323. Do Teens Really Need College? Rethinking the Path After High School | Hannah of Degree Free

Summary

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Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast – Episode 323

Do Teens Really Need College? Rethinking the Path After High School

Guest: Hannah Mariama, Co-founder of Degree Free
Host: Lisa Bass
Date: January 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Lisa Bass sits down with Hannah Mariama, co-founder of Degree Free, to question the long-standing assumption that college is the necessary—or even best—path for young adults after high school. Together, they dig into the historical roots of the college-for-all mentality, examine data on the real necessity of college degrees, and discuss alternative methods to help teens find fulfilling careers without defaulting to college (and student debt). Parents, especially those homeschooling or questioning the traditional narrative, will find practical insights and actionable tools for coaching their teens toward individualized, goal-driven life choices.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The History Behind the College-For-All Mindset

• Government Funding and Artificial Demand:

  • Post-WWII GI Bill led to a surge in college attendance, initially for professions legally requiring degrees (CPA, doctor, lawyer).
  • Colleges sought continued funding via student loans after GI funds waned. (04:25-07:27)
  • 1965: Parent loans & government-subsidized student loans begin. (04:42)
  • Supreme Court Decision (Griggs v. Duke Power, 1971): Companies began using college degrees as a proxy for employability to avoid discriminatory skills tests, further embedding degree requirements in job listings.

• Societal Expectations and the Spread of College Attendance:

  • By the mid-20th century, parents equated a college degree with job security—not realizing it was really licensure requirements, not just the degree, providing access to certain careers.
  • The notion spread that “college guarantees a good job,” even for careers that never required degrees.

The Data: Who Actually Needs a College Degree?

• Degree Requirements Are the Exception, Not the Rule:

  • In 1965, only 7.4% of jobs legally required a degree; today, it's about the same—7.4%. (11:28-12:24)
  • Out of 160 million jobs, only a small percentage have a legal requirement for college education; the rest are open but often request a degree out of habit, not necessity.

• Current Overeducation Problem:

  • 62% of high school grads now attend college, creating a glut of degrees for jobs that don't require them. (13:37)
  • Many leave college without graduating, burdened with debt and a sense of failure. (13:37-14:28)
  • Majority of the U.S. workforce is “degree free.” (10:18-11:06)

Why the Default Push to College Persists

• Cultural and Social Pressure:

  • “It would have been socially weird to not go…” (14:34)
  • Defaulting to college relieves pressure on students to quickly decide on a career; it delays adult decision-making.

• K-12 Education as a Pipeline to Student Loans:

  "If you think about the end goal of K through 12 education in our country, the end goal is student loan debt. It’s not actually education.” — Hannah (15:29, 16:12)

• Even Homeschoolers Not Immune:

  • 74% of homeschooled students end up in college—often because parents reproduce the same advice and fears as their schooled counterparts. (17:18)

Rethinking How Teens Should Choose Their Paths

The Wrong Starting Questions:

• “What’s your passion?” and “What are your strengths?” are less helpful as a starting point.
• Instead, start with: What do you actually need from your work and life?

The Degree Free Four (DDFF):

• A practical framework for job selection:
  1. Income – What do you need to earn to meet your goals/lifestyle?
  2. Schedule – What kind of hours or flexibility do you want?
  3. Location – Where do you want to live or work?
  4. Work Environment – What type of environment best suits you?
     (35:46-36:55)

“Once you figure out those four needs, you are going to have to go out to the wilds of the Internet … because that is the best way to do it. Nobody wants to tell people that because … you just have to go look.” — Hannah (36:59)

• Use these as criteria to research actual careers, then “reverse-engineer” requirements and pathways.

Explore the Real World (Vocational Creativity):

• Don’t limit the exploration to common jobs. Look around: every object, service, or event is supported by dozens of lesser-known occupations.
• Exercise: When you use a product (e.g., headphones), discuss the various jobs involved in its creation, distribution, sales, support. (24:44-27:07)

“That is probably one of the most valuable things you can do with your kids is like the world around them … how did [this product] get here? What kind of jobs does it take?” — Hannah (24:44)

• Encourage teens to shadow, intern, volunteer, or simply “carry coffee” at potential workplaces to get firsthand exposure rather than basing decisions on assumptions. (47:51)

Avoiding the New Default: Trade School as the “Solution”

• Trade school is still “college” in the sense that it often entails student loan debt and a lack of guaranteed employment.
• Sending kids to trade school “just because” can result in the same pitfalls as blind college attendance—no suitability, no clear goal, potential for wasted years and resources. (57:17-58:48)

The Catastrophic Effect of Student Debt

"…the purchase they’re making, if it’s them taking out the loans, is the largest one they’ll ever make. …they will not be able to buy homes, …start businesses, …a lot of them will push off having kids and families because of the financial burden that they’re under. This is a very serious thing that … desperately needs to be said.” — Hannah (00:26, 62:06)

• Many young people’s life options are narrowed or closed due to debt, and this decision is often made at 17-18, with little perspective or real understanding of its consequences.
• Not all debt leads to lucrative careers—or even jobs in their chosen field.

The Importance of Practical Guidance and Parental Support

• Parents should help kids assess options and support research, but not do the work or make calls for them.
• Don’t cosign loans without a clear goal: Tough love, but essential for financial well-being.
• Let kids try, apply, and learn through real experiences; mistakes and job changes are to be expected.
• Reiterate conversations about life goals: family, desired standard of living, flexibility, etc. (66:03-68:43)

“If your child is determined to go to college, don’t cosign the loans if there’s not a clear goal. …If they don’t have a clear goal, they’ll bail out. …Let them take on that debt, not you.” — Hannah (41:40-42:51)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “The end goal is student loan debt. …That is the goal.”
  — Hannah (16:11)

• “The way that we teach young people to pick work is insane.”
  — Hannah (15:29)

• “Most college graduates take five and a half years. So you save your child four years. Four and a half years.”
  — Hannah (23:25)

• “You can get a liberal arts education without paying for a college degree. You don’t have to buy a college degree to read. Like, that’s—you can get a library card.”
  — Hannah (54:33)

• “It is a default. They didn’t even really choose.”
  — Lisa (62:06)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Topic | |------------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 03:28–04:25 | Guest intro, Hannah’s mission, what Degree Free does | | 04:25–07:27 | History of college expansion, loans, and demand | | 10:09–14:21 | How few jobs require degrees & data on workforce | | 15:29–17:18 | Why K-12 “education” funnels to student loans | | 35:46–36:55 | The Degree Free Four practical framework | | 24:44–27:07 | Vocational creativity, opening kids’ eyes to real jobs | | 47:51–49:57 | Getting teens to shadow and try “carrying coffee” | | 41:40–42:51 | The tough love approach: stop co-signing loans | | 57:17–58:48 | Why trade school is not always the answer | | 62:06–63:44 | Student debt as the largest purchase, closing life options |

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Actionable Takeaways for Parents

• Start career/life planning at age 16 using the Degree Free Four (income, schedule, location, work env.).
• Help teens research the wide variety of available jobs—don’t rely solely on out-of-date resources.
• Prioritize their actual needs and goals, not outdated narratives about college.
• Encourage real-world exploration early: job shadowing, internships, hands-on experiences.
• Let them try and fail—resist doing the legwork or shielding them from all risk.
• Don’t co-sign student loans unless there is a clear, licensure-based professional goal.
• Regularly check in about evolving goals, interests, and family/lifestyle plans—they will (and should) change.
• Remember: Trade school isn’t a panacea—make sure jobs exist and that a trade fits your child’s needs.

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Learn More / Resources Mentioned

• The Degree Freeway, Hannah & Ryan Mariama’s book (for parents & young adults): A step-by-step guide to helping 16–20-year-olds plan for life and career, with exercises to broaden job awareness, instill vocational creativity, and apply the Degree Free Four.
• Degree Free website – Offers books and one-on-one coaching for teens.

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Final Thoughts

This episode challenges parents to reject the thoughtless path to college and instead coach children through a mindful, creative examination of what they want and need out of life. With hands-on research and honest, individualized conversations, teens can avoid the burden of unnecessary debt and discover meaningful careers—whether or not a degree is in the picture.

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Recommended next step for listeners:
Check out the Degree Freeway book set for a practical, workbook-style approach to this mindset and process.
Degree Free Website (Check episode show notes for direct links)

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. I really want to frame this up for par if you let your child and you're co signing these loans and you're doing this or you're just going to send them and there's no clear goal, it is very likely that the purchase that you are making right now is the largest purchase or the purchase they're making if it's them taking out the loans is the largest one they'll ever make because they will not be able to buy homes, they are not going to be able to start businesses and a lot of them will push off having kids and families because of the financial burden that they're under. And this is a very serious thing that I think like again, just desperately needs to be said.

