← THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FUTURE with Ric Edelman
THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FUTURE with Ric Edelman
Episode #4: How to Graduate College Debt-Free in 4 Years
00:39:39
Special 4-Episode Podcast Series on College
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:02]
A
This is where technology, innovation and personal finance come together. This is the Truth about your Future with Rick Edelman. Welcome to the Truth about your Future. I'm Rick Edelman. This is episode number four, the last of our special four part podcast series on college. I'm presenting this to you in celebration of the debut of my new book, the Truth About College, coming out December 4th. The Truth About College is my 14th book. It's being published by John Wiley and Sons. You can pre order it right now at your favorite bookseller and if you do, you'll get some exclusive benefits. Details are in the link in the show notes. If you order the Truth About College right now, you'll get a special workbook, 20 conversation starters, to help adults and teens talk about college. This exclusive workbook is only available if you pre order the book and this is your last chance to get this opportunity because this opportunity ends when the book hits the bookstores. And if you order three copies of the book, hey, it's a great stocking stuffer for the holidays. You'll get both the Conversation Starters workbook plus a special invitation to join me in a private webinar where you can ask all your questions about college. You'll get the link to the webinar as well, so you can watch the video anytime you want in case you can't join live, and if you're a financial advisor, you can get big discounts on a bulk order. The book is a perfect holiday gift for your clients. Same goes if you're an educator or guidance counselor, get this book into the hands of your students. Like I said, click the link in the show notes to get all the details about these offers. So far we've covered in this podcast series the benefits of getting a college degree, the perils of going to college, how to figure out if college should be your goal, and if so, the right goal to set so that the teen's college experience is successful. I also told you about focusing not on getting the degree to get a good job, but but to get the degree so the teen can enjoy the lifestyle they really want to live once they graduate. And then I told you the true cost of college, as well as the most important college choices you and your teen will make. And now today we have two topics left. Today I'm going to tell you what you've really been waiting for, how to minimize the cost of getting a college degree and a special preview of the book's first final chapter, the 12 biggest mistakes that students make. If you are thinking about college, today's content is the most important yet, so let's get right to it. Okay, Based on the first three episodes, you know the foundation at this point. If your teen goes to college, they must graduate in 4 years debt free on the Dean's list with a degree that lets them enjoy a career in the field they want to work in. Now I'm going to give you eight strategies that can help your teen achieve that goal and graduate in just four years, completely debt free. Here's the first idea. The teen should earn college credit in high school by passing AP or DE classes. AP and de. That's Advanced Placement and dual enrollment. Lots of schools offer these courses and by taking them, the teen gets college credit at hundreds of colleges and universities across the country. This cuts the time it takes to get the degree to as little as three years. And if the teen graduates in three years instead of four, you not only reduce the cost of college by more than 25%, your teen gets to enter the workforce and begin their career twice as fast as most college students. Because most college students take six years to get their degree. By finishing college in just three years, your teen gets to start saving and investing sooner, materially increasing their future wealth. Think about that. Take two identical high school graduates who work until age 65. They both save $500 a month throughout their careers and they Both earn a 10% return per year. The average annual return of the S&P 500 for the past hundred years. The teen who graduates in three years enters retirement with a million dollars more than the teen who graduates in six years. So yeah, taking classes in high school that give you college credit is a big deal. Especially since a lot of those college credit earning classes are free. So let me explain how these programs work because cause there are some differences. And those differences will help you and your team decide which of them is better. At least better for you. It all depends really on the teen's goals and their learning style and their plans for college. Let's look first at the AP courses. Advanced Placement. These are college level classes that the teen takes during high school. AP classes are designed by the College Board. That's the same organization that gives the SAT test. AP classes are standardized nationwide. There's a prescribed curriculum that ends with a comprehensive exam that high