Ep 300: The Truth About College and Higher Education with Eric Schansberg

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This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network.
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I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show.
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Well, guys, we did it.
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We made it to the 300th episode of this podcast, which is insane to think about.
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I can't believe that when I started this podcast in April of 2022, that I would still be going in 2026.
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Well, I mean, I thought that I would be, right?
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But it is crazy to think that I've made it this far and that I've had 300 episodes.
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And as I'm going to stay here in just a minute, when I get into the interview today, I can only do this with you, my audience.
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And I really appreciate you guys staying by me throughout the years.
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If you're a new listener, thank you so much for joining this show and being a part of what we're doing here.
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I think it's incredible, and I absolutely love doing this.
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And it gives me an opportunity to explore some great ideas.
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I've met some incredible people, read some great books, and hopefully, I think most importantly, this show has helped you grow in your faith.
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That's what this is really all about.
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At the end of the day, I think we're trying to follow Jesus to the best of our abilities.
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And over the last couple of years, I've definitely been on a roller coaster ride with that for sure.
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Just uh not really knowing in this phase of my life how to best follow Jesus and what that looks like.
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But from doing the show week in and week out and meeting a lot of people and being encouraged by a lot of people, I've just been challenged to step up and take ownership of my faith on a level that I haven't before.
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And I'm very thankful for the first time in a long time for the direction that I'm headed spiritually.
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And I just am very appreciative that you guys were all along for the ride.
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So for the 300th episode of the show, we have Eric Shandsberg coming back on to talk about the truth regarding college and higher education.
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And it's a great episode.
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But in classic fashion, for the 300th episode of the show, we were having technology problems during the interview.
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And I don't understand why it did this.
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But for whatever reason, there are a couple of times when I ask Eric a question and the audio just didn't pick up like the first five seconds of his response.
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So it's either like really quiet or not there.
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And then it just kicks in just fine.
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And normally when something like that happens, we use StreamYard at LCI to record all of our podcasts.
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Usually when something like that happens, it happens to the live stream that is downloaded to the cloud.
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Um, I'm not a technology guy, so if I'm saying this the wrong way, you can correct me.
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But when it happens like this, I can usually just like wait until the recording is over.
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And then when I go back and actually download the local recordings to my computer, all the audio is there, no problem.
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It's happened several times where we've had some audio issues on the cloud recording that the the downloaded local recordings did not have this time.
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For whatever reason, it recorded it that way in the local recordings.
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I have no idea.
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So I guess what I'm saying is after 300 episodes of this show and being my own producer and doing all of my own tech and addressing all of my own tech needs, we're still making mistakes.
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So obviously, we've not gotten so big and famous that we don't have these tech problems.
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So, anyways, I just wanted to let you know if there are a couple of times in this episode where the answers that Eric is giving me after a question sound a little weird or like he's starting off in the middle of a sentence.
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That's the reason why.
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It's not him.
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He did a great job.
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This was a really fun interview and a really fun conversation about college and really informative as well, especially if you're someone who, you know, I'm not quite to the point where we're thinking about college for my kid, but we will be in a couple of years.
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And I know there are a lot of people that are listening that are that are looking at that and kind of thinking about what college is gonna mean for them.
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There's a lot of good information here.
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And don't let the weird audio issues deter you.
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I tried my best to clean up the audio, at least for the podcast feed.
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For the video, there's really not a whole lot I could do.
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I do the video is just gonna be a little rough because I'm not a video producer.
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The podcast should sound a little bit better.
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So if you want to hear it a little bit cleaner, then go and listen to it on the RSS feed where you will find it um less blemish than it is here.
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But all of that to say, the episode's gonna be awesome.
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I don't want you to be confused by some of the abrupt changes.
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And as always, we love you guys and everything that you've done.
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Um we're at 300.
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Let's do 300 more.
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We will get into the interview right now.
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All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.
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Returning to the show today is Dr.
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Eric Shandsberg.
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Dr.
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Shandsberg is a professor of economics at Indiana University University Southeast and has written several books, including College 101, What Students and Parents Should Know About Universities.
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In it, Dr.