[A]

My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse Zombies. On this podcast I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today we are going to be chatting with Hannah from degree Free. This is an amazing conversation. Basically talking about how to coach our 16 to 20 year olds on what to do with their life that doesn't always involve college. Now if you have kids in that age range, obviously this is a fabulous discussion for you. But also, if you, like me, have kind of been questioning the whole narrative of, you know, the traditional thing that we do with college for so many years now. I think you'll find this discussion fascinating either way or just even for your future, for entertain, whatever it might be. We were chatting after the show and I didn't realize. So they have their books degree free. They have the, you know, that's a fabulous place to start there's one for the parent, one for the children. But then also if you want to have some one on one coaching type like helping kids figure out, taking them from. I have no clue what I want to do to. Oh, I know what I want to do. Now they also offer that which is so cool. It's one on one help. So I'm looking at their website, like this is such a neat idea because I think that we say these things, we talk about, oh, I think there might be a better way for most kids than what we are currently doing. But then like this has been something that we've done for so long. How do we actually go from point A to point B? So let's jump into this inspiring conversation. All right, Hannah, welcome to the show. I think this is an important topic we're going to discuss. For me, I have, well, only really one child in the age range of 16 to 20, but then one, you know, several, like right behind. And it's amazing to me, never before in my life have I gotten so many questions about like the next step for her, which is so. I just didn't see it coming. I just forgot that that's like what you ask a 17, 18 year old. And I'm like, oh yeah, like it's just, it's being asked a lot. And so I think this is an interesting discussion. Let's talk a little bit about. Or you can do a little introduction of yourself and your mission and we'll dive into it.

[B]

Sure. My name is Hannah Mariama. I am the founder, technically co founder of Degree Free, which is a service based business that helps to 20 year olds build the life that they want. And we do that by helping them find careers that fit their needs and help them to accomplish the larger goals they have in their life. And we can help people find and have helps people find anything from anything from watchmaking to cybersecurity to audio engineering and pretty much anything in between. So we, we help kids get into any type of career they're looking for that fits their needs and very rarely does that require college degrees.

[A]

Yeah, my kids and I have discussions about this kind of stuff all the time because I feel like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like we have the same model for the last hundred years and the world has changed just so ridiculously much even in the last 10 that it's, it's amazing to me that we all still do the same thing.

[B]

It's, it's pretty wild. I, I just filmed the video actually about this because I was talking about the history of how the college complex got started in the United States. And it kind of goes back to 1965. Not to take your audience immediately into the past, but that's where we're going to go.

[A]

That's okay.

[B]

A lot of this started in 1965 there at the end of World War II, there was something called the GI bulge. And that was a bunch of GIs coming back from World War II and they had GI money. So for the first time they were able to then go. And all of this money flooded into the college system in the United States, which wasn't that big at the time. And then as that started to decline, the colleges had gotten very used to all of this money. Again, because this is kind of artificial. It was government money. It had been given to those GIs. And so they went, oh shoot, they were looking around, where can we get more of this money? Because we've become very accustomed to having this inflow of cash. And where they ended up going was they went to the government and they said, hey, can you subsidize student loans? Like, let the parents take out these loans. So 1965, that, that is when people began to be able to take out student loans and to do so on behalf of their kids. Now what happened here was that people started going to college for things that they didn't need to go to college for, because everything that the GI spent money on were degrees that were legally required for professional licensure. So CPAs, lawyers, surgeons, people who are cutting people open for a living, and all of these degrees were, were, were needed, they were prerequisites for them to get licensure, to have these high earning jobs that are protected by the legal licensure. And so what had happened was people had attributed their good life outcomes because they had all gone into these job. Professional engineers, they'd all gone into these jobs that were high earning because they required, you know, they required this license. And then parents just began to send their kids to college because they thought that that would guarantee them a good job. But it wasn't college that was getting the job. It was the, it was a licensure that was degree dependent. And that's become more prevalent. It's become more prevalent that people will send their kids to college for things that do not require degrees. Because if you go back, what happened right after that, this is important because we're going to talk about how this happened so we can talk about why it's the way it is now. And so what happened after that was in 1976, kind of. Well, at 1971, Duke versus Griggs Power, there's a Supreme Court case where it was ruled that correctly so that companies could not discriminate against people based on the race because companies were using skills tests. And really what they were doing was they were just discriminating based on race. Supreme Court ruled they can't do that. And so instead they started using degrees to discriminate against people. And that's when that started to become part of job descriptions. And so that's when you see people start listing degrees. And that's, that's really where that happened. That's. They started to use it in lieu of these discriminatory skills tests. And then in 1976, you know, that 1970s, the Vietnam War happened. So then parents were sending their kids to college so they didn't have to go to Vietnam, which. Right. Makes complete sense.

[A]

Yeah, I would, I'd do it.

[B]

Which one do you want to do? Yeah, yeah. And then the government in 1976 had to amend the Higher Education act, which had started the parent loans in 1965, because the default rate on student loans went from 2% to 9% in that 11 year span of time. So a 350% increase. So really what happened was it was artificial demand. And then because there was fake, you know, there's fake money available. And so it changed the way. And there's this very odd Frankenstein change in a. Because of the Supreme Court case that caused, that caused this use of the degree requirement in jobs. And then people just began to say, oh, you have to go get a degree to get a job. That's the only way to get a, that's the only way to get a good job. And so it was really convenient for the colleges too, because now they can decide and they do this now where education or job training, they're neither. And so they just can sub out whenever they're failing particularly poorly, whenever they're doing badly at one, they can just say that they are the other. But it leaves parents going, I need. My kids need a degree so that they can get a good job. My kids need a degree so they can be educated. My kids need a degree for XYZ reason. And it just becomes this very powerful social wave where people just send their kids because it's what you do and. Because it's what you do. Yeah, you do. And there's really the path outside of it now seems scary because it's not this slip inside of debt because that's really what it is. It's become very easy to put kids on this track so they can go into debt.

[A]

Oh, there's so much to unpack there. So I guess I overestimated what I said. It's been this way for 100 years. It hasn't really been the same system for 100 years. That was a bit dramatic, but it has for so long. Like when I graduated from high school, I was kind of telling my kids it wasn't like a question of what do you want to do? Does that need a degree? It was just, where are you going? And I honestly thought because of the way the world has changed a bit that that would be a less prevalent view today. But I'm finding with my 17 year old that it isn't. And she's asked me like, what do you say when someone asks you what college are you going to? And so it is an interesting dynamic that we kind of still, even though the data doesn't really like, you just explained that people don't necessarily get higher paying jobs when they just go and get any degree, but we still believe that, which is interesting because I was with my kids and we were kind of discussing this. We were just thinking of people we knew and we were like, well, they don't have a degree and they do this. They have a degree and they do this. And we kind of realized, oh, it doesn't really seem to matter much. So.

[B]

Yeah, it doesn't.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't. So is there data to actually, like, you know, I'm just looking at like, we're just like talking about people we know personally. But yeah. Does the data really indicate that?

[B]

So according, according to the research that I've done, and to my knowledge no one has done this research and a lot of it is because of that boring stuff. I told you at the beginning, nobody really cares. Right? A lot of that's really complicated. And it took me years to figure out how these things connect or how they correlate rather, some people might say they don't connect. And I just went, huh, okay, well, how many jobs legally require degrees? Because I think that's really the core issue because you'll, you'll hear people now say, oh, this job requires a degree and I'll look at the job and I' like that doesn't require a degree. That's requesting a degree. That's not the same thing. Okay. And I mean most of the Amer employed American workforce, the vast majority is degree free. They do not have college degrees. And it's been that way forever, and it will probably continue to be that way forever.

[A]

And the majority. That's interesting. I didn't realize that a lot of

[B]

people don't think that because a lot of. Yeah, everything makes you think that everybody has. Everybody has college degrees, but that's just not the case.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And a lot of it is because. So going back to. Let's go back to 1965 really quick. At that time, about 10% of young adults graduating high school were going to college. So not that many, right? 10% is not that many.

[A]

No.

[B]

About 7.4% of the jobs nationally legally required degrees. It's pretty close, right? 10%. 7.4%. That's pretty good. So you're not going to have too many people that are out of work. You're not going to have too many people. You're not going to have this, this glut of college graduates with no application. Like there's enough movement in there that those people can probably all find a job and not all of the ones that went graduated. So that's probably about even. Right. So supply, demand. And then right now, currently, according to the research that I've done, out of, you know, 160 million jobs in our country, do you want to guess what the number is? How many jobs do you think legally require college degrees?

[A]

What percent?