school students take in May. The College board offers AP classes in about 40 different subjects from STEM to humanities. Everything from AP Calculus and AP Physics to AP US History and AP English Lit. They also offer classes in the arts like AP Studio Art and AP Music Theory. Each of these classes costs about 100 bucks. That's a fraction of what you would pay to take those classes in College. Every AP course ends with that AP exam. In May, students get a score of 1 to 5. The teen will get college credit if they pass the course. And for a lot of colleges, that means getting a 3 or better. Some schools, though, do require a 4 or a 5. So before the teen chooses an AP class, think about the colleges that the teen wants to apply to and find out if that college will accept a 3 on an AP exam or whether that college demands a 4 or a 5. Now let's talk about DE courses. Dual enrollment. These are programs that let high school students take real college courses, but they take them at their high school. Sometimes they take them at a local college. They can even sometimes take them online. These classes are often free or very inexpensive. A whole lot less that what colleges charge. And here's the best part. When the teen passes these dual enrollment classes, they get credit not just for college, but also for high school. That's why they're called dual enrollment courses. With the AP classes, the credit is only for college. But with the DE classes, the credit is both college and high school. You get two for one. Here's another difference between the DE and AP classes. With ap, like you said, you get college credit only if you score three or more on the May exam. But with DE classes, you get college credit merely by passing the class. There's no year end exam you have to pass. So should your teen choose Advanced Placement classes or dual enrollment classes? Well, AP might be the better choice if the teen plans to apply to competitive or out of state universities. AP might also be the better choice if the teen tends to do really well on standardized tests. It's also a good choice if they're not sure which college they want to go to. Because AP college credits can be used pretty much at any college. But DE courses? Well, dual enrollment might be the better way to go if the teen will do better with normal class grades. They might do well on one assignment, but not so good on another. They might ace one test, but struggle with another. And that's why the class grade pretty much averages all this out. There's no one thing that determines success. Dual enrollment credit doesn't depend on the teen taking a win or lose exam in May. And dual enrollment is also the better choice if the teen is planning to attend an in state college or a community college. So if you're thinking it's hard to choose between AP and de. Well, do some of Both, because after all, both have advantages and disadvantages. Sounds like diversifying, right? That's the same thing I've always told you to do with your investments. Same thing here. And from a college admissions perspective, when the teen takes some of both, they're kind of saying, hey, I'm willing to challenge myself academically. One piece though of fine print about dual enrollment that that I want to mention. Those grades do go on your permanent college transcript, which means if the teen fails a DE class, that failure will be on their college record. That risk does not occur when you take AP classes. Okay, so that's AP and de. Fabulous way to sharply cut the cost of college. Here's my second strategy for you. Have your teen earn college credit by passing CLEP or DSST exams. Clep, the College Level Examination Program and dsst, Dante's Subject Standard Tests. Let's take these one at a time. First, clep, the College Level Examination Program. This gives teens college credit for knowledge that they get through self study, through their own work experience, even independent learning. They get the credits by passing exams created by the College Board. Again, who does the SAT and AP classes. Each test is less than 100 bucks. They're about an hour and a half to two hours long, and they are offered in dozens of subjects and colleges give three to six credits for every one of them. Go to clep collegeboard.org to learn more or just click the link in the show notes to get there. The other one is dsst, that's short for the Dante's subject Standardized tests. These work pretty much the same as the CLEP program. This was made for people in the military, but it's now available to everyone and there are lots more subjects than what you can get via CLEP. You can learn more about dsst@getcollegecredit.com or again just click the link in the show notes. CLEP and DSST are perfect for adult learners who are returning to school. Also great for military service members and veterans, for kids being homeschooled, and for students who enjoy learning on their own. If you want your teen to be able to skip college introductory classes and the cost of the tuition that all that costs and enable them to graduate faster, CLEP and DSST programs are terrific. Here's my next strategy for you, and you really need to keep an open mind on this one because a lot of people have a really bad and misinformed