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Shandsberg applies the economic way of thinking to one of the biggest and most underanalyzed decisions a family can make where to send their kids to school, while also explaining faith, discipleship, and what really happens to kids' beliefs on college campuses.
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We will be discussing both of these issues on the show today.
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Dr.
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Shansberg, welcome back to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.
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Glad to be here.
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Hey, it's always good to have you back.
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We've had, I think you've been on the show.
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This is your third time, so it's going to be a great conversation.
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Uh, but I just want to stay at the outset of the show, this is going to be the 300th episode of my podcast, uh, which is uh insane to think that I've been doing it for this long.
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Uh and I just wanted to say thank you to all of the listeners that I've had throughout the years.
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You guys keep on tuning back in for these conversations week in and week out.
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I know I've gotten a couple of new listeners in the last few months with the release of the book.
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So thank you for everything you do.
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As always, you can see the book uh if you're watching on YouTube behind my right shoulder on my shelf here, Politics, Economics, New Testament Interpretation.
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Go and buy yourself a copy of that.
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But we're not here to talk about that today.
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We're here to talk about Dr.
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Eric Shandsberg's book.
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Uh, we love this guy, love having him on the show.
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Um, before we get going today, like I said before, I know it wasn't that long ago that you were on the show, but I have picked up some new listeners since then.
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So just tell people a little bit about yourself.
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Yeah, so a disciple of Jesus, that's the most important thing.
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But um been teaching economics for nearly 40 years, been active in ministry and teaching Bible study for 30 to 40 years, depending on which category we're talking about.
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So, really big on uh training up lay leaders in the church.
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Uh, been married to my wife, Tanya, for 31 years, four sons by adoption and pregnancy.
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And um that's about it, I guess.
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I I love it.
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Well, you are an economist, um, but you are also involved in like the church base, very big in discipleship.
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And I think we've talked about that in a previous episode.
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Um, you've been heavily uh involved in your entire career, really revolves around academia.
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So you're an insider to the college experience.
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But what motivated you to write a book about college and how it works and how Christians should think about college?
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You know, when you're at a party or something, one of the conversations is hey, what do you do?
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You know, what sports teams do you like and how about that weather and you know, whatever.
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But no, we talk about what we do.
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And so when people find out I'm a professor, usually it leads to some interesting conversation and questions, and they want to know about higher ed.
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So uh, and particularly if they've got kids in that space, you know, getting ready to go to college or whatever.
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And so I was happy enough, always happy enough to provide input, but the more I would have these conversations, I would realize the people I'm talking to don't even really know all the important questions they need to ask.
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And so uh Donald Rumsfeld was famous for talking about known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
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And the known unknowns are not a problem because you know you don't know, so you you get information, but if you don't know you don't know, then you're you're about to take a beating, probably.
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And so I think that happens a lot with college, that there's some really key things that people don't even know or think.
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And so I really wanted to write the book.
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And it's a slim book.
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I mean, it's you know, it's tiny, uh it's available as an e-book.
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Uh that that's the main format.
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But Amazon, if you hit a few buttons, lets you crank out paperbacks too.
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But it's just meant to be a little guide that really helps with a series of those questions, particularly the things that people I think aren't even thinking about.
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Yeah, and we have to start out with, because you do in your book as well, um, about what you call the great middle class reflex of just assuming that everyone needs to go to college.
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And I remember coming of age, you know, in the early 2000s, that was just the only path that you were supposed to take.
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Uh, you would go to school, you would get a degree, and that was the key to your future.
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But you you challenge that in the book, and you say that that reflex itself is often unhelpful.
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So why is that not necessarily the best starting point for thinking about higher education?
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And what paradigm should we put in its place?
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Today it's not, you know, unacceptable or uh that you're treated like a leper, you know, if you go off to get a trade or something like that.
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When that was the case back in the day, if you're in upper middle class circles and you know your kid became an electrician or a plumber, that you know, that was uh gonna be uncomfortable at a party.
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Uh so we're not there anymore, certainly.
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It's gotten better.
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But I think especially when you're looking at educated parents, uh upper middle class and above, then it's still quite a reflex for people that they they need to go and it doesn't serve them well for a lot of reasons.
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Kids aren't always ready to go right to college.