[B]

7.4% in 1965.

[A]

Let's just say 5. I don't know.

[B]

5%.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Good. Good guess. Good guess. Much closer. A lot of people say 50. It's seven point.

[A]

Really? I just figured it must be around the same. So it hasn't really increased much.

[B]

It's very close.

[A]

If you hadn't told me that first stat, I don't think I'd have gotten that close.

[B]

Yeah, well, it's, it's. It's. Actually, you're the closest. That's the closest anybody's ever guessed.

[A]

Well, you did tell me 7% and 65. So that helped. Yeah, 7.4. So I was like, okay, it's probably

[B]

about the same around there. And that's because the jobs that require legal licensure haven't changed greatly. Right. CPAs, lawyers. Yeah.

[A]

Doctors.

[B]

Doctors, surgeons, architects in most states. Right. You're going to have the same. The same jobs that legally require a license. You're going to have some random outliers like real estate appraisers in California have to have associate's degrees. Legally, it's illegal. Teachers. Teachers. Yep, teachers. But that one, that one in 1965 was still present, too. And Right. To go further back for that to be like. And then lawyers. Right. The ABA was formed in, I think it was 19, 1910. So lawyers before that didn't always have degrees. And so now you're. It's. You're right. The movement didn't change that much. And so. But the thing that did change, so remember, it was 10%. About 10%. 10 to 13% of kids college or out of high school now, do you know what the number is? 60, 62%. You're spot on.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You're really good. You're really good at these ballparks. Most people are way off on these. And that to. That's the problem. That's the problem with our whole country. It's the amount of jobs that require degrees did not change that much. And so wait, there's way too many kids going. They don't need to be there. That's why so many of them fail out. That's why so many. That's why so many of them leave. Not even fail out. Some of them just leave because it just doesn't fit. And it doesn't fit because they had no reason to be there. And what's really unfortunate is the amount of kids that go and then leave. And then they leave with a sense of failure when they were in the wrong place to begin with and they spent time, they spent money, they spent energy. They get discouraged. We. We burn their most valuable years. They're free. Yes.

[A]

The time.

[B]

Yeah. And then we put them in debt and then we go, why. Why are the young people so. Why are they so discouraged?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Gee, I don't know. Maybe it's not working out right at the beginning.

[A]

Yeah. Well, for me, I was telling my kids this the other day when we were talking about this. I went because. Well, partly everybody went. Like, I didn't really know many of my. In my circle of friends, anybody who wasn't going to college, at least to some degree, like whether they were going to a community college, a lot of them were going off to a university. And so that would have been socially weird to not do that. But then also, I didn't really. I don't feel like I was necessarily prepared to go out into the world yet. Like, I didn't know what else I'd do. So I was like, well, you know, this would just be a really logical. I don't want to say easy, but in some ways very easy next step, because it's. The decision's been made. You just go and you take your classes and you're still having somebody telling you what to do, you're not really having to, like, think outside the box and figure something out. You're just doing the next step and kind of pushing that decision down the road a little bit.

[B]

I think that you've perfectly encapsulated why so many parents send their kids. It's there, it's well laid out, the path is well lit. The thing is that the path is well lit on the other side as well. But you have to be able to figure out which one is the right one or at least the right first step. And so that is the hardest thing for most people. And the way that we teach young people to pick work is insane. And a lot of it has to do with, if you think about the end goal of K through 12, education, like, I'll put it in quotes, education in our country, the end goal is student loan debt. It's signed the paper. That's what it is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And so if you think about it, not with the goal of your child coming out of high school being educated, the goal of your child coming out of 12th grade is to get them to take on student loan debt. That is the goal. And if you were trying to most efficiently get most kids into that goal, what would you do? And what you do is you would not teach them to think based on their needs. You would teach them, oh, what's, like, what's your passion? What's the most interesting thing to you? Oh, go buy a degree and whatever that is, and then maybe you can get a job in it. That's what you would do. Or you tell them that you have to, if you want to help people, if you want to this, you know, if you wanted this, you know, if you want to do xyz, then you have to go get a degree to do that. And you don't let them realize that there are all these other options. And you close the doors the whole way up the hallway and you make sure that they. They sign the loans. And if you, if you look at it like that, that very much is from a policy level. The way that works, the way that kids are taught to pick work is kind of crazy. And this is something that I've seen with homeschooling families as well, though, because a lot of the.

[A]

Oh, I see it.

[B]

Yeah, the runoff resources. And actually, I just gave a talk about this last year. But homeschooling parents send their kids to college at a higher rate. 74% of homeschooled kids will go to college. And I was homeschooled and my mom, you're gonna go, why? You know, and. And there was no reason. It's just because it's what you do. It's exactly what you said. I bet you and I are probably around the same age, and I think that that was just. It's just what you do. You just go. That's just where you send them afterwards. When they reach a certain age, they just jump off this cliff, and that's where they go. That's. That's just kind of.

[A]

Well. And my. My kids were like, well, it doesn't make sense. Your parents are entrepreneurs. I'm like, I know, but I. I was with my friends, and they were doing that. And so, like, why didn't they tell you to, like. Well, actually, my dad kind of did. He was like, this doesn't make sense. But then, like, my maternal grandmother, she was, you know, she was born in 32, and I think it was, like, very. She was basing it probably off of that. That mindset that you were talking about in the 60s where it was very prestigious. And so she incentivized it for us to go to college. And it was just. It seemed like, for lack of a better word, I'd be sort of a loser if I didn't. Even though, like, when I really think about it now, I'm like, what? You know, I. I could have thought of other options, but I. I did not even consider it at all. So, yeah, I think it's. It's interesting because you said that. Okay, with the goal being the student debt, obviously, parents don't really think that. Do you feel like parents just aren't thinking through, like, what the ultimate goal is?

[B]

Well, I think they peel off. So let's just say for the sake of argument that charter schools, charter schools, private schools, and public schools, their goal is student loan debt. Like, they don't think it is. They think it's college. But most, you know, half of them aren't going to graduate. Only 25% of them are going to work in their field of study. 54% of them are going to be under or unemployed. So, like, ultimately, their goal is not college graduation. Their call. Their. Their goal is student loan debt. And so, you know, once we push those off to the side. Now let's just talk about parents and, like, homeschooling parents also, because that's more. That's more the subject. And so for them, they just get the. They just use the general method for helping your kids find what's interesting to you. What are your Strengths, what are your passions? Like? That's what people ask, and that is the wrong question to ask first. And, and, and this is probably controversial. I don't think that a lot of people agree with what when I say this, and it's fine if people don't, but I think it obviously clearly desperately to be said, and that is people need to pick based on what they need. Like through all of human history, you work because you must. And not only do you work because you must, but some people work because they have a larger goal and the work that they choose to do will get them to that goal. And it doesn't matter what that goal is, whether it's, and I use this example a lot, but a homestead with chickens and goats and land and a family and a flexible schedule, or it's brownstone in Manhattan, it doesn't really matter, you know, if it. I had a girl come through our program that she was very fortunate. She had had a grandfather who had given her, he had, he had bequeathed her a small house, a little two bedroom, one bath older, you know, a little solid built little 1950s house. She was 19. And so she didn't have bills, she just had her property taxes and her utilities. And so, you know, her goal in life was not to a large amount of money. Her goal in life was a life that she wanted, which was having the freedom to sew, having a lot of time for her friends, like being able to save and take a road trip once a year. That was her goal. And for her, she doesn't need that much money to do that. So what, you know, what's going to fit that the best? And so what does she need? Right? And so going through high school, they said, oh, you got to go to college. And she went, why, why would I, for what, for what reason? Why would I do that? And it didn't serve her larger goals. In fact, it would have kept her from her larger goals because she would have had to go get a job that would have paid high enough to service her student loan debt burden, which would keep her actively from living the house she wants. And so it really just comes down to talking to your kids about what they need from their life. And I think a lot of people, one of the, one of the biggest pushbacks I get to this a lot is people will say, you can't expect kids to know that this age, around this age, say, well then you really shouldn't be expecting them to wisely spend 108 to $156,000, which is what you're about to do.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

I couldn't think of a better argument myself to help them find entry level work that helps them to explore if they are not sure where they're trying to get. But most kids, if you talk to them, and I say this as somebody who's talked to hundreds of kids in this specifically like 18 to 20 year old age range and talking to them and saying what do you want your life to look like? And then pulling out how much they need to make, pulling out where they want to live and build their life. Their location is going to dictate a lot of, a lot of those things. You know, what sort of work environment do you want to go into? For some kids that's king. Like that's the most important thing. And then what sort of schedule do you want to work? And then looking based on those criteria and you're looking through the Bureau of Labor Statistics and I talk about this a lot. Only has 867 jobs in it. Most kids in our country can name about six to eight jobs. There's.

