Seven Reasons to Ignore James Altucher and Send Your Kids to College
Thinking about sending your kids to college? Not so fast, says DailyFinance writer James Altucher. In his recent essay, “Seven Reasons Not to Send Your Kids to College,” Altucher, a proponent of legalized insider trading, argues that the college industry is a “self-perpetuating Ponzi scheme” that must be stopped at all costs. Citing the rising costs of tuition, college grads’ debt burden, and student borrowing, Altucher says that putting $200,000 you would have spent on your child’s college education into a municipal bond yielding 3% would be a better investment for said child 49 years down the road.
Altucher presents some compelling arguments for not going to college…if you were uneducated, greedy, and easily manipulated—you know, the kind of folks who actually do fall for Ponzi schemes. So your non-college educated child now has to wait 49 years for his or her cushy retirement gig? In the meantime, what is your blue-collar, minimum wage earner, if he or she even lands a job in today’s devastated economy, going to do to survive?
Here are some of Altucher’s alternatives-to-college suggestions: Give your uneducated teenager $20,000 to start “one to five businesses.” Altucher believes the so-called “education” your kid could get from this experience (having your business fail, and going from one unsuccessful venture to the next), would “last a lifetime” and generate invaluable knowledge. So much for the school of hard knocks. Most of the parents I know wouldn’t even give their kids the keys to their car let alone $20K.
And how about this winner—“travel the world,” he says, claiming that a global jaunt will “mature” your child and better prepare them for…college! Wait a minute, Altucher, I thought we weren’t supposed to send our kids to college. I guess even he can’t keep the secret in that, yes, eventually one needs a college education to advance in this life. This see-the-world scenario is probably his weakest argument since he points out that college tuition just gets more and more expensive. Well, it isn’t going to be any cheaper after they spend a year trying to find themselves, Eat Pray Love-style.
My favorite was his suggestion that you just basically leave your kid in a room full of books and let him or “home school” their college education. That way you can save yourself the $200,000. I guess you better hope your kids graduated from a high school that didn’t just “socially promote” them their HS diploma, while leaving them with a seventh-grade reading level.
The problem with Altucher’s wacky proposition is that it fails to take into account that American culture in the United States is set up, bad or good, to reward with the trappings of “mainstream success” only those individuals with a pronounced work ethic. While there will always be the exceptions to the rule, for the most part, if you want a high-paying career with benefits, a house in the ‘burbs, a spouse, and 2.3 kids, and you want to live comfortably, the best way to start is armed with as much college education as you can get. A college degree is the most visible, widely accepted “proof” that you have a high work ethic, and can be trusted with the reins of retail, corporate, or government leadership.
Having a college degree (or two) lets employers, CEOs, superior officers, etc., know that you: 1) showed up somewhere, every day, and usually bright and early, 2) knew how to follow rules, policies, procedures, as well as instruction, 3) are experienced getting along with people from different backgrounds, beliefs, etc., 4) worked long hours to achieve a set of clearly-defined goals, and 5) actually achieved said goals. That college degree also usually means you’re even tempered, well-adjusted, mentally sound, and probably morally straight(er) than most.
The ability to apply and get accepted to a college or university, and stay enrolled and maintain academic excellence, and then graduating, is a feat both rare and deservedly honorable. In American culture, getting one’s college degree is arguably the most prestigious achievement a young adult can earn. Don’t believe me? Just ask James “Don’t-Send-Your-Kid-To-College” Altucher, who holds a BS from Cornell University and a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University! Don’t you love when people try to tell you NOT to do something that they benefited from? And for all you college-educated brainiacs, my “seven reasons” to ignore Altucher are buried in the body of my article. How many can you count?
VICTOR CASS is a proud Eagle Scout and college grad, holding both a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, Awarded with Honors, from Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, CA, and a Master of Arts Degree from American Military University, in Manassas Park, VA, all of which prepared him greatly for life success. He highly recommends that parents encourage their children to earn their Eagle Scout, Gold Award (for Girl Scouts), and that they find a way to send their kids to college!