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Maybe the major they're gonna end up with they could have done just as well to start working the opportunity cost of forsaking all those wages and getting started on your career, especially as we'll talk about later.
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You know, you shouldn't be going into debt to pursue a college education.
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So I think there's a lot here where it's a complicated, expensive decision.
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You would never go into any other expensive decision like that, an investment of uh, you know, whether we're talking about a house or financial investments, and just casually make it as a reflex.
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That's well, you might do that, but that's a terrible idea.
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We would never recommend that approach to a complex, you know, immensely important financial decision.
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Why on earth would we do that with an education?
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Yeah, no, that that's so true.
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And you even talk in your book about how um not only do you have to be critical about whether or not to go to college and whether or not college is right for you, you have to really think about how the type of degree is going to impact your professional career.
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And so in your book, you kind of frame college as being a choice really between human capital and signaling.
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And so I want you to talk a little bit about that dynamic there.
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So, what do you mean by those two?
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And how should those two poles help us think about like if you're going to go to school, how do you decide what you're going to study in school?
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Roles in varying degrees.
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So, human capital is what labor economists use to talk about the skills that you pick up uh in college, training, education, high school, fourth grade, whatever.
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You are picking up skills.
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So you learn how to be an accountant.
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What does that mean?
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Well, you learn how to do accounting, but you also learn how to do written communication and oral communication, pick up time management skills and other soft skills, people skills, right?
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So there's a range of things that you're picking up that would constitute human capital, things that make you more uh important, impactful in the workplace.
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And that's important.
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When people think of education formally and they think about their hopes for education, uh that that's usually what they're talking about.
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But in the background is the second piece, at least.
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And for some people, it's actually closer to the foreground than they might be comfortable admitting, but it's the idea of education as a credential or a signal.
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And that's the idea that in a world of imperfect information, which we live in, that are making really important decisions based on highly imperfect and often not so credible information.
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And so we grasp for low-cost signals that are predictive, they're not a slam dunk, but they are probabilistic and they help us interpret the likelihood that Alex will be affected.
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So now I'm looking at, oh, where'd Alex go to school?
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And so then, you know, you went to Harvard, you went to Ohio State, you went to, you know, West, East, North Texas State, right?
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So there's these different things.
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I went to such and such, you know, community college, the reputation of the school, the reputation of the major, right?
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If you hear someone got a degree in nuclear physics uh physics, and then you heard someone else, you know, was in sociology, you know, it doesn't tell you for sure.
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It could be the sociologist is a sharper tool than the nuclear physicist, but probably not.
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And then things like GPA and the minors and the majors, the internships, right?
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So you think about the package that you're handing to, let's say, a potential employer, and they're going to judge you for what you bring to the table first on paper and then in an interview because they can't get to know you fully.
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And this is just part of the world we live in.
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And so, you know, what's the signal value of higher education in general?
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What's the the signal value of a degree of a certain level or a certain field or a certain GPA?
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All of that is part of what you're picking up.
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So you want the human capital stuff, right?
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If you're, you know, you should embrace education for everything that it is, understand that component, but also understand the credential piece of it, that you're selling yourself in a world of imperfect information.
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And so you need to be thinking about how other people will perceive what you're doing.
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And would you say that the main function of college should there should be a utility to whatever degree you get?
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So while it is valuable in and of itself just to grow your own personal knowledge, if you come out the other side of college with a degree, but like no plans to get a job and no credentials, that's not really an effective use of your time.
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Well, sure.
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I think that's that's understood too.
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I mean, you can imagine even in a world where the human capital is really limited, the signal thing is important.
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I mean, just imagine abolishing college.
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And sometimes people, you know, will get radical and talk about things like that and go, okay, well, let's think about that.
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How would you know who's sharp?
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How would you know who to hire if if that's it?
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Like if you say, well, you know, the firms will take care of all the training, okay, but how do the firms know who to hire?
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And so college still provides this device that lets us separate, oh, that's a really smart person.
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They've got really high technical skills.
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Even if I'm going to teach them everything they need to know, how would I know who to start with?
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And so college definitely still has that signal screening device piece of it that's really important for society.
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And for the individuals.
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Yeah.