[A]

They don't. Oh, we're not thinking through all of the options.

[B]

Not even close. And even if you look at material. So one of the, one of the big, one of the big issues that I have with a lot of the software, a lot of the things that have been built up to help people navigate this, a lot of people recommend the Occupational Handbook and for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But even the Bureau of Labor Statistics is out of date because there's new job titles every month and with the speed of technology, there's more. But one good example is like a data scientist. Data scientists make a median of $112,000 a year. Very in demand job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics didn't acknowledge data scientists as a job until 2018, I believe. And there was 100,000 of them formally employed as data scientists by the time that they said, oh, this is a job. So you're. So when parents are using anything that comes from a school or a research, for the most part a lot of it tracks back to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And even that is not a good or reliable way to figure out what careers are. Right. Because the Bureau of Labor Statistics gets $650 million a year. There's 20. There's 2,000 people that work there whose job it is to know what the jobs are. They had data scientists employed at the Bureau of Labor. That's not even on there. And they didn't even have a list of this job. And so like, that's interesting. Yeah. Like, it's such a huge problem. A lot of it is really lack of knowledge about what's out there, and then from there, lack of knowledge about what's out there. But then there's also no clear criteria for, like, what do you need to know in order to know that a job is right? And then how do you find the right way in? And so it's a very complex thing to do, but it does take. It takes time and research, but it's well worth it. If you spend a year figuring that out, it's still worth. You're still gonna save about four and a half because most college graduates take five and a half years. So you save your child four years. Four and a half years, Right.

[A]

Yeah. Well. And people obviously accidentally end up in these jobs, even if they didn't know they existed beforehand. Like, they eventually find out that there are these jobs. Which is interesting because I'm always thinking about that too. Like, when I go through life and I meet different people, I'm like, oh, that's a job. You know, like, you. You come across things, and I'm like, huh? How'd you end up in that position?

[B]

You know, I think that vocational creativity. It's actually in our book. And this is something actually Ryan, my husband, came up with because he. He's Hawaiian, Japanese. And so he grew up. His household was very Asian. And this is gonna sound racist, but this is what he says. And I agree. I've seen this up close, but, like, he's also seen this with our nephew. But they get doctor, lawyer, engineer. Which one do you want? And so that was. But growing up, that was what they said, like, pick one of these things. And his family falls into those categories. So he's. So he didn't know. And what's interesting is you'll see this, like, on both sides of, like, socioeconomic. Of socioeconomic status. You'll see people that are very low income, that very. Know very few jobs. And then you see people who are high income. They only know a couple. They still only know a couple, a couple jobs. And then everybody in the middle sometimes has a little bit more. A little bit. A little bit better of a shot, but usually not much. And so he said, well, you know, I wish somebody had just said, hey, like, and this is something you can do if you have younger kids. And so for you, this is probably really useful. But anything. I'm looking around my desk, like, I've got these. I've got these headphones. These. Sure. Headphones. Right here. So somebody. So there's so many components of these headphones, right? There's padding, there's plastic pieces, there's wiring. Okay, where did I buy these from? I bought it from a website. Okay. How many. What kind of jobs does it take to run a website? Right, you got a designer, you have cyber security people, you have E Commerce, you have E commerce analysts, you have all of these different things. You have graphic designers, you have copywriters, you have business automation specialists that run the emails that get sent to you to buy these. Like, you know what I'm saying? And then there's pro prototype fabricators that put these together. And then there's pick and pack and logistics, where they got stored and shipped. And there's procurement, like, all that. And where did they put them? And so like, that is probably one of the most valuable things you can do with your kids is like the world around them. Like billboards. Like, look at a billboard and just say, like, how did they get there? Who did work? What are there. What types of jobs do you think? You know, who. Who wrote the. The messages on it? It's a rot. You know, it's a digital billboard. There's eight. Eight slides. Who did those? And. Right. He gets paid to put those up there. And then.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And you see how this could go on forever.

[A]

Yeah, but. Yeah. Oh, you could, you could go on and on because I think until you really think it through it logically, you look at those headphones and you think like some factory in China, like, that's it, you know, like, not how they do, but like. Well, yeah, to make them. But what about all the other parts, like, marketed to you? Yes, I think having a little business myself has opened my eyes up to that. Because, you know, people see like this end result. Like, they see just you showing up here and they don't, you know, you just. Or like the videos I make on. On YouTube, it's it people, I think almost halfway, if they were to actually even think about it, which a lot of times I don't think they even think about it. But almost like there's like a film crew, like following you around or something like it. They're just, you know, you just don't think about all that goes into any of it.

[B]

It so much. And what's nice about that is there's so many. There's so many options. There's so much possibility. And that's why one of the things that I find really infuriating is like, I. It's almost like a It eats at me. It's a. It's. It's in just. And it's wrong that these. These kids, these young people are going into the world with this dismal view of their future when it's never been as cool as it is right now. My background, AI and machine learning and the fear around that. And I'm like, I'm telling you right now. I just saw. Yesterday. Yesterday, Lisa, I just saw an announcement that Disney is. And I'm not a Disney fan, but I think this is interesting because one of the things that people talk about when they talk about AI, oh, no, it's going to take all the art jobs, all the artists are going to be gone. It's going to be over. It's all going to be AI slob. There's no. There's no. There's no art. There's going to be nothing beautiful. There's going to be no film, no movies. They're going to hire animators, hand animators, illustrators. And this is one of the best examples, I think, of how everything is going to change. And that's why sending your kids into an archaic. An archaic thing that you're going to pay a premium for, that is not going to educate them. That is not going to help them be employable. That is going to burn up their time, their energy, stress them out. They're more likely to come out with a mental disorder right now than they are to come out with a job. Seriously. Those are the numbers. Like, that's the numbers. And I think parents, like, hear me when I say that right now. I'm not. This is not dramatic. That is very much real. That's very much real. And something that while these kids are. They're so able to learn, they can learn anything. They really can become anything. And so it's helping them find the right groove to start. Because the thing is, if they're not sinking five and a half years of their life at the very beginning and $100,000 into something, their ability to find the right thing through trial and error. People need to be way more afraid of student loan debt than they are of this finding of direction right at the beginning. This is so much easier to fix than student loan debt.

[A]

And. Yes.

[B]

Yeah. It just. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because they have no flexibility. Because at that point, you have to earn a certain income just to maintain what you have already spent. And so you don't have the flexibility to try something and it fail. Especially in such a time of life where there's really nothing relying on you. I think about that, too. I'm like, I got married about three months after I graduated college, and then I got pregnant, and then I've been home ever since. And like, it. I'm like, what? I could have learned stuff right then. Like, it took me being home with little babies, which, you know, makes it obviously more complicated, learning all the things that I do right now. And so kids could have that time. And it really can go further back than that if you're, you know, intentional about it. Because I always say to other homeschool moms who are really worried about certain things, like, well, how do you know this? How do you know that? I'm like, well, what is your goal? Like, what are we trying to accomplish on the other side of this? It doesn't have to be so, like, if they don't know this exact thing at this age, if the ultimate goal is, you know, you have that kind of laid out, you can see that it doesn't have to be this. It can be something that's more exploratory, where you have flexibility and freedom to try things.

[B]

That is something that Jenny, that I talked to Jenny Urge about, and that was one of the things that she. She. She just went. That changes. Because I asked her, you know what. What's the goal right now? Of. Of what? Because for homeschoolers especially, it will change your curriculum. It'll change everything you're doing. Because if the goal is not to get them into student loan debt. Wow. Right?

[A]

Yeah. And there's not like a time frame on it either. Like, if they take an extra year to learn X, Y, Z, it's better. It's fine. Yeah.

[B]

It's totally. Doesn't matter. And. And the other thing, too, is that college is always. And this is something that I feel so strongly about this. I don't think anyone should be in school until they're 25 years old. Your prefrontal cortex is not fully formed. You shouldn't be taking on that amount of debt until your brain is fully formed. I just don't think that that's. I don't think that that's wise. And the other thing is that at that age, something else happens that's more financial and boring. But the FAFSA is no longer attached to parental income. And so the cost that your child will pay for college will drop to a point that if you wanted to pay for it, you could just cut them a check. Just cut them a check. It'll cost a third, a fourth of what they're going to pay. They're trying to reach through to you and, and they're trying to get both of you guys. And, and that is how it works. I mean that's, that's why the cost, that's why tuition doubles every nine years. That's why that, that's why it's like that.

