some things that are really working and

Dave Conley:

we want to do more of that.

Dave Conley:

Anya mentioned, oh, it was the Western Governors Association and they're the ones

Dave Conley:

that are working with industry and they develop these skill based education along

Dave Conley:

with students having a success coach.

Dave Conley:

And Karen mentioned the same thing of working directly with industry to be

Dave Conley:

like, okay, we know that the college graduates you're getting you're saying

Dave Conley:

loud and clear that they are not ready for work and that you're having to retrain

Dave Conley:

them as soon as they get out of college.

Dave Conley:

So let's work together and hey, maybe you guys can sponsor this rather

Dave Conley:

than the students footing the bill.

Dave Conley:

There was Australia, which was like, okay, you only pay back a percentage

Dave Conley:

of your income based on your degree.

Dave Conley:

And what am I missing?

Dave Conley:

Oh, you, you said you, we should pay for experiences, not for education.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think those

Dave Conley:

There were some good ones in here.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Jerremy Newsome:

there was, man.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think, again, I think one of my solutions that I can, that we can

Jerremy Newsome:

end up bringing to the table at some point in the future really

Jerremy Newsome:

is that awareness piece, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Where again, the education's if you have all this stuff for free online, they're

Jerremy Newsome:

not coming there for the education, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

They're coming there for the experience of learning how to meet people, talk

Jerremy Newsome:

to people, interact with people.

Jerremy Newsome:

The education is there.

Jerremy Newsome:

I went through tons of classes where the lecturer was just speaking about really

Jerremy Newsome:

cool ideas and all the stuff was online.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the professor was like, All right, cool, hey, just go check

Jerremy Newsome:

everything online and, take your test.

Jerremy Newsome:

But the idea of the classroom was this I could just easily see this model where

Jerremy Newsome:

the idea starts to change, where it's no longer everyone sitting in these

Jerremy Newsome:

giant, Rose and these stadiums, these auditoriums, just listening to an orator

Jerremy Newsome:

speak all the time, where it's much more, all right, let's get everyone up on stage.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's have these conversations.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's all sit around these circles.

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's sit around these internet campfire style discussion tables where we really

Jerremy Newsome:

start addressing some of the topics of not only what are we doing, but how are

Jerremy Newsome:

we doing, how are we doing it better?

Jerremy Newsome:

And what is everyone trying to learn from this class?

Jerremy Newsome:

What are we trying to do with it?

Jerremy Newsome:

And.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay, great.

Jerremy Newsome:

What is the ultimate objective of this class?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you trying to get a credit?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you trying to get a grade?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you trying to learn?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you trying to make more money?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you trying to better your life?

Jerremy Newsome:

Are you going to use portions of this to become a better person?

Jerremy Newsome:

Having these implementations of really knowing what the

Jerremy Newsome:

students are trying to achieve.

Jerremy Newsome:

And bring that to the forefront and just really laboring that point

Jerremy Newsome:

home where this you pump out the best of the best in every class.

Jerremy Newsome:

And every teacher has this kind of vision.

Jerremy Newsome:

You now have people that can pay more for these experiences.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where again, you're going on a three day hike and camp with your whole class

Jerremy Newsome:

and you're now paying for that hike and you're going on this hike and now

Jerremy Newsome:

you're outdoors and you're learning.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if this is a science or biology.

Jerremy Newsome:

You're there hands on.

Jerremy Newsome:

And those are what create memories.

Jerremy Newsome:

Anyway, people are going to remember that three day hike for their whole entire life

Jerremy Newsome:

versus being in a room for four hours.

Jerremy Newsome:

Those are the things that people can pay for.

Jerremy Newsome:

Those are some experiences that as you just start understanding on the

Jerremy Newsome:

bigger scope, all these teachers that have always told me, just like Karen,

Jerremy Newsome:

that there needs to be some level of change because we've done the exact

Jerremy Newsome:

same thing you did since the dark ages.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like we have to start making these shifts.

Jerremy Newsome:

We really need to

Dave Conley:

Here's what I didn't, here's what I didn't get from episode

Dave Conley:

two with With Anya was why I like I'm I maybe I'm just the one I don't think I'm

Dave Conley:

the only one just struggling with this.