Thinking about sending your kids to college? Not so fast, says DailyFinance writer James Altucher. In his recent essay, “Seven Reasons Not to Send Your Kids to College,” Altucher, a proponent of legalized insider trading, argues that the college industry is a “self-perpetuating Ponzi scheme” that must be stopped at all costs. Citing the rising costs of tuition, college grads’ debt burden, and student borrowing, Altucher says that putting $200,000 you would have spent on your child’s college education into a municipal bond yielding 3% would be a better investment for said child 49 years down the road.
Altucher presents some compelling arguments for not going to college…if you were uneducated, greedy, and easily manipulated—you know, the kind of folks who actually do fall for Ponzi schemes. So your non-college educated child now has to wait 49 years for his or her cushy retirement gig? In the meantime, what is your blue-collar, minimum wage earner, if he or she even lands a job in today’s devastated economy, going to do to survive?
Here are some of Altucher’s alternatives-to-college suggestions: Give your uneducated teenager $20,000 to start “one to five businesses.” Altucher believes the so-called “education” your kid could get from this experience (having your business fail, and going from one unsuccessful venture to the next), would “last a lifetime” and generate invaluable knowledge. So much for the school of hard knocks. Most of the parents I know wouldn’t even give their kids the keys to their car let alone $20K.
And how about this winner—“travel the world,” he says, claiming that a global jaunt will “mature” your child and better prepare them for…college! Wait a minute, Altucher, I thought we weren’t supposed to send our kids to college. I guess even he can’t keep the secret in that, yes, eventually one needs a college education to advance in this life. This see-the-world scenario is probably his weakest argument since he points out that college tuition just gets more and more expensive. Well, it isn’t going to be any cheaper after they spend a year trying to find themselves, Eat Pray Love-style.
My favorite was his suggestion that you just basically leave your kid in a room full of books and let him or “home school” their college education. That way you can save yourself the $200,000. I guess you better hope your kids graduated from a high school that didn’t just “socially promote” them their HS diploma, while leaving them with a seventh-grade reading level.
The problem with Altucher’s wacky proposition is that it fails to take into account that American culture in the United States is set up, bad or good, to reward with the trappings of “mainstream success” only those individuals with a pronounced work ethic. While there will always be the exceptions to the rule, for the most part, if you want a high-paying career with benefits, a house in the ‘burbs, a spouse, and 2.3 kids, and you want to live comfortably, the best way to start is armed with as much college education as you can get. A college degree is the most visible, widely accepted “proof” that you have a high work ethic, and can be trusted with the reins of retail, corporate, or government leadership.
Having a college degree (or two) lets employers, CEOs, superior officers, etc., know that you: 1) showed up somewhere, every day, and usually bright and early, 2) knew how to follow rules, policies, procedures, as well as instruction, 3) are experienced getting along with people from different backgrounds, beliefs, etc., 4) worked long hours to achieve a set of clearly-defined goals, and 5) actually achieved said goals. That college degree also usually means you’re even tempered, well-adjusted, mentally sound, and probably morally straight(er) than most.
The ability to apply and get accepted to a college or university, and stay enrolled and maintain academic excellence, and then graduating, is a feat both rare and deservedly honorable. In American culture, getting one’s college degree is arguably the most prestigious achievement a young adult can earn. Don’t believe me? Just ask James “Don’t-Send-Your-Kid-To-College” Altucher, who holds a BS from Cornell University and a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University! Don’t you love when people try to tell you NOT to do something that they benefited from? And for all you college-educated brainiacs, my “seven reasons” to ignore Altucher are buried in the body of my article. How many can you count?
VICTOR CASS is a proud Eagle Scout and college grad, holding both a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, Awarded with Honors, from Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, CA, and a Master of Arts Degree from American Military University, in Manassas Park, VA, all of which prepared him greatly for life success. He highly recommends that parents encourage their children to earn their Eagle Scout, Gold Award (for Girl Scouts), and that they find a way to send their kids to college!
posted by victor cass | 7:31 PM
1 Comments:
Amazing that a successful, intelligent college grad like James advocated not sending our kids to college. First, many folks who grew up in poverty used their college degrees as "tickets" out of a dead-end life. Second, how can we have an effective democracy if our citizenry are not highly educated? I know that a degree does not equal good sense and ethics, but I firmly believe that working to earn a college degree facilitates and nurtures, for most people, the development of good habits of mind.
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