opinion about it. Ready? If you really want to sharply cut the cost of college, have your teen go to community college for the first Two years. Wait a minute, Hang on. Slow down. Don't tune me out. This is really a great idea. I mean, think about it. Freshman year. These days, freshman year of college is really Nothing more than 13th grade. All the classes your teen is going to take are just general education classes. Sometimes they're even remedial classes. Freshmen don't take classes associated with their majors in their freshman year. I mean, most freshmen don't even have a major yet. So academically speaking, they're not going to miss a thing. By going to community college for the first two years and by going to a local community college, they'll get an associate's degree in almost every state in the country. That associate's degree guarantees them admission to any of the state's four year colleges and universities. Which means the teen will still end up with a BA Or a BS Degree in four years. And by going to the community college for the first two, they cut the cost of college almost in half. This is huge savings. Dramatically reduces the need for all that student loan debt. Now, I know what you're thinking. You think community college represents an inferior education. You think there's no status to go into community college. You can't brag to your friends at the country club that that's where your teen is going. Your teen can't show off with their friends when they all start talking about what colle college they're going to go to next fall. Get over it because all of that is nonsense. You know how many college students are going to community college? Almost half. Yeah, 44% of the nation's college students are enrolled in community colleges. And as for bragging, you and your teen ought to be bragging that you're saving $100,000 by going to community college first and still ending up at a great state school. And it's the state school that will be shown on the bachelor's degree, the state school that the teen will display on their resume. And if your teen is ever asked about all this in a job interview, they can easily say that they chose to attend community college for the first two years because it was such a smart choice, didn't interfere with their academic learning in their field, but it saved tens of thousands of dollars, maybe 100 grand all told, and allowed the teen to avoid massive amounts of student loan debt. Employers will be impressed by that reasoning. Quite frankly, they'll be jealous and they'll wish they had done that themselves. Trust me, going to community college will not harm your teen's job prospects. Okay. If going to community College is all about lowering the cost of college. Let's take that idea a step further. Have your teen choose a college or university that lets them get a degree completely free, no tuition cost at all. This is my fifth idea for you. Today, 35 states let students go to community college for free. 25 states let students go to four year schools that offer a bachelor's degree free of tuition as well. And by the end of the decade, my bet is that every state will be doing this. Now, all these tuition free offers have some fine print. For example, the University of Maryland says teens have to be a Maryland resident and a recipient of a Pell Grant. In California, they make students do 450 hours of community service. In Minnesota, they pay tuition and fees for students from families earning less than 80 grand a year. So it varies state by state. Check it out with your state to see what the programs are that are available to you. See if you qualify. And by the way, it's not just state schools that are becoming free. Private colleges and universities are doing this too, including the elite. Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, mit, Penn, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale. They all provide free tuition to needy families. And mit, by the way, defines needy as any family earning less than $200,000 a year. And if your family earns less than 100,000, not only is tuition free at MIT, so is room and board, books, and even personal expenses. MIT used to cost $86,000 a year. Now, for most of its students, it's completely free. Same at dozens of schools. One little sidebar here. If your family qualifies as a low or moderate income household, you need to know about Pell Grants. They're administered by the Department of Education and they give you free money. Pell Grants are not alone. These grants allow your teen to use the money for tuition, fees, housing, books and other college costs. The maximum you can get is about $7,400. To apply for a Pell Grant, you fill out the student financial aid form called the FAFSA and you get it@studentaid.gov and that link is also in the show notes as well. Okay, next, let's talk about something that lots of college students do. They work part time while they're in school. I don't mean during the summer break, I mean during the school year. If teens are going to do that, I want to make sure they're doing it for the right reasons. Admit it. Teens are not going to earn enough money in some part time job to make any real difference. And every hour they spend Commuting to