Dave Conley:

I struggled with it in our first round of school safety and school shootings

Dave Conley:

and I'm struggling with it again on this.

Dave Conley:

Is, why did it get so expensive?

Dave Conley:

Why do we have so many administrators?

Dave Conley:

Why, what is this, is this massive inflation?

Dave Conley:

I think it's easy to say the availability of easy money means

Dave Conley:

the price of it's going to go up.

Dave Conley:

And maybe that is the answer, but the UK has the same problem, and I don't

Dave Conley:

know, is it because of loans, and I don't know I'm still at the what happened?

Dave Conley:

We've heard about our parents generation where they could work full time, or

Dave Conley:

they could work a part time minimum wage job, and, More than pay for college,

Jerremy Newsome:

yeah,

Dave Conley:

like what happened?

Dave Conley:

Did you hear that in anybody we talked to?

Dave Conley:

Nobody had that one, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

no, I don't think, I don't think overarchingly

Jerremy Newsome:

because obviously the answer is some level of inflation, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Price is just extremely higher.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that is the answer of what happened is profits went up for companies

Jerremy Newsome:

and corporations and companies are making more money now than the Bible.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like the, you take the richest man in the Bible and companies are

Jerremy Newsome:

making more money than those guys.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you just have inflation through the absolute roof because companies

Jerremy Newsome:

are becoming more profitable and they can make more money faster.

Jerremy Newsome:

And they therefore aren't going to really expedite the prices

Jerremy Newsome:

of charging less because of, capitalism and we're allowing that.

Jerremy Newsome:

And again, it's an interesting awareness because that's, that is what's occurring.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like the amount of people that are making goo buckles of money based

Jerremy Newsome:

off of just the interest rates.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes, they gargantuanly peered into.

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

It's every time we know that every time there's somebody in between,

Dave Conley:

like the student and the university, everybody has to get paid money.

Dave Conley:

And This isn't all demand driven.

Dave Conley:

It's not like every student stood up and say, I want a rock wall and full

Dave Conley:

time housekeeping, Like it wasn't that.

Dave Conley:

So there are people getting filthy rich on this being broken like this.

Dave Conley:

And they clearly have influence.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

They do.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I think that's the thing that at some stage needs to be

Jerremy Newsome:

really gargantuanly peered into.

Jerremy Newsome:

Through whatever organization or company or product or person that wants to start

Jerremy Newsome:

understanding this more because the system is being too profitable and it's not

Jerremy Newsome:

cared about enough where they're making too much money and I'm down for money.

Jerremy Newsome:

I love it.

Jerremy Newsome:

I am.

Jerremy Newsome:

I am that guy.

Jerremy Newsome:

I am just aware that I think there are probably certain industries slash sectors.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where there should be some level of cappage because if you're going

Jerremy Newsome:

to go into certain levels and certain sectors We're like, okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just want to be in this for the good of the humanities I want to be in this

Jerremy Newsome:

a good for the world All right, cool.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if you're at the top of that heap, you're the top of that pile aka

Jerremy Newsome:

Let's say you're the CEO of Goodwill.

Jerremy Newsome:

All right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Awesome if you want to be in that role You probably know that you're gonna

Jerremy Newsome:

start topping out at a certain level And that certain level is a baseline level

Jerremy Newsome:

because we got to feed the profits back to the people that are going through it.

Jerremy Newsome:

We can't live off the backs of all the people that we're

Jerremy Newsome:

putting through this machine.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that's what we're, that's what's happening right now with college.

Jerremy Newsome:

The college players, for example, that just, this is just starting to happen.

Jerremy Newsome:

This has been my idea for five, six, seven years where we absolutely

Jerremy Newsome:

should be paying our college athletes.

Jerremy Newsome:

For sure.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like you pay them because a lot of college sports bring in obscene

Jerremy Newsome:

sounds, sums of money, millions and millions of dollars a year.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you're paying these coaches to coach the kids that they get the

Jerremy Newsome:

education for free and that's it.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're not going to get any money.

Dave Conley:

Everybody, every other student who works for

Dave Conley:

the university gets paid.

Dave Conley:

Like it's a no brainer.

Jerremy Newsome:

Unbelievable, dude.