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Uh another thing you talk about in your book, and I think this is this is a really interesting aspect of higher ed too, is that you you talk about how, you know, schools are oftentimes like ranked and compared to each other.
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And so there's this, you know, this assumption that, you know, if a certain school achieves a certain level on some sort of ranking or whatever, that it's better than another school.
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But you argue that what really matters is the school's teaching style, that at the end of the day, that's going to determine more about the kind of education you're going to get out of that than any kind of like, you know, subjective ranking.
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So talk to us about that and then talk to us about some choices that might actually be beneficial to someone who's thinking about going to college and getting the most out of their education that can't be quantified by a ranking system.
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Well, let's start with it depends on let's start with kind of the second question first.
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I'm going to the first question, then back up to the second question.
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It depends on what you're looking for, right?
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If you're looking for the college experience, if you're looking for, you know, high-end, the highest end peers to be around, if you're looking for higher-end research, because that's what you plan to do with your life, then you should go to a research-based school.
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You should go to an elite flagship school because those schools, in fact, do have what you're looking for.
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But most people, and a lot of people, I don't know about most people, a lot of people at least would say they want the best education possible.
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And so then you get into, well, where do you go for that?
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You go to a school that emphasizes research over teaching.
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Well, what's that kind of school going to look like?
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You're going to have large class sizes, a lot of them will be taught by grad students, a lot of multiple choice exams and so on.
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And is that the kind of experience you want?
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You don't go to a research school and expect the best teaching at a research school.
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It doesn't make any sense.
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Uh they're not incentivized that way, they're not selected for that, they're not selected for their teaching, they're selected for their research.
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The rankings are based on alumni contributions, they're based on how many research articles and grants and things like that.
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And that's fine.
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Uh, it's wonderful if that's what you're looking for.
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But if you came to me and said, Look, uh I I don't really like small class sizes, I'd like students, uh, professors who care about their students, uh, who are gonna provide an excellent classroom experience, uh, who are not gonna give a bunch of multiple choice tests and blah, blah, blah, I'm gonna mentor my students.
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Well, then you wouldn't go to a research school for that.
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That's not the way to get set up.
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You go to a school like mine.
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It's a regional comprehensive university.
00:16:55.679 --> 00:17:03.360
You've got not quite as many bells and whistles, not as many degrees, not as many fields as your larger elite flagship schools.
00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.480
But if you want teaching, go to a teaching school.
00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:11.200
If you want excellent experiences, that's the kind of school you should go to.
00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:15.200
So I think, you know, that's one of those things that no one talks about.
00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.880
And maybe the top reason I wrote the book is that no one's thinking about that.
00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:25.200
If you ultimately decide, look, Eric, I hear what you're saying, but I really just want the college experience for my kid.
00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:36.000
I want them to go to you know, see football games on Saturday, and I want them to have a really big, you know, fraternity sorority, or I want them to come out with a a degree from Harvard.
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:36.319
Okay.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:37.680
I can't argue with that.
00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:38.799
I can't match that.
00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:42.319
But don't come back and complain to me that your teaching is not that good.
00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:43.839
Well, yeah, my kid's always on 300.
00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:45.680
Well, yeah, that's what you signed up for.
00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:51.119
So I just think there's a lot of ignorance on that.
00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:55.359
And as an economist, my main thing is I'm not going to tell you what to believe.
00:17:55.440 --> 00:18:02.880
I mean, your preferences are different than mine, but what I can say is let's lay the benefits and costs out there more accurately so you can make a more informed decision.
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.640
And once you hear that point, you know, it's pretty obvious.
00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:12.240
And then you get to hopefully make a more informed decision about what's best for you and your kids.
00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:12.720
Yeah.
00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:24.880
And I think a really good example of this is my my wife jokes about this all the time, but she has a degree in marketing that she got from Northern Kentucky University, which is not, you know, is I mean, it's I guess it's kind of big by Kentucky standards, but it's not like it's not like a major school, right?
00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:33.680
Um, but in in marketing, it's kind of more of like what you're saying about uh having a college degree is a signal that you were willing to stick with something for four years.
00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:37.039
And that's kind of the only barrier to entrance in the business world.