work and working, that's an hour. They're not studying or participating in an extracurricular activity where quite frankly, they can learn as much as they do in the classroom. All it means is that they are working part time during the year and all they're really doing is harming their ability to get the most from their college investment. On the other hand, I got to admit, working part time does demonstrate their maturity. It does show they have a great work ethic. Both are two characteristics future employers love to see. So if the team is going to go work part time, the best way to make part time work worthwhile during their college years is for them to get a job that shows future employers that they also gained experience that's relevant to the job they're seeking after college. Now let me flip this upside down. Instead of going to college full time and working part time, do the exact opposite. Instead of going to college full time, go to work full time and do college part time. Yeah. Have the teen go get a full time job or right out of high school. Why? Because there are now thousands of employers across the country that reimburse their workers for their tuition expenses. It's a common employee benefit these days. All the worker has to do is pass the course to get the tuition reimbursement. Sometimes the company wants you to stay on for a few years after you graduate. Amazon, Boeing, Chipotle, Discover, Disney, Fidelity, Home Depot, Jeep, Chrysler, Fiat, JP Morgan Chase, Lowe's, Macy's, Papa John's, Publix, Qualcomm, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Target T Mobile, Verizon, Walmart. All these employers will pay for your teen's college degree. And of course, so will the US Military. Even people in low level jobs at these companies like working in the mailroom, they qualify for this benefit too. And it's literally worth a million dollars. Because the money you save on going to college and the money you accumulate in your 401k working an extra 4 to 6 years than other people who are going to college full time. This allows you to accumulate massive future wealth easier than others. Keep in mind that for some employers, they're only going to pay for college if you go into a certain field. So have your teen get the details before they apply for a job with any particular company seeking that benefit. Okay. Two more strategies for you to lower dramatically the cost of college. First, have your teen select a school that's within a three hour drive of home. Yeah, I get it. Sure, it's fun for the student to envision going To a college that's thousands of miles away. It's fun to dream about driving a Ferrari too. Doesn't mean it's smart to spend a quarter million dollars on it. College today requires that we consider the roi, the return on investment. That means you've got to consider the transportation costs associated with going to college. Obviously, the farther away the school, the less often the teen will see the family. Maybe that's the goal. But teens can stay away from home even if school's just a half hour away. I don't care where the school is. The fact is the teen is certainly going to return home for Thanksgiving, the December break, the spring break and the summer recess. So think about it. That's a minimum of four round trips a year. If school's only a 30 minute drive, that's just a couple of bucks on gas. Maybe a toll or two. But if the teen has to fly, we're talking thousands of dollars on travel expenses over the course of getting that degree. Think about it. Round trip airfares, 200 bucks. The teen does four trips a year over six years. That's $4,800. I think it's safe to say the parents will go see the teen at school. Let's call that three times over. The entire career of college, that's another $7,200. But for both mom and dad, not counting the cost of their hotel, food and ground transportation. Add it all up. You got to admit that selecting a college thousands of miles from home can easily add $12,000 or more to the cost of college. And that's entirely an out of pocket expense. Nobody will reimburse you for that. So, last point. Let's take this one step further. Or I mean closer. The teen should seriously consider living at home while going to college. This is a big deal because room and board is more than half the cost of college. Oh boy. I can see the eyes rolling already. Of course the teen really wants to live at school. I get it. But that's a luxury. It's not a necessity. It's the degree that matters, not the partying by living at school. And consider this. Of all the people ages 25 to 34, one in five of them live at home. In other words, lots of kids go off to live at college. But after they graduate in six years at age 24, they go right back to living at home with their parents. I can see why. Not only is living with mom or dad cheaper, the lifestyle's better. Why would a 24 year old want to rent a cramped one bedroom apartment in a lousy part of town where they have to traipse down to the basement to use a shared washing machine, pay for their own Netflix and utilities, shop for groceries that they then have to cook and then they have to clean up afterward when they can instead live in a beautifully furnished four bedroom home in a