Jerremy Newsome:

So there is a money machine.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's a money monster somewhere out there that's never

Jerremy Newsome:

really, truly been hunted down.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I would love to hunt down that money monster and find out

Jerremy Newsome:

where it is, where it's all going.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because I think if the college requirements where you got to take your

Jerremy Newsome:

endowment or your certain level of doubt, you have to put it into this instrument.

Jerremy Newsome:

And this instrument is now, once it hits a certain level.

Jerremy Newsome:

We now know that it can pay for this amount of students perpetually

Jerremy Newsome:

for free and the staff and all the things just off of interest.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now education does become free.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you start, you can apply that model to enough people.

Jerremy Newsome:

It'll work.

Dave Conley:

It strikes me that there's no transparency in the model really.

Dave Conley:

Like we, we don't really know what the overhead costs are.

Dave Conley:

We don't know what tuition even is, right?

Dave Conley:

There's a there's probably a, there is a published tuition, but it's okay, how many

Dave Conley:

of this is, how much of this is loans?

Dave Conley:

How much of this is reduction in, like who actually pays the full rate and.

Dave Conley:

When you put in almost unlimited amounts of money that loans can

Dave Conley:

be taken out on, then the system's gonna grow to fill that up.

Dave Conley:

And I, this was yet another one where it's like, where does the money go?

Dave Conley:

Because it's it is so much money, and it's like, what?

Dave Conley:

Where does it go?

Dave Conley:

I,

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

I don't know.

Dave Conley:

I it strikes me, it I, like my magic wand on this is like, why?

Dave Conley:

Maybe the student loan thing is the piece that's not really working.

Dave Conley:

So maybe it's, I don't know if money is the access problem.

Dave Conley:

If we took more money out of the system, more people might have access.

Dave Conley:

Does that make sense?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

It does.

Jerremy Newsome:

It does indeed.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I agree.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't think that I don't think it's an access thing right now.

Jerremy Newsome:

Realistically.

Jerremy Newsome:

I just think that at some level of system arbitrage and information arbitrage,

Jerremy Newsome:

it's not being properly released and it's being a little bit too confined.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's not being shared openly enough, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

To your point, there's just not a lot of information out there openly for most of

Jerremy Newsome:

these organizations that are making so much obscene profits off of these students

Jerremy Newsome:

that again, to that point could, if the organizations were as good as they want

Jerremy Newsome:

to be or claim to be, Could you say on the back end, Hey, we're going to get you

Jerremy Newsome:

great jobs, great education, pay us later off of what amount of money that you make.

Dave Conley:

So here in episode two we.

Dave Conley:

I think this was the only this might be the only episode that we really

Dave Conley:

touched on the college loan forgiveness.

Dave Conley:

And I recall that's that I think most of you and maybe our

Dave Conley:

guests were like not for that.

Dave Conley:

I don't know how we all landed on it.

Dave Conley:

I'm still, I'm stuck on this in this place of, These are effectively

Dave Conley:

children and we've given them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dave Conley:

I, there's no chance that they would understand the consequences

Dave Conley:

of carrying a loan for 30 years and what that actually means and

Dave Conley:

getting up to your eyeballs in debt.

Dave Conley:

Look, it's just you don't know the consequences of anything.

Dave Conley:

I, it's,

Jerremy Newsome:

I think that's a going forward thing though, versus going

Jerremy Newsome:

backwards, meaning imagine right now, every single person you go, Oh, you,

Jerremy Newsome:

every person that got a tattoo in the last four years, they didn't really mean

Jerremy Newsome:

to, we'll pay to get it removed versus, Hey, don't get tattoos on your face.

Jerremy Newsome:

Until you're much, much older life.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you're realizing that's really where you want to put it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay.

Jerremy Newsome:

Go for

Dave Conley:

How did you know what I was doing for my birthday?

Dave Conley:

A face tattoo.

Jerremy Newsome:

Don't get a horse tattoo on your forehead.

Jerremy Newsome:

But when you're 18, you're like, Oh my gosh,

Jerremy Newsome:

Place to put a horse tattoo than my face.

Jerremy Newsome:

No, I think it's a thing of this going forward, meaning that if someone is

Jerremy Newsome:

already in student debt, I do not believe at any point in time the

Jerremy Newsome:

taxpayer should say, Hey, sorry, bye.