[A]

Yeah, I think as an adult having that perspective back on those years is easier than it is when you're in those years. Because I, I remember those years and looking back now, I'm like, okay, I got married when I was, I just turned 22, like the month before and the years between high school and that just so much happened. It feels like compared to what years feel like now, that was like 25 years of my life. And so it felt like I had to go do that. Like I didn't have the perspective that this will change really fast. Like you might be doing this thing now, this thing later. Like this isn't this like, you know, you feel like very urgent about figuring everything out.

[B]

And it doesn't have to be that way because the other thing too is that the irony of that now for these kids is that they don't have, there's all this urgency to get it figured out. By the time that they graduate college, everything that they learn will be out of date. That's why, that's the real reason all these computer science majors are unemployed. It's because they know nothing, they know nothing that suits them. They're not hireable. And I say that like as somebody who again like my background is AI and machine learning, like software, enterprise level software. They don't know anything. They're not employable because their skill stack, like they're quite literally their development skill stack is not up to date. And some of these kids went to prestigious colleges, big colleges and nobody will hire them because they, what they know now these skills turnings are going to be so much faster because of AI that what the colleges will never be able to keep, they just can't. It's just not how they're designed. Like their only hope for survival I think is to cut the bloat and go back to what they used to be, which is we're going to study medieval architectural literature for 10 years here. Like, and this is how much it costs. They need to lower the cost. They need to niche back down to whatever their little, you know, whatever their,

[A]

which they are because it's a racket

[B]

and they will not. Because it's not a money maker.

[A]

Yeah, that's not going to work.

[B]

Greedy. Which is how it got the way it got now. And. Yeah, but like, that's their only hope for survival, I think, because they're not going to be able to adapt quickly enough to the changing market. So they really need to let go of the job training thing. Like, they're not job training. They'll never be job training. They need to let it go. They need to go back to. They need to go back to education. I don't know if they even can do that at this point. I don't have a lot of hope for that either. But they want to survive. That would be the. That would be the ideal.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think about my degree. I. I graduated in 2007 with a marketing degree, which is really funny because that was like, we didn't talk about social media, like, at all. Yeah, yeah. So. But like you said, like, now more than ever, it's outdated within the month. Like, you need to be on. On the job learning the specialty of whatever it is that you're doing as things release. So how can we kind of talked a little bit about this, but, like, how exactly can parents guide their kids to discover the right career while they're in high school? I think specifically a lot of my audience is homeschooling parents. What are some of your tips for that?

[B]

Sure. So there's one really key framework here. It's called the Degree Free four, and that is kind of what I was referring to earlier with their needs. It's income, schedule, location, and work environment. Those are not in order. Those are not in order. Those can be rearranged in order of importance and priority to your child. Because all kids have different needs. And that's really obvious. Like, obviously they all have different needs, but it incorporates those with learning disabilities, those with physical disabilities. Like had a young man come through that had cerebral palsy, he only had use of one of his arms. That's going to dictate his work environment. That's going to. There are certain work environments he can't go into. He only has use of one of his arms. Right. It's. Now I'm looking for jobs. We're looking for careers where he can be successful in that one, you know, use of one arm or other kids that have, like, seizure disorders or pots or something like that. Okay, well, you have to find something that's seated. Okay, well, that limits what we're looking for. Now. What's your income range? Do you need, you know, do you need to work from home? Do you want to work in an office? Do you want to Travel for work. And it's less about what they, it's less about what they want and it's really just figuring out what those four needs are. So what do they need from their work? What careers fit that? Because once you figure out those four needs, you are going to have to go out to the wilds of the Internet. You're going to have to do that because that is the best way to do it. Nobody wants to tell people that because that's not like, oh, here's a nice little tool, here's a nice little thing. You just have to go look. Because the Internet is the most up to date resource of the job titles. It's not the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There's not any tool because they're all based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You have to go out and you have to look. And when you do and you have those four needs, it becomes much easier to see which jobs do and don't fit that. Oh, well, this one's good. But it, but you can't work over, you know, you can't work night shift. Okay, there we go. You know, oh, you like this one. But you are afraid of blood. Okay, well nix that one. Yeah, but you can't work on boats. Okay, Nick's that one. Right. You can start to just, you can start to just go through and, and knock jobs off and start eliminating. If your child's having a hard time with that, you can do the opposite. And you can just say, what do you not need? Like what do you hate? What do you not want to happen in your work? Like, and that, that might give you a clearer path too. If they can't figure out what exactly they need from their work, you can figure out what they don't need. Like what do you not want to make less than? Or where do you not want to live? Or where do you, you know, what schedule do you not want to work or you can't work? And that's going to help too. And you'll notice too that going by their needs is not going to eliminate college degrees. It's the last thing that you do. And it's because you do it at the end once you figure out what jobs fit. So you don't use it at the beginning. You just very objectively figure out what do they need, what careers fit that. And then you figure out what they need to do to get those careers. And that's where you check the legal requirements for each job. Because some of them might require. Very few of them do. But right. They Might. Yeah. You know, you might need an associates.

[A]

Well, that's probably the thing you get people saying is, what about the ones that do? College is still a great option. It's just a default thing is what I try to push back on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just that it's. It's always the default. It's the expected thing when it doesn't make sense. Now, I think people probably will ask you. I'm sure you get this question, well, what about when that changes? So this is what I need right now. I'm 18, but then let's say I get married in three years and I'm 21. And now the amount, the location, I mean, you can't really predict these things. So maybe just teaching them the adaptability is the key.

[B]

You teach them the four, because then they're able to move them and say, what do I need? And I did that. I did that at one point where. Where there was a. There was a. It was actually during COVID where all of that happened, and I went, oh, I have to completely rewrite. Like, I need a different income because I had a brick and mortar business at the time. Like, oh, I got to pay the rent on the business, even though it's not open. I need to be able to work from home so I can go over to the business and make sure everything's okay. And so everything changed. And so I flipped them and I just went, okay, what do I need? Okay, well, I'm gonna go get something that will fit a job. You know, I'll go get what's needed to get a job that fits these things. And then I was able to. And. And replicating that process multiple times with friends and family and then other people is how we built what we do now. And that's actually how we were able to write the book about. Okay, figure out what you need. And then, like, these are. These are lines on a spreadsheet. It's four lines. Figure out what the answers to these questions are, and it's going to get so much clearer. And. And also, if you are going to do this with your kids, don't, you know, don't, like, try to have the. All of these four questions conversations at one time. That would be overload. So it's, like, might be a few days in between each one of these topics because it's kind of heavy. It could be kind of hard to figure these things out. So that's what I would suggest people do. I think that if you're able to, like, get them alone, that helps too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But especially with older kids, like having that focus and just like, you know, going for a drive or going to get, you know, going to get a milkshake or something. I don't know.

[A]

That's when all our conversations happen. Long drives every time.

[B]

Long drive. Yeah. And that, that's key also. I think a lot of that. I, I've heard a lot of parents say that. I think it's just because you're not looking each other in the eye. So it's not as intense. Yeah, maybe. So it's more casual, you know, easier to, easier to just talk because you're not like focused in on them and they're not on a, there's not a spotlight on them. Right.

[A]

And yeah, nobody's on their phone because we're driving. So it's. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, what about the parents who maybe their kids go to school so they have a lot of peers and they're all going to college. Do you help parents at all, like, navigate how they can help their kids figure these things out, teach them these things when maybe the pull to college is really strong, even though the parent can see, hey, you're not really leaning towards any of those degree or that actually require a degree, any type of job that's like legally requiring a degree.