quiet residential suburban community where the meals are provided, mom does the laundry, and the grad gets to watch premium channels on a big screen tv. All for free. Look, if you're going to live at home after you graduate, it's kind of hard to say that you need to spend $50,000 on housing at college while you're in college. Okay, I've just given you a ton of ways that you can drastically, radically cut the cost of college. All the way to free AP classes, DE classes, CLEP exams, DSST exams, community college, going to schools that are tuition free, working full time so your employer pays for the degree, Going to a local school instead of one really far away living at home to eliminate the housing cost. These might seem like unusual ideas or simply different from how you remember college, but college today is not what it was 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. If you want to help the teen avoid massive amounts of student loans, you've no choice but to consider the smart ways of getting a degree today. So what's left for us to talk about? Only the most important thing. In my new book, the Truth About College, the last chapter is the most important. And it's the biggest, longest chapter of the entire book. Like maybe half of the whole book. The 12 biggest mistakes that Students make and how to Avoid Them. And I'm going to preview those 12 mistakes for you right here. Number one, the student rushes into college. Bad move. Proven by the fact that a quarter of freshmen drop out and only 62% graduate after six years. Number two, they haven't considered the type of employer they'd like to work for. It's not enough to enter a college knowing what career you want to enter. Teens must also know the kind of employer they want to work for. So I explain in the book the difference between for profit companies, which range from small family owned businesses to the biggest corporations in America. The public sector, meaning going to work for the government, the federal government, state government, or a local government, nonprofit organizations like charities, foundations and other community groups. And finally, going to work for yourself. Entrepreneurship can be a great choice too. They get a college degree only to enter a field that doesn't require one. 37% of mail sorters at the U.S. postal Service have a college degree? That's nuts. And that's not an isolated example either. Construction managers earn an average of almost $110,000, but that job doesn't require a college degree either. But half the country's construction managers have a college degree anyway. It's nuts. Same thing for insurance agents. Half of them have a college degree. Half a claims adjusters, half a police officers. Half of all these folks have college degrees, even though the degree is not a requirement for getting those jobs. These people wasted 100 or 200 grand and six years of their lives. There are dozens of great jobs, from nuclear power reactor operators to police detectives that have great salaries and don't require college. And I list all those jobs in my new book, the Truth About College. It's all in chapter 10, number four. And here's the opposite. They do get a degree, and it is for a field that requires it. But they graduate without the skills they need to succeed in that field. I talked a lot about this earlier in the podcast series, so I'll skip the details here because go re listen to the second episode to hear my strategy for actually learning what you need to learn in college. Number five. This is a biggie. Teens don't know that the field they want to get into doesn't have many jobs to get. Does the team want a major in sociology? It's the 25th most popular major among college students. Every year, 329 institutions give 35,000 people a degree in sociology. Guess how many people are working as sociologists in this country? 3,300. Every year, we're producing 10 times more sociology degrees than there are jobs. Or try this one. 16% of college students say they want to go work for Google. That's 640,000 college seniors saying that every year. Guess what? Google has less than 2,500 job listings available. In other words, 0.004% of college seniors who want to work for Google will actually get a job there. The other 99.996% will fail. And guess when they're going to learn that? After they graduate. I think maybe this is something teens ought to investigate before they enroll in college. Hey, I don't want you to think I hate the liberal arts. My wife Jean and I were both liberal arts majors at Rowan University, and we're the benefactors of Rowan University's Rick Edelman College of Communication, Humanities and Social Sciences. We gave Rowan $10 million to fund the Edelman Scholars. These students get a 100% free college education plus $17,500 in cash if they graduate in four years. So obviously, we think there's a lot of value in a liberal arts education. At the Rick Edelman College, students get the critical thinking, ethical leadership, and adaptability skills that they need in today's workplace, especially in today's world that's being shaped by AI and automation. So I don't want anybody to think that a sociology degree is necessarily a waste of time and money, even though it's highly