Jerremy Newsome:

All that money is gone.

Jerremy Newsome:

We got your back.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't believe that is the solution at all.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do I think that student loans could be included in bankruptcy?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, I do.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think that's a possibility because believe it or not, I don't currently not

Jerremy Newsome:

reading any statistic, believe that most Bankruptcy comes from student loans.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm sure that there is a factor of that, but most bankruptcies happen because

Jerremy Newsome:

of too much consumer debt and too much medical debt and not enough income.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so it's a blend generally of those three.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now, do those people that file bankruptcy also have student loans?

Jerremy Newsome:

Maybe not.

Jerremy Newsome:

I'm sure we can do that research in a different point.

Jerremy Newsome:

But what I'm getting at is, If in that small subsection of people, we also

Jerremy Newsome:

include student loans, whatever, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

We already have bankruptcy now and bankruptcy can remove all

Jerremy Newsome:

kinds of debt that you don't like.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so if student loans is added to that, is that going to dramatically increase

Jerremy Newsome:

the amount of bankruptcies in the country?

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't think so, believe it or not.

Jerremy Newsome:

I really don't think that's going to even cause a noticeable

Jerremy Newsome:

or marginal impact whatsoever.

Jerremy Newsome:

But to the point that, Going forward, you make student loans extremely

Jerremy Newsome:

hard to get and not profitable not obscenely profitable for these

Jerremy Newsome:

companies that are issuing them.

Jerremy Newsome:

These 30 year like you don't make, you don't need to make that type of money.

Jerremy Newsome:

And not only do you not need to make that type of money off of kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

Or very young adults But you should also make it much harder to access

Jerremy Newsome:

Meaning there needs to be full on full fledged If you're going to get

Jerremy Newsome:

a business loan Like I said earlier allow business loans to be as easy as

Jerremy Newsome:

student loans are now or make them both equally as hard One of the two, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Either make it allow where I can go get a business loan.

Jerremy Newsome:

And if I absolutely fail and good on me.

Jerremy Newsome:

I tried my best or make them as so one of the two, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Make them super easy or super hard, but either one don't take one away

Jerremy Newsome:

from the other and not the other.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think that kids should have the ability to get student loans.

Jerremy Newsome:

Or business loans, and if they can get either one, they need to do the exact

Jerremy Newsome:

same diligence to get either one, and that would dramatically reduce the amount

Jerremy Newsome:

of student loans have to be filled out and get approved for if someone has

Jerremy Newsome:

to go through even remotely rigorous process just to get approved for one.

Dave Conley:

I like that.

Dave Conley:

Hey, help me re, let's see if you remember this.

Dave Conley:

I know.

Dave Conley:

It came up and I'm sure our listeners will probably remind me what it

Dave Conley:

is, but my understanding, maybe it was talking to Anya, was that.

Dave Conley:

Most of the student loan debt is owned by the United States

Dave Conley:

government and that the U.

Dave Conley:

S. government pays service providers to manage those debts with the

Dave Conley:

students, or with the former students, with the, with the students.

Dave Conley:

They are the ones that actually go in and collect and manage it.

Dave Conley:

And I'm like, why?

Dave Conley:

Like this is like an accounting thing.

Dave Conley:

This is a spreadsheet and an online payment portal, which the government

Dave Conley:

has plenty of if you've paid your taxes.

Dave Conley:

So why are there third parties involved?

Dave Conley:

Because they have to get paid.

Dave Conley:

They're not doing it for free.

Dave Conley:

So there was a piece in there, but my question for you, because

Dave Conley:

money better than anybody I know, why is their interest charged?

Dave Conley:

If it's government money that's already been spent, it's already

Dave Conley:

gone to the universities the service has already been provided, why

Dave Conley:

would we charge any money for it?

Dave Conley:

Why isn't it a zero interest?

Dave Conley:

Besides being dischargeable, which I'm, I agree.

Dave Conley:

It should be at least dischargeable when everything goes wrong.

Dave Conley:

Why are we charging any interest on this?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, exactly.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think,

Dave Conley:

it's an accounting, like it's already been spent.

Dave Conley:

It's who cares?

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, or we make it to the point where it also is.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's right.