[B]

So I have, I think, relatively recent, A relatively recent view on this, actually. So I think that is very important because I work with parents and their kids from all over the country. Just very, very big sample set. And one thing that's really hard, even if you have a really good relationship, really solid relationship, like your kids listen to everything that you say and they really value your input and they really respect you. At this age, if you tell them not to go to college, they're probably going to want to go. And it's just something about the dynamic at this age. It's just a transitional age range. They're trying to, to build a little bit of separation because it's, you know, they're about to, they're about to break out on their own and it's kind of, I think it's kind of scary. And so you want to, they want to create a little bit of distance, a little bit independence because they're about to be, they're. They're adults now or they're about to be. And I think what really helps here is if your child is determined to go to college, don't cost, don't co. Sign the loans if there's not a clear goal. And that is a really, really, really tough. That's a really tough thing. Like, that's tough love right there. Yeah, that's something that is really hard. But do not think, not, do not co sign those loans. Because what's going to happen, and what I've seen happen a lot is these kids go and if they don't have a clear goal when they go in, they will leave. They'll bail out, they will leave, they'll get a year or two in and they will leave. And so the best thing to do is just be ready when that happens, but let them take on that debt. Don't, don't, don't co sign those loans because people are taking out HELOCs on their houses, they're delaying retirement, they're liquidating 401ks to pay for, for student loans. And you'll have kids in, you know, in community colleges for six years, like, you know, straight A students, they'll go in like, oh, I'm just gonna do this. I'm just gonna be here for two years. I'll transfer to a state school that's responsible. It's like, I don't think you really know what you're doing. And the kids like, I'm gonna do it. And then they go and then it's six years in, six and a half years in, the parents are still paying and nothing is literally, they don't even have an associate's degree. This happens a lot. And it's because no clear goal or no clear why, nothing's gonna happen happen. These kids get in and they can just delay real life. They can delay work, they can delay consequence because they're in this limbo. And as long as they continue to take out loans, they can stay there. So I think that it's, yeah. If your child's going to do that, like, make it so that they are going to have a clear, a clean break when they realize it's not going to get them where they want to go. Yeah. But as far as preparing them, you know, if they're open to it or if they really don't want to go, man, if they don't want to go it. There's so many things that they can do. If they are like, I don't want to go to college, I'm not doing that. Awesome. Now you can just help them figure out what they want to do. And I think one of the biggest things when parents are looking for jobs too is like, don't, don't self eliminate your child. So this is something we used to tell job seekers a lot. Like, don't self eliminate from a job before you apply for it if you think that it's fit or you think you could learn it. And I think a lot of parents have to unlearn that because a lot of us do it, especially a lot of moms do it. Women do it much more than men do. We, statistically speaking, eliminate from jobs at a much higher rate than men do because we don't fit the exact criteria. So if you're helping your child look for jobs, don't say, oh, well, not really that one. That one. You can't really. You couldn't try for that. Yes, they can. Like, they should apply for it. They should try. They should in fact do that because it's not their job to say no to themselves. It's their job to apply and try to reach for what they want. And then if they're not able to get it, they have to learn the gap so that they can then reach for what they want again. And that's, that's the biggest tip that I give parents while you're looking for, for what they could do after high school.

[A]

Yeah. So I know that you said that your goal isn't always like, what do you want to do? What are your natural gifts? But more like, what do you actually need? How do you help children discover, like, what actually might be the best fit? I know you just said maybe let them just try, like, apply what for what they're interested in, but on like a real practical level, figuring out, like where you live, what you have nearby, or that you could find online, helping them just like start on that, say they're 16 to 18 when they're probably getting their first job. Yeah. Like, where do you look and help them figure out, like, their natural gifts and their strengths?

[B]

So one of their, one of the best ways for them to figure out what their strengths and natural gifts are are going to be in the environment that they're going to use them. So if they're going to use them in the home, then great. Like you kind of, you probably already know what their strengths and gifts are. But if they're going to go out in the world and they're going to experience a different change in environment. So if they're going to move out or if they're going to go, you know, if they're going to live abroad or if they're going to do anything like that, their environment is going to change pretty drastically. So they need to be in it to figure out where their strengths are because they might have different strengths outside in a different environment than they have now. And so a lot of that I think is just getting, getting them into the environment that they're going to be in. So if your child's going to go work and trying to think of an example, if your child's going to go. If your child's going to go be a midwife. Let's use that for an example. Right. There's a few states where you can be a certified professional midwife. So your child's going to be your, you know, your child's going to be a midwife. Okay, well, what's the fastest way to get them exposed to that environment to see if their strengths translate, to see if that's something that fits, fits them like get them to shadow, get them to do paperwork. And really the carry the coffee thing is very much real, which is just going in and being in the room, being near people. So your child wants to get into real estate, go find a real estate office. And this is very important that parents don't do this. Just help them with the research and then tell that they have to do it. A ton of that call a huge thing. Oh my gosh, that's a huge thing. Now parents. There was an article I read recently of something like 60% of Gen Z has brought their parents to an interview, which is crazy. 60, something like that. It's a lot.

[A]

You think to do that.

[B]

Maybe I would wrong. And like in the interview, not, not drove them there because they were young,

[A]

but like, no, they actually went into the interview.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[A]

I wouldn't think, I wouldn't do that. But my kids haven't interviewed for anything yet. I, I mean, I'm, I know I wouldn't, I would not do that.

[B]

It's, it's, it's a really, it really becomes scaffolding. So, so that's a concept from. What is that from? Was it Malcolm Gladwell? I don't think it was. But basically scaffolding is. You are building, you are building up next to them so that, so that they're stable enough to stand on their own. And then you can take the scaffolding down. And so that's the, that's really the art of this. It's the art of scaffolding, which is just help them find. If they don't know how to look, teach them how to look and then Lego, you know. You know, and let them take agency. Because that's one of the biggest things too, I think, is that culturally, I think that our, we've just become very Very. And understandably, we're really concerned with, with our kids as they go out into the world and helping them find the right fit and making sure they don't waste time and waste money because all these decisions after high school are so expensive. Like, they're expensive in time and money and energy and effort. Exactly as you said. And so we want them to make the right. We want them to make the right decision first. And that's a difficult thing to do because there's so much exploration at this age. And they're going to make mistakes and they're going to take a job that, like, I don't like this job, and then they're going to change jobs again because they're trying to find. They're trying to find the right fit. So it really just comes down to helping them shadow, like, wherever possible. A good example of this, I had a young man who was interested in, in veterinary medicine, and he wanted to be a vet. I was like, do you really want to be a hated school? I was like, do you really. I didn't say that in my head, though. I'm going to. You want to be a vet. And, you know, we went through his needs and everything like that. And he was with his strategist. So I was reviewing, I was reviewing his needs and she was telling me what was going on. And I said, okay, well, you know, see if there's somewhere that he can shadow. And so it ended up that he was able to go. He was able to go shadow at a vet's office. Not a fan.

[A]

Not a fan. Well, it's funny, we don't do that. That make. That's like, that makes the most sense in the world. Like, okay, you want to go to school to be a vet. Instead of just going for one day, one day you just go to school

[B]

and discover the amount of people that just, they think that they, they think they want to do this. And one of the, one of the professions I see this a lot with and I do give a lot of caution with, with, with young women, I think with this because this is something I see a lot. Young men tend to be not as. They don't have the same ideas about work is going, what work is going to be like. And I think a lot of it is because the school system currently is run by women. And so they just tell a lot of girls and, and the way that they guide them and they say, well, you know, you want to help people. You know, you want to have this XYZ calling, but like working as A social worker is not a calling. Working as a teacher is not a calling. Like, it's a, it's a job. Like, it's going to pay you a certain amount of money. It's going to demand a certain amount of time from you. And so, and, and using a specific job as a calling really hooks your whole identity into it so it can be taken from you. It's very fragile. Like, it's a very fragile way to live. And so not only is it fragile, but especially for the girls that go into this, they will spend as much money as they can because it's their identity now. And so that's why they go bachelor's degree, master's degree, PhDs, all, all to end up in a job that doesn't pay them what they need to survive. And, you know, their whole identity is now attached to this. Again, very fragile. This thing is taking so much time, money and energy. And it's because in school they were told, like, oh, you want to help people? This is the only way you can do it. And you have to go to. This is the path you have to go do these things. And it's all, pay whatever. Yeah, and I'll pay whatever it takes. And their parents will pay whatever it takes. And it just drains the life out of them. And it's, it's. This is not to tell people not to go into these jobs. It's just to watch out specifically for your daughters and the help people jobs. Because that is something that I see a lot. I see that a lot. And, and I can see it from a mile away. I just go, oh, that's not going to go well. That's not going to go well. Yeah.

[A]

At our Christmas event with family, some family I don't see very much. Well, I was talking to one of the. I think she's maybe almost 18, she's a senior. And she said, I'm just trying to get the degree that costs the least, that the job pays the most. I'm like, I've never heard someone think of it that logically before. Like, that just, I mean, like, that just makes so much sense. Like, I just, usually just people don't think. I, I definitely didn't, I didn't think, think through, like, what this would mean for me. It was just the next step. Like, it was just like, okay, now we go here and we think about what we're going to major in. That looks good. But she was like, yeah, I'm thinking I'm just gonna, like, I was gonna do this, but that degree is too expensive. And this one, she's like, but this one's the cheapest degree for the most amount of money. And I was like, oh, smart.

[B]

That is. That is the most common. I think. I do think that this. This cohort, the Gen Z cohort, they have a lot more sense than a lot of people give them credit for.

[A]

Okay, maybe they do.

[B]

I think they do. It's funny. I see the media a lot. I see people, you know, oh, they're. They're this. They're this or this. But a lot of them are. I did recently read somewhere that they're the most overemployed, so they tend to work the most amount of jobs. Like, that's a good sign. That's a good sign. They want to work. They just want to work on the right things. And I think they're. They're a lot more skeptical, probably because they have, like, either their parents are millennials or.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or they have siblings, like older siblings who were. Maybe. And. Yeah.