unlikely you're going to end up working as a sociologist with that degree. What they will get is career agility that helps them adapt, lead, and learn over their entire lifetime. I explain a lot more about this and AI's impact on college and careers in my new book, the Truth About College. I'll also talk more about AI in a little bit. Here's number six. I've said it's a big mistake to get a degree when you're going to go into a field that doesn't need one. But I'm going to turn it upside down right here. Number six is the mistake where the team fails to realize that they've chosen a field that that not only requires a bachelor's, it also requires a master's or a doctorate or a professional certification. Every working sociologist, they've got a master's degree or more. A biology degree will not make you a physician. Law school won't turn you into a lawyer. You need to pass the bar exam, too. CPA candidates have to complete five years of college, not just four. And then they gotta pass four exams over two years. Is the teen committed as a senior in high school to get all this education and spend all that money and take all that time? The average cost of law school is $230,000. That takes us to mistake number seven. Teens often get a graduate degree without regard to the roi. A study last year by the foundation for Research on Equal opportunity found that 43% of master's degrees produces a negative ROI. Here's one great example. There are 3.2 million school teachers in the United States. All of them have a bachelor's degree, and they all pretty much make the same amount of money. Great teachers make the same amount as lousy teachers. But teachers with a master's degree earn higher salaries than teachers who only have a ba. That's a big incentive for teachers to go get their masters, and half of them have done that. But here's the thing. You only earn about $4,500 more per year, net of taxes, by having a master's but the average master's program costs $45,000. Does it make sense to spend 45,000 to earn 4,500? Well, yeah, if you're going to work another 20 years. But if you're going to leave teaching in five years, no, it doesn't. Here's another aspect of it. You don't have to spend 45,000 to get a master's in education. You can get a master's for under ten grand, and that is a great roi. Spend ten grand to boost your income. Five grand a year. That's awesome. So teens have to ask themselves three questions if they're thinking of entering a career that requires or encourages a master's degree? Number one, how much will the graduate degree cost? Number two, how much additional income will they earn by getting that graduate degree? And number three, will getting it help them achieve happiness? Here's number eight. Teens don't realize that technology will eliminate the career they're planning to pursue. In my 12th book, the truth about your Future, I explained that exponential technologies are going to eliminate about half of all current occupations. I'm talking about AI, machine learning, quantum computing, robotics, nanotech, biotech, bioinformatics, 3D and 4D printing, virtual and augmented reality, the metaverse and crypto, blockchain technology, tokenization and digital assets. We're also talking fintech, edtech, agtech, aviation technology, neuroscience. The list is pretty extensive. Job obsolescence is already underway and it's going to increase over the next 10 years, right about the time your teen gets into the job market. The result? Already the unemployment rate for college graduates has risen 50% just since 2023. And for the first time in half a century, the unemployment rate for people with a college degree is higher than it is for people who didn't go to college. Goldman Sachs says 2/3 of all jobs are vulnerable to AI. Jim Farley, the CEO at Ford, recently warned his workers, quote, artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white collar workers in the U.S. unquote. Marianne Lake, she's CEO of JPMorgan Chase's consumer and community business, and she says she has reduced her staff by 10% because AI is going to be doing the job instead at Anthropic, the CEO there, says half of all entry level jobs could disappear within five years. And Mika Kaufman, the CEO of Fiverr, sent an email to his staff this year saying, quote, this is a wake up call. It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support, replacement salesperson, or finance person. AI is coming for you. At Shopify, the HR department is not allowed to hire anyone without first proving to management that AI can't do the job. At ThredUp, CEO James Reinhart told his staff, quote, I think AI is going to destroy way more jobs than the average person thinks, unquote. At IBM, the CEO Arvind Krishna says IBM has already used AI to replace hundreds of jobs in HR. And at Amazon, CEO Andy Jassy sent an email to all 1.6 million Amazon employees saying that Amazon could replace them. Is your team planning to enter a major in a field that literally won't exist by the time they graduate? In the Truth About College, in my new book, I list the hundreds of jobs that Oxford University says has a 90 to 100% chance of being eliminated over the next decade. And I also give you another list of hundreds of jobs