Jerremy Newsome:

Where's like, all right, we make it that way where it's it's already accounted for.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's already some type of financial budget that the government

Jerremy Newsome:

plans to spend regardless.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think.

Jerremy Newsome:

In that situation, man, the charging of the interest.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know why we're doing it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Why are we doing it?

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a better what are you doing?

Jerremy Newsome:

I think having it where the structured systematized.

Jerremy Newsome:

approach that we do not make as a country profits off of kids going to school

Jerremy Newsome:

would change dramatically how this school is structured in this country.

Jerremy Newsome:

And right now, I think one of, when we were talking about the federal

Jerremy Newsome:

budget and deficit and loans and all that stuff, one of the words

Jerremy Newsome:

that came up a bunch was value.

Jerremy Newsome:

What does this country Value and right now this country.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's number one value is Profits, that's our value.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like how much can we?

Jerremy Newsome:

Profit in any given situation and that whole interest portion is obvious of

Jerremy Newsome:

that because these institutions and these governments and these loans

Jerremy Newsome:

They're all packaged together so that everyone's winning except for the kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

Everyone's winning except for the end customer.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's not if you went out and asked, I'm sure out of a hundred,

Jerremy Newsome:

90 percent of these kids would be like, no, I'm not happy with this.

Jerremy Newsome:

No I feel like I'm overpaying for what I got.

Jerremy Newsome:

I feel like I'm undervalued for what I am attempting to pay for every single month.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't think that they're going to feel like this is an

Jerremy Newsome:

equitable decision whatsoever.

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't write book and my company paid for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Like when I got my degree, I had 0 in debt and I was like, I just spent

Jerremy Newsome:

three years working 60 hours a week.

Jerremy Newsome:

Plus my college time, I was put in 100 hour weeks easy just between

Jerremy Newsome:

work and school, but to that point, it's like at the end of that degree,

Jerremy Newsome:

remember Nationwide paid for my degree and shout outs to Nationwide.

Jerremy Newsome:

I've always said good things about this company.

Jerremy Newsome:

They not only paid for the degree, when I got finished, I expected a raise because

Jerremy Newsome:

they're the ones that paid for it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so you think that they would go, okay, now go work even harder, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

So give me more things to do and pay me more for doing those things.

Jerremy Newsome:

Neither one of those things happened.

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't get more roles and responsibilities.

Jerremy Newsome:

Okay, cool.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now you're the customer service manager versus the whatever you were before.

Jerremy Newsome:

I didn't get any more roles or responsibilities proving to them

Jerremy Newsome:

that I'm a good customer of their, loan tuition program, whatever.

Jerremy Newsome:

Mind blowing to me.

Jerremy Newsome:

Mind blowing.

Dave Conley:

that, that does feel a little bit like a disconnect, but cool.

Dave Conley:

You think at the end of this would be like happy graduation.

Dave Conley:

You've learned quite a bit.

Dave Conley:

That's fantastic.

Dave Conley:

Now you're on a, now you're on a, some sort of track, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

Something,

Dave Conley:

Yeah.

Dave Conley:

Some something or bonus or I don't know.

Dave Conley:

It seems

Jerremy Newsome:

even if the exactly, even if they don't pay

Jerremy Newsome:

me more, but they work me harder, I would have expected something.

Jerremy Newsome:

I don't know what I would expect.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so some shift in the universe for getting a degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

And so that's what I mean when I tell people, listen, the ability for you

Jerremy Newsome:

to go out and actually get a degree that single handedly changes how much

Jerremy Newsome:

money you make that the percentage.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is less than 3%.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's less than 3%.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's for, it's a single handedly make that shift of, Oh, I have a degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now I immediately make more.

Jerremy Newsome:

Got it.

Jerremy Newsome:

Because a lot of things you can do, the things you can do apprenticeship in

Jerremy Newsome:

and make as much, if not more is 97%.

Jerremy Newsome:

It's a huge statistically insanely high number.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah, man.

Jerremy Newsome:

Is college worth it?

Jerremy Newsome:

I think is the question of questions for so many kids.

Jerremy Newsome:

And I continually find overwhelmingly the vast majority of time the answer is no.

Jerremy Newsome:

The answer is no, it's not worth it.