[A]

And they saw how that worked out, I guess, and they're just.

[B]

They see them in jobs that don't require degrees. They see them not in jobs at all. They see them really unhappy in their jobs. And. And they're just like, how do I make the right decision about this so that I'm able to do what I want with my life?

[A]

Well, I keep wondering if it's just on the verge of changing a lot, too. Like, it's been this way for so long, the way that it is, the way we do things. And I'm wondering, are you seeing any data that it's actually is going to change? Like, maybe people are starting to wake up to that. It's just not for everyone.

[B]

All right, let me see if I can pull it up. But yes, parents. So 1. A ton of Pew research has come out about parents. Parents are just, like, are over it. They're over higher education because they just don't see. They're not over higher education. They're over college because they don't see it giving their kids what they need. There is a cohort who I feel kind of bad for that are always like, oh, you know, well, they need a liberal arts education to survive, and blah, blah, blah. Like, you can get a liberal arts education without paying for a college degree. You don't have to buy a college degree to read. Like, that's. You can get a library card. And I'm not nothing. But I'm actually dead serious. I mean, like, just read. Right?

[A]

Yeah, it. I think sometimes too and people are, I think, thinking outside of the box more now. Like, I think that's progressively happened over the last last 50 years. But sometimes you just gotta step back and be like, wait a minute.

[B]

Yeah, this is, it just doesn't make any sense. I'm trying, I was trying to find this research. It was by Thrust Aviation, which is a flight school. And they had done a survey, I think it was, I think it was like 200 parents nationwide or something. And they did find that 74% of them are saying that they want their kids in something besides college. They just don't know what. They just don't know what.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so one.

[A]

So they might end up defaulting to it because.

[B]

Because I don't know what to do. Which I think is why homeschool parents do it is because after K through 12, where the curriculums right, there's no Rebecca, there's no barefoot. Like, there's no.

[A]

Yeah, like, you know, there's no college Rebecca.

[B]

Yeah. There's no classical conversations for, for college at home there. That just doesn't exist. And so, But I think a lot of, a lot of homeschool parents too need to think really practically about what, what is again, what is the goal? Are you trying to get your child complete classical education? If you do want to do that, okay, that's fine. Do you have them now? The second question is, do you have the money to do it in the way that you're planning to do it? If you don't, then you can't do that. And that's something that I think a lot of people I think are really struggling with. I'm like, yeah, you just can't, you can't afford to do that. So don't do it because it's going to put you in a bad place financially. And then the second thing is if you want them to be employed, then that's definitely not the, that's definitely not the most effective move. The way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it is hard because you can artificially take on the loans for a much larger amount of money than you can pay for something that's more effective but costs more in cash. So it's not in a loan form, it's not fake, you have to pay for it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But they're higher impact things that you can do and, and then, then it just becomes finding the right one. So a lot of thing, a lot of times too, what I hear now, and one of the things that really is just if my husband was here, he'd laugh. But this is like my biggest pet peeve because I'm not Mike Rowe. I don't dislike micro. I think he's done a lot of good for the trades and awareness, I guess. Awareness. I think most people are aware of the trades because you can see them. It's not really a problem. Everybody knows that they're straight jobs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's the, it's the knee jerk reaction that if not college, then trade school. Trade school. Trade school, totally. Trade school is still college. It's still student loan debt.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And going with no clear goal is still a bad idea. And that's something.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just like, oh, it's like makes me, it's, it's. I actually think what's going to happen and this is, this is my prediction. I've told Ryan this. What's going to happen is a bunch of parents are going to go, I don't want to send them to college so I'm going to send them to trade school because, oh, you go become an electrician because every talking head on Fox News says that. And so they're going to just go send them to trade school and then they're going to go. And one of two things, well, I guess one of three things is going to happen. One, if they send them to trade school instead of on the job training or an apprenticeship for something that they know is going to get them what they want, One, they're not going to want to do it. Two, they're going to fail out. Three, they're going to get out and realize there's no job because trade schools do not track. Two, employment opportunities. Just because there's an H Vac program in this particular town does not mean that there's demand for text. You don't know that. You didn't look. You got to check like you have to look and make sure. And then before that you have to make sure that that actually fits what your child wants out of their life. They shouldn't just go do that because it's there. And then the other thing I think is that this huge trade school push there are all these kids are going to go to trade school and then one of those things is going to happen and where, what are their parents going to do with them when they get out of trade school after failing out after a year or two or after not being employed after a year or two, they're going to send them back to college because they're going to go, oh, we should have just sent them to college then they're going to send them back to four years. It's going to burn like eight years of these kids lives and they're going to have more student loan debt. That's what I think is going to happen. Because it's just people searching desperately for already laid out path. And it's like you have to, you have to build it, it takes time.

[A]

You just have to stop and kind of think through the entire thing.

[B]

Yeah. Because it's like everyone, if you hear a kid go to college and that's one of the things that like just, it just, it just like it drives me up the wall because they say, oh, you know, they don't have to go to college. People say, yeah, you know, they can go into, they can go into the trades. I'm like, no, that's not what I'm saying at all.

[A]

It's either college or it's trades. Like we can't figure out anything in between that. Like there's nothing else at all.

[B]

And the Overton window has shifted so much, much too, because that's exactly what it is. It's a lack of vocational creativity. Lisa. They don't know, they don't know what else is out there. And, and then also, but, but the other thing that just drives me crazy and the window that has shifted in the last few years is the window of people. Before you're, oh, you can't get into any high paying jobs, but now you, it's very obvious that you can get into whatever job with the right skill set. And because of that, now people just said oh well, you know, but, but it's all these other things. It's, it's oh, well, they won't be educated or they won't find a spouse or they won't this, that or the other. Because it's no longer because the cracks for that being the cause and for that being the reason that they have a good job is like very clearly it's not, it's very clearly not college. And so the window is shifted because now if you look like the AI race right now in our country, which is like the cutting edge of technology, there's three guys in it. Two of them do not have college degrees. Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg are both running like you know, for, for all how people feel about big tech and stuff like that. If you look at, if you look at the big minds developing technology in our country, they did not go to college, they did not buy degrees.

[A]

Well, they're out of the box thinkers too, you know. So yeah, it would make sense that they wouldn't go through the exact same process that the rest of the world

[B]

did go to college, but they left. Yeah. Because they realized it was a waste of time. Because it is. Because it is a waste of time. And it was a waste of time then and now. I mean, in the last 15 years, anybody that stepped foot on a college campus, that there is nothing going on there that is worth your child's time, money, or energy. It's just. So unless they, Unless the job that most clearly meets their needs is something that requires legal licensure that is degree dependent. That's it.

[A]

Yep. Yeah. Well, I don't, I think we don't look at it like a product we're buying either. Like, I think that's what surprised me about my cousin's daughter is she was like, you know, she viewed it as like a product she's buying, not just like almost you think that there's going to be a job on the other end bailing you out of whatever decision you make. Instead of thinking about this as like, okay, well if I could go here and get this for this price and this price. We don't view it that way. We just think there's like some guarantee there on the other side. No matter what you major in, when it's. There absolutely is not. You can talk to a lot of people about that.

[B]

Well, that's why we say from the get go, I've always said it's buying a degree. And people get so. And the way that, you know that that needs to be said is how angry that makes people. They get so upset when I say that. I'm like, you didn't buy a degree. I'm not saying you didn't study. I'm not saying you didn't show up. I'm not saying that at all. At all. Like, there's prerequisites for all kinds of purchases in our, in, in our lives. You still bought it though. I mean, you paid money. Money changed hands and say, oh, you know, I got a, you know, back in. You know, back in. So and so I got a scholarship and well then the government paid for it. Somebody else's tax money paid for it. It always gets paid for. Like it's not free.

[A]

Yeah, I think viewing it like that is the important part because it then it then the decision makes more logical sense in the way that we're used to making decisions when we see it

[B]

like that, you know, like huge purchase decision. And for some people now too, and I really want to frame this up for parents. If you let your child and, and you're co signing these loans and you're doing this or you're just going to send them and there's no clear goal, it is very likely that the purchase that you are making right now is the largest purchase or the purchase they're making. If it's them taking out the loans is the largest one they'll ever make because they will not be able to buy homes, they are not going to be able to start businesses. And a lot of them will push off having kids and families because of the financial burden that they're under. And this is a very serious thing that I think like again, just desperately needs to be said because I'm tired of watching the fallout of it. I'm, I'm sick and tired. I get messages from people all the time. We work, we work with 16 to 20 year olds. I've had a dollar for every one of the message that, the messages that I've got, the emails that I've seen that are just heartbreaking people. Like, I'm a, I'm a pharmacist now. I wish I would have known. But now I, the only way out of this for me is I have to make $160,000. But I hate my job. I hate my life. I'm in so much debt. Like, I wish I wouldn't have done this. And then you just see like, and you just see people that are like, oh, well, I'd really like to do this, this, this, but I can't because I have to pay my. So I have to. And it's like, like the, it's just a raisin in the sun. And you just see these people's hopes, like their futures just wither in front of them because they decided this without really realizing it. Like you said, it's just a default. It's a default. They didn't even really choose. They just went and, but right choice. And then it boxes them in, it cuts, it closes all the doors. It just closes, slams them and they go, oh, I wish I could. Boom right in their face. Oh, I would love to. Boom right in there.