that are highly likely to survive and even grow in the AI era. And all of them require college degrees. The bottom line is make sure your teen focuses on learning in college how to think, create, communicate and manage. Those are the four skills that will be valued most by employers. Okay, three more mistakes teams make. Number nine, they don't consider apprenticeships instead of college. There are now 64% more apprenticeship programs than there were just 10 years ago. Many employers say they see little difference between job candidates who have a degree and people who have a certificate from an apprenticeship. Dozens of companies are eliminating their requirement that job applicants have a college degree. Instead, they just want to know you've got the skill and the experience and you can get both from apprenticeships. And the best part is that you can complete an apprenticeship far faster than a college degree and you often pay nothing for it. In fact, often they pay you while you're training and then they offer you a job. What's not to love? Number 10. We've talked about the importance of lifestyle, and that is the number 10 mistake. Students don't consider the lifestyle that their career choice will impose. They should consider these five questions. Number one, how do you feel about working remotely? Number two, what hours do you want to work? Nine to five, Monday through Friday? How do you feel about weekends? How do you feel about evenings? How do you feel about holiday work? Number three, how much travel is required? Number four, how long will it really take for you to get the job you really want? Odds are you're not going to be the TV anchor on the evening news. From day one, you're going to be doing some entry level job at the news station. It could take you decades to get into that anchor chair. Are you willing to wait that long? Number five, what compensation can you realistically expect from from the career? Here's mistake number 11, and this is a killer. Teens don't realize that the school they have selected to attend might close. A college closes now every week on average, and they usually give no advance warning. Since 2020, 1.3 million college students have been stranded when their colleges suddenly closed because they ran out of money. Those students had to apply to other colleges, and even when they got admitted, they ended up having to retake most of their classes. As a result, tens of thousands of students said the heck with it, and they just dropped out. And yet they're still stuck with their student loans. So now you have to examine the school's financial status before you decide whether or not to apply. This is an additional complication of college, and it's true for any school. Even some of the biggest and best known are in financial trouble. Have there been any accreditation sanctions? Has the school missed any payments on its debts? Is the school tapping into its endowment fund? Are they churning through lots of college presidents? On the campus tour, do you see buildings in disrepair? Does the grass need mowing or the sidewalks cracked? Could be signs of budget cuts. In any business transaction, you must never believe that the sellers are focused on what's best for the buyers. They're not. They're focused on what's best for themselves. This is not a condemnation of business. It's just the way it is. And you need to understand that colleges are no different. They want you to enroll. Whether it's in your best interest to enroll there, that might be a different question. There's so much more you need to know, and it's all in my new book, the Truth About College. The book is in bookstores this Thursday, December 4th, so this is your last chance to pre order the book and get all the special incentives that we're offering. Click the link in the show notes to get the details. Order your copy of the Truth About College right now and you'll get my special workbook, 20 conversation starters, to help adults and teens talk about college. This exclusive workbook is only available if you pre order the book. And this is your last chance to get this opportunity because it's over when the book hits bookstores this week. And if you order three copies of the book right now as a great stocking stuffer, you'll get both the Conversation Starters workbook and a special invitation to join me at a private webinar where you can ask all your questions about college, and you'll also get the link so you can watch the video recording of the webinar anytime in case you can't join live. And if you're a financial advisor, you can get big discounts on bulk orders. The book is a perfect holiday gift for your clients, and same goes if you're an educator or guidance counselor. Get this book into the hands of your students. For all the details on these special offers, just click the link in the Show Notes. Thank you so much for joining me for this special podcast series. I look forward to seeing you on our upcoming webinar where we're going to talk about college and I'm going to answer audience questions. See you there. And thanks again. Increased awareness and actionable intelligence about the forces that are shaping our world. This is the Truth about your future with Rick Edelman.