Jerremy Newsome:

And you can get the same degree, you can get the same return, you can get

Jerremy Newsome:

the same experience, you can get the same knowledge for far less money.

Jerremy Newsome:

For far less time.

Dave Conley:

That, that's exactly like our third episode, right?

Dave Conley:

We came in with this with Kyle and Karen.

Dave Conley:

Kyle's very much AI and YouTube University and boot camps and

Dave Conley:

it's I don't, wave you off.

Dave Conley:

And then Karen was like, yeah, I like that.

Dave Conley:

And where, the rubber actually meets the route is working with industry

Dave Conley:

and shifting what we're doing.

Dave Conley:

And then she said something that really clicked with me that finally brought

Dave Conley:

everything home for me is that school still is absolutely critical for critical

Dave Conley:

thinking, learning, adaptability.

Dave Conley:

Innovation, like those are going to happen inside your schools if

Dave Conley:

the school is doing that work.

Dave Conley:

Otherwise, you're going to get the same that you've gotten for a thousand years.

Dave Conley:

But if the school has got their stuff together, they're doing the

Dave Conley:

micro credentials, they're doing the certifications, they're doing

Dave Conley:

the public private partnerships, they're working, they have the

Dave Conley:

success coaches and they are bringing critical thinking, innovative skills.

Dave Conley:

Rock stars that graduate and not just pumping out another college degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yep.

Jerremy Newsome:

And it's the fear that we have too many kids and not enough jobs,

Jerremy Newsome:

but man, just wait until AI hits.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's the whole buddy, because if you think there's an education

Jerremy Newsome:

problem now, Dave, Oh my gosh.

Jerremy Newsome:

So that's the thing is we need to start fixing this ASAP because if there

Jerremy Newsome:

is one problem that we need to fix.

Jerremy Newsome:

To Karen's point, it is critical thinking.

Jerremy Newsome:

We got to teach these kids immediately how to begin to truly think critically,

Jerremy Newsome:

how to think differently and to distinguish how many ways you can use pin

Jerremy Newsome:

You got one pin, you give a kid a pin hey, tell me the five

Jerremy Newsome:

things you can do with this.

Jerremy Newsome:

They're going to have a hard time coming up more than two.

Jerremy Newsome:

And just these really basic mental exercises of knowing how to critically

Jerremy Newsome:

think and knowing what critical thinking is and why it needs to be used because

Jerremy Newsome:

dude, AI is coming for all these jobs.

Jerremy Newsome:

All of them

Dave Conley:

About

Jerremy Newsome:

centers, fully AI, accounting, AI, like graphic

Jerremy Newsome:

design, AI video editing, AI, podcasts, AI, auto engineering,

Jerremy Newsome:

AI, it's coming for everything.

Jerremy Newsome:

And robotics is just as bad.

Jerremy Newsome:

So really think that the critical thinking component of a hundred

Jerremy Newsome:

percent of the workforce right now.

Jerremy Newsome:

80 percent's gonna be displaced within five years.

Jerremy Newsome:

The 20% that are not displaced, they're gonna make 80, 80 times

Jerremy Newsome:

more revenue, 80 times more revenue.

Jerremy Newsome:

The 20% that do not get replaced will make 80, 80 times more revenue.

Jerremy Newsome:

And the 80%, 80% of the current United States workforce are gonna

Jerremy Newsome:

be fully gone in five years, and they're gonna have to find entirely

Jerremy Newsome:

new service roles, job roles, and.

Jerremy Newsome:

If that doesn't scare at least a whole ginormous swath of our listeners, just

Jerremy Newsome:

please know that it is coming our way and we got to start helping these,

Jerremy Newsome:

not only our kids, but the future of our futures, how to navigate this tide

Jerremy Newsome:

shift, because it doesn't mean that humans will become inane and vapid.

Jerremy Newsome:

What it does mean is that we now have the ability to create brand new

Jerremy Newsome:

school systems, to create brand new emotional intelligence because now

Jerremy Newsome:

you're going to have intelligence will be the cheapest commodity, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what AI is artificial intelligence.