[A]

You can't. You got to keep making that money to, to pay for this. Yeah.

[B]

Go back into the office, you have to pay the loans. Go back into this, you have to pay the loans. And it's just like, like. And it's just, it has robbed so many people. It has robbed so many people of beautiful futures that they could have had. And, and that's something that like just I just don't want to see it. Sick of seeing it, seeing it.

[A]

And it's sad because the age that they made the decision on that pharmacies, whatever, like not some people, they were not old enough, are glad they did that and all that. But the age that that person made that decision was just, you don't know what you're doing. Like, you know, like I, I went to a career fair in high school and heard what pharmacists made and I just can't believe it now because I could never, like this wouldn't be a good career for me whatsoever. But I was like, I think being a pharmacist would be cool. My dad was like, you can't be a pharmacist. Like, just stop like that, that's not going to work out for you. And so thankfully I had that wise counsel. But like to me it sounded like a good idea because I heard like, oh, they make, you know, and so it's just, it was definitely something that could have, you know, looking at me, just my personality and now and everything, it was like that would not have been a good fit. And thankfully I had a wise enough parent to tell me that, you know, otherwise I'd be in that exact same position. It would change everything about my whole entire life. Like just would have been completely different with that.

[B]

And the parent council on this is really important because I think any of the degree free four, if you don't go through all of them and figure out which are important and why, they'll all throw it off kilter. So if your child's optimizing for income and that's not the thing that they need the most, that's the wrong career. If your child is optimizing for work environment and that's not the biggest thing that they need from their work, that's going to be off kilter. Like I want to work on a boat. Okay, but you need to make this much money. Okay, well that's not going to pay you this much money to do the other things that you care about in your life. That's the wrong decision. Like I said, with the income, like, oh well doctor, there's a kid, oh my goodness, he's like, oh, I want to be a doctor. And I was like, well, why do you want to be doctors? Because they make a lot of money, right?

[A]

That's what you're 18 year old. It just sounds like a good idea. Like what's the point of the job? You know? And so you're like, well I guess I Could probably figure that out, you know, and not optimize, not thinking about what else they need. Location, personality. Like, do you want to.

[B]

So many things.

[A]

Stay home with your kids someday, like you might not be able to do that if you have that debt.

[B]

You know, I had a young lady. That's actually one of the, one. One of my favorite things about the, the launch program that we do is that we, we ask, and we ask all kids this question because it's very important. But like, what do you want your future family life to look like? Who's in it? Where do you live? What does that look like? Because a lot of them actually do have a pretty clear picture of kind of like, kind of what they want. And I'm going to be honest, when I was that age, I had a clear picture of what I wanted my life to look like. And I have it. And I knew, I knew back then I was like, no, I think I know what I want it to look like. And that is one of, that is the most important vision I think given. Like, like we don't put that, our strategists don't put that on the kids. But it is a question that we ask because it's very important. Like no kids. Okay, great. Like that changes, that changes things.

[A]

That changes a lot about what you do.

[B]

One kid, okay, that changes a lot of things. Six kids, okay, that changes a lot of things.

[A]

Maybe don't do this thing if you want six kids, you know?

[B]

Yeah. You know, a wife. I was thinking about a young man I was just talking to a wife and, and two kids. Like, and, and, and you want her to stay at home. Like you want her to be able to stay at home. Okay, that changes things. Like now we're looking like things look different and some of the young women we've had come through and one of the things that like I care about very much is, is asking that question because no one asks that of. Sometimes people ask that question of young men. No one asks that question of young women. And I think it's because they don't want the answer. They don't want the answer. They don't want them to say, I want to be a mom, I want to find work that fits that. They don't want them to say that because that doesn't fit into, go into debt, buy a degree, buy another degree and then go get a low paying job that kind of looks like the family life that you want, but is actually just work. Like, because that, and that's the really, that's Something that, like, I've come to see is, I think, why nobody wants the answer to that question. Because if they say that they're going to make different decisions that will lead them into that future, into a future instead of one of the like, like help people burn out jobs that we funnel girls into. And we just love to funnel girls into those jobs without a clear understanding of their needs. Like, it's just such an interesting. It's just such an interesting thing that I've seen happen recently. And so we've had some young women come in. One girl, she went to college for five weeks, California, her family's from Colorado. And she went to college for five weeks. And she's like, I don't need to be here. And so she laughs and she laughs and smart girl. And she just. Not because of that, just independently. She was just very smart, very much an independent thinker. And she just came home and she, she got on this call and she just said, I want to be a mom. I want to have a family. She's like, I want work that will support that. Help help me find it. And we were like, okay, we can do that. And then we did.

[A]

There's options for that now. There's so many options for that these days.

[B]

But yeah, overall, like, I just think. And the thing is too that keeps me from getting depressed about, about everything is just like, I see how strategy can just change everything. And the slightest bit of strategy at the beginning can change everything.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell us. That's a great segue into how do you help people? Where can they sign up to learn more, to have you coach them? Maybe we have some homeschool moms in the audience who've been thinking a lot about this, but they're like, I don't even know which way to tell my kid to turn. Tell me how and tell us where to find this information.

[B]

Sure. So I think the best place for everybody to start, I would highly recommend our. Our book. It's called the degree Freeway, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. And that. That is. We found 16 is the right age to begin these conversations. 15 is just a little bit too young, just a little bit too young to have these conversations. They're still just figuring out a lot, a lot of things, but 16 seems to be the right. And we've tested this a lot. So 16 seems to be right. And then starting to have these conversations so that you can get them through job limit inventory, which is the first exercise in the book. How Many jobs do they know? Because you need to know what they know so that you can know what they don't know. That's very important. It's kind of like a diagnostic tool. Like how many do you know? Oh, you only know three. That's bad. Okay, that's good.

[A]

But they're all doctor, lawyer, teacher. Yeah, just have a few. Yeah.

[B]

And so you go through, do that and then we teach you how to do vocational creativity so you can do that in your daily life and add that as a practice, this. And then we do what's needs and wants. So there is budgeting in there. Sorry, but it's got to be there. And then going through their needs and wants, you know, which is the degree for that I went over with you. And then a little bit about industry. But that's kind of like a. If you buy the book, you'll see in there. We just kind of say, hey, you can talk about this. But like there's a big warning label around it, like, don't get stuck on this. And then the next thing is going to be after you've got job titles, like you've done some research and you've got jobs that fit their needs, you run them through a list to see if they actually meet their needs and then also if they meet their wants, because those are two separate. Two separate things. And then after you do that, then it's, does this job require a degree legally? And so there's just a checklist, there's worksheet, like you got three jobs that are the finalists. Go check and see the legal requirements. And what do you need? You know, what do you need to do? So that's what the book does. And there's a parent, there's a parent and a young adult book in the set. So you can kind of guide them through and kind of do it with them. Some parents have said that they actually got some value out of that too. So it's kind of neat. Yeah.

[A]

Oh yeah. I can't wait to grab it. Because these are the conversations I've been having with my oldest, like you said, my 15 year old, it just hasn't come up yet. But we have several that are, that are coming through into this age soon. And especially as homeschoolers, it's a question you get a lot of. And in some ways you feel like you have to defend, you know, as homeschoolers that they are, you know, pursuing what they need to be pursuing. So I think this is a very helpful resource. We will leave that down in the show notes or description box below. Hannah thank you so much. This has been a wonderful discussion. I need to go over now onto the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. Listen to the interview there because like, oh, I want more of this conversation. So thank you.

[B]

Thank you you it was so nice to talk to you.

[A]

Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband Luke and I and our kids work together side by side on our farm in Missouri and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and homesteaders with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog farmhouse on Boone.com and to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at Bit Ly Farmhouses. All one word. We also teach people how to ferment vegetables and mill their own grains through our courses, Fresh Ferments and Freshly Milled Grains. We will leave links for all of that down in the show notes below.

[B]

Sam.