The “Free College” Lie Exposed
(00:00.63)
Small colleges going out of business? Interesting story. And we’ve talked a little bit about all of the foreign students that come here to this country and how they are, well, they’re keeping many colleges afloat. Yeah, perfect storm. More colleges at risk as enrollment falls and financial pressures mount. Yep, long building financial crisis may be reaching a breaking point.
closures and mergers are looming at a pace that we haven’t seen since the great recession. Warning lights have been flashing for years. Fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college and the overall population of college-aged students is shrinking a demographic cliff. Again, all things that we told you were coming. Now.
People are concerned right now, many of colleges and universities are concerned because they, these issues, not as many kids coming here to go to school. I actually had these questions asked about, don’t these kids, there colleges and universities in Europe and China and all these other places? Why don’t they go there? aren’t they free? Because you hear that.
from the left here in this country about college education should be free. It’s free in Europe. Yeah, it is. You know where it’s also free here in the United States? Now it’s also free. Yeah, the US military academies. You can go there for free. In fact, I’ll pay you. You got this thing though. You got to get in first. Europe, Europe, yeah, they have great colleges and universities.
but you have to really do well to get in. I will give you a case in point. My wife’s cousin, cousin did extraordinarily well in school. Parents sent them to, they call it American School in Athens, Greece. Again, tutors every single day, they’re putting in all the work, did very, very well in school, did not get in.
(02:19.886)
did not get into the university he wanted to get into in Greece, which would have been free. His safety school, you know what his safety school was? Oxford. Now, Oxford’s a hell of a lot cheaper, you know, for Europeans, it’s also cheaper, the schools here in the United States, but that was a safety school. That’s how difficult it is to get into these colleges and universities in Europe, Asia, China.
My brother happens to be a professor but he’s working at an American college in China but also having Chinese students going to that American college in China.
It’s a business. Always has been a business. I’ve talked about hedge fund, hedge fund universities, you know, how they go about running their business. Well, many of them at this point in time, the numbers don’t make any sense and they did it to themselves. They did it to themselves. It’s not a lot of, you know, smart leadership, you know, hiring all of these ridiculous
administrators rather than hiring professors. Again, you got an arms race, know, I were, geez, you know, the University of Georgia is putting up a fancy rock climbing wall and brand new gym. Well, we’ve got to compete with that too, in order to attract students and then they’ve got to spend the money on that. Well, kids are recognizing right now and maybe parents are starting to
wake up to, gee, what’s my return on investment to that small liberal arts college that wants to charge $85,000, $90,000 a year? Wouldn’t it be better just to go to a state school? Again, I live in the state of Florida. I don’t know, I don’t think they’ve raised tuition in, I don’t know, eight, 10 years here.
(04:35.106)
the value for your money as far as going to a state college or university or it’s extraordinary. It’s a no brainer. So, Brandon, the fact that they’re gonna have to build more here in the state because the amount of people that have moved here to the state, it’s very, very difficult. Florida State, for example, used to be a bit of a safety school for many people around the country as a matter of fact.
Not any longer. Not any longer. It’s way too good of a value and way too many kids want to go there at this point in time. It always matters. What’s going to happen to many of these small schools? Well, it’s been happening. It’s been happening. Many of them just not going to make it. And then without a doubt, there is going to be some repercussions. Some ideas that we floated over the years is, you know, maybe change things up a little bit.
Maybe change things up. Maybe turn yourself into a vocational school. Have a vocational school type of drift. But then also as well, you can teach the classics. You can have philosophy classes going along with that. You can teach entrepreneur classes. It’s interesting. Take a look at the Wall Street Journal. They’re top rankings of colleges and universities. You know what number two was on the list?
(06:07.222)
Babson, Babson outside of Boston. Now number two, Stanford was ranked one. Again, you don’t have to pay that much attention to these things, but many of the schools on there that offer entrepreneurship programs continue to rise on that list. When all’s said and done, yeah, we’re gonna see consolidation. You’re gonna see colleges go under. I get all that. We’re gonna get these college and universities are gonna be.
pushing the administration to get those visas in gear because guess what those kids pay full freight. They pay full freight because they’re again they couldn’t get in. They may have done very very well but they couldn’t get in back at home parents willing to send them here. That is the reality of the terrain right now and guess what? Not looking good. Not looking good for many many many small liberal arts schools all across the country. Watchdog on wallstreet.com