Jerremy Newsome:

So intelligence is going to be meaningless, but having intuition,

Jerremy Newsome:

having the ability to meditate, having the ability to emotionally Regulate

Jerremy Newsome:

and have incredible depth and emotional conversations that are beautiful and

Jerremy Newsome:

verbose and just full of juxtapositions and deliberately, delightfully delectable

Jerremy Newsome:

conversations that are really exposing how people are feeling about things and

Jerremy Newsome:

shifting and tweaking and adjusting.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's what AI is not going to be able to do.

Jerremy Newsome:

So we need to start.

Jerremy Newsome:

Realizing that we're going to be bringing back the arts in a huge way.

Jerremy Newsome:

We're going to start bringing back physical exercise and PE in a huge

Jerremy Newsome:

way because we're going to become even more sedentary as a society.

Jerremy Newsome:

Now you're going to have robots and machines doing everything for you.

Jerremy Newsome:

So this is going to have to start happening soon.

Jerremy Newsome:

I think people aren't prepared for how fast it's going to occur.

Dave Conley:

Oh, yeah.

Dave Conley:

Future episode right there.

Dave Conley:

Another future episode.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yeah our listeners want a bunch, man.

Jerremy Newsome:

So we're going to give them a bunch.

Dave Conley:

Let's let's wrap this up.

Dave Conley:

Let's if you're advising your 18 year old self today, what would you.

Dave Conley:

What would you be telling a young Jeremy Alexander Newsome in 2025?

Jerremy Newsome:

I was really presently I was pleasantly surprised with my overall

Jerremy Newsome:

educational output, because for everyone who's listening, if you are 18, 19, find

Jerremy Newsome:

a job that you work in now that could.

Jerremy Newsome:

Either a directly pay for your college or be indirectly pays for it directly meaning

Jerremy Newsome:

Partion a portion of your paycheck.

Jerremy Newsome:

They literally just you have to upload their grades and there's a portal and they

Jerremy Newsome:

pay for it Like amazing if you work for a company that pays for your schooling.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes, please And twice do that work as hard as you possibly can for that

Jerremy Newsome:

company If it's indirectly, which is just a good old fashion You take a

Jerremy Newsome:

paycheck and portion of that paycheck goes towards your college expenses.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes, and yes get a job first A job is more important than education because

Jerremy Newsome:

in the job, you will learn what you need to be educated for, right?

Jerremy Newsome:

What portions of your education is lacking, what you need to fill in

Jerremy Newsome:

the holes for, get that job first.

Jerremy Newsome:

Once you have that job, then go and get that education.

Jerremy Newsome:

And before you get the education, before you even go down the route of

Jerremy Newsome:

education, spend an hour or two with yourself daily for a couple of weeks.

Jerremy Newsome:

Asking yourself, why am I going to college?

Jerremy Newsome:

What is the outcome?

Jerremy Newsome:

If the only main outcome is, I want to make more money.

Jerremy Newsome:

Or I want to help more people do not go to college It is a waste of your time.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is a waste of your energy It is a waste of your resources because the

Jerremy Newsome:

truth is if you get into a position and we're talking about the Extremely

Jerremy Newsome:

rare position that you need to get a job that actually Is based on merit of

Jerremy Newsome:

a degree can go get one at that time

Jerremy Newsome:

So if in seven eight years Your boss is saying oh you want to get promoted to

Jerremy Newsome:

Shift supervisor and you're going to go from 25 an hour to 33 an hour And the

Jerremy Newsome:

only way you can get that promotion is you now have to get a degree guess what

Jerremy Newsome:

now, you know exactly what type of degree to get The company will probably pay for

Jerremy Newsome:

it and now you have an exact reason to go because you now have a job and you're

Jerremy Newsome:

going to be able to get that degree even faster because it's extremely clear and

Jerremy Newsome:

you have intention with what you're doing.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's going to give you a massive distinction.

Jerremy Newsome:

And for the jobs that need a degree right out of college that you probably

Jerremy Newsome:

can't get into, They're going to require work experience first,

Jerremy Newsome:

and they're going to require work experience over a college degree.

Jerremy Newsome:

The companies that need both college degree and work experience.

Jerremy Newsome:

Go find another one.

Jerremy Newsome:

There's another one that will not because ultimately you go find another job.

Jerremy Newsome:

It goes, listen, I don't really care what degree you have.

Jerremy Newsome:

Do you get the results done?

Jerremy Newsome:

Because I know enough CEOs and so do you, Dave.

Jerremy Newsome:

I know enough of the people that are actually hiring.

Jerremy Newsome:

I have met with, consulted with, coached with enough individuals now at this point.

Jerremy Newsome:

That I am fully convinced that I know thousands of people that are the

Jerremy Newsome:

job decision makers of their company that will assign the paychecks of the

Jerremy Newsome:

person working that would rather have them have job experience and life

Jerremy Newsome:

experience versus school experience.

Jerremy Newsome:

And that is across the board.

Jerremy Newsome:

You can easily get a job that pays extremely well, that

Jerremy Newsome:

provides for your family.

Jerremy Newsome:

That allows you to put food on the table and buy assets over time and

Jerremy Newsome:

allows you to really put in a foothold into this country so that you can

Jerremy Newsome:

have that dream that we were all sold.

Jerremy Newsome:

That dream is bought by hard work, by dedication, and by spending less than

Jerremy Newsome:

you make and taking your difference between what you spend and what you make.

Jerremy Newsome:

And investing it into assets, wealth and financial freedom

Jerremy Newsome:

as a second grade math formula.

Jerremy Newsome:

So everything above second grade math, you do not need in

Jerremy Newsome:

order to have financial freedom.

Dave Conley:

you just spiked the football.

Dave Conley:

I think everybody should print out the transcript over the last few minutes

Dave Conley:

and hand it to every 18 year old.

Jerremy Newsome:

Yes.

Jerremy Newsome:

That's it, baby.

Jerremy Newsome:

Bring it out and give it to them

Dave Conley:

Excellent.

Jerremy Newsome:

Well, family.

Jerremy Newsome:

Here are some truths for every single person listening that if you want

Jerremy Newsome:

education and you want intelligence and you want wisdom, those three

Jerremy Newsome:

components of a brighter future probably are and should be free.

Jerremy Newsome:

If you have access to the internet, you have access to income.

Jerremy Newsome:

Ladies and gentlemen, listen to what I'm saying.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is available for you.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is available at your fingertips.

Jerremy Newsome:

It is available at the end of your nose at the beginning of your eyes.

Jerremy Newsome:

This is simple and it is available to every single person that

Jerremy Newsome:

has access to the electricity.

Jerremy Newsome:

When you have the ability to tap into all the intelligence and information and

Jerremy Newsome:

wisdom that is available in this country, it is the implementation of that knowledge

Jerremy Newsome:

that will lead you to the path of growth.

Jerremy Newsome:

and actual true impact.

Jerremy Newsome:

Every single person listening to this wants to provide more, make more, earn

Jerremy Newsome:

more, be worth more, and give more.

Jerremy Newsome:

You all want that more in your life.

Jerremy Newsome:

So each one of those is the requirement of you stepping up and saying, I want

Jerremy Newsome:

to be a better version of myself.

Jerremy Newsome:

What does the best version of myself need to do?

Jerremy Newsome:

Need to think need to believe need to act on and need to contribute so

Jerremy Newsome:

that you can be a portion Of each one of those five subsets of the greatest

Jerremy Newsome:

version of yourself It is simple, but it is simpler not to wealth and

Jerremy Newsome:

impact are easy They are easier not to we have the ability to shift this

Jerremy Newsome:

country And to make massive, incredible, amazing transformational change.

Jerremy Newsome:

But it's all going to start with every single one of these listeners

Jerremy Newsome:

getting together, going down the path of educational change, educational

Jerremy Newsome:

transformation, educational reform.

Jerremy Newsome:

And as we do that, we will inspire the generations in the future of this

Jerremy Newsome:

country to become world leaders, to become thought leaders, to become

Jerremy Newsome:

emotional savants, and to be fully aware.

Jerremy Newsome:

That we all have the ability and capacity and capability to be

Jerremy Newsome:

more and to love more through our actions and through our thoughts.

Jerremy Newsome:

But that will not happen until we start making humongous changes in the

Jerremy Newsome:

educational system of this great country.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much for listening.

Jerremy Newsome:

We will continue to go down this path.

Jerremy Newsome:

We will continue to solve America's problems.

Jerremy Newsome:

This has been another episode.

Jerremy Newsome:

Thank you so much for listening.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.