00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:47.920
And so she works and has worked with people that have the exact same degree from Ivy League schools or much higher schools, but like she's at the same exact level that they are, and she was in much smaller classes in her program.
00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:56.160
So I think that's a pretty good example of that phenomenon of really being thoughtful about what you're going to get out of each individual school instead of just looking at how they're ranked.
00:18:56.960 --> 00:18:58.480
Interesting application of that.
00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:05.119
We have these competitions where at least our higher-end students routinely beat students from the bigger schools.
00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:09.359
And at first you're like, wow, how does IUS beat IU in a competition?
00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:14.880
Well, then you think about it a little harder, and you realize, well, wait a second, it's a different teaching experience, right?
00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:21.279
And the IU students are probably sharper coming into college, but then they spend four years in a different environment.
00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:30.079
And that's not at all shocking to me, at least, that our students would be competitive if not beat the schools, the students from a flagship school.
00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:32.000
The teaching experience is different.
00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:33.920
Yeah, and I I love that.
00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:39.279
Um, I want to ask this question too, because you bring it up in your book about a school's culture.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:56.480
And I think that since your book is directed towards Christians, and this is something that Christian parents are very concerned about, there's a perception that colleges are extremely like, you know, I don't know if we can use the term woke anymore because it seems like things have changed a little bit, but colleges are very progressive and kids are going to be exposed to a lot of anti-Christian ideas.
00:19:56.559 --> 00:20:00.319
And we'll talk about the specifics of that a little bit later in the conversation.
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:08.480
But you make the point in your book that there is a connection between what you call the school's research incentives and then the ideological climate of the school.
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:12.880
So talk to us about what those two things even mean and how they're related to each other.
00:20:13.039 --> 00:20:28.319
And then if you're a Christian parent or if you're like a Christian high school student, like a junior or senior in high school, and you're thinking about going to a school and wanting to go to a school that maybe doesn't necessarily align directly with your faith, but that won't be completely antagonistic towards it, how does that affect the decision to pick a particular school?
00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:32.880
So, first of all, to clarify the book is not particularly aimed at Christians.
00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:36.720
I think, you know, I'm coming from at everything I do as a Christian, right?
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:40.960
But certainly secular folks could read it and gain value from it as well.
00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:43.839
I think the incentives are interesting, but they're messy.
00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.599
You know, if you think about a research school, they want to do their research.
00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:48.640
They don't care about teaching.
00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:51.680
Another thing they don't care about much is the administration of the school.
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:53.359
Well, who's going to administer the school?
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:54.480
It's not the faculty.
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:57.039
There's going to be higher-level admins and staff.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:02.880
And a lot of times those people are heavier left than even the professors are.
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:06.960
Uh they're softer thinkers many times, especially the staff, right?
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:08.720
They're not as rigorous as an academic.
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:13.759
So I think it defaults that way a bit just because faculty aren't running the school.
00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:18.640
Um, another piece of this is the population that we're working with.
00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:26.079
So if you go back to what I was saying earlier, who comes to my school, it's pretty much salt-of-the-art conservative people, right?
00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:30.799
Maybe not conservative theologically, but conservative in the sense of the lifestyle they want.
00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:32.079
Why are they here?
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:36.880
And they're they're rubbing two nickels together to get here in the first place.
00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:40.160
Some first generation, you know, students.
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:42.960
They just want the good life, you know, pretty much.
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:47.839
They want a good job, they want to meet somebody, they want to have the family, they want to they want that.
00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:51.359
They don't have time for, hey, what's your pronoun?
00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.279
You know, they don't have time for whoop stuff.
00:21:55.440 --> 00:22:02.880
And even if we wanted to offer that, I think our faculty, first of all, are ultimately diverse and relatively liberal.
00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:07.519
We have you know counterexamples uh there, but not very many.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:12.960
Uh but even if we wanted to go woke, our people, our students wouldn't want that.
00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:15.680
It's just not what they're interested in.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:21.359
So I think our population kind of refines us down to just providing an education.
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:23.759
We're not getting into all that monkey business.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.279
And so I think it you know that's that's a big deal.
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:51.599
And I think again, once you think through the incentives and the populations and who's going to tend to come to a school like this, then it it starts to make sense uh that those kind of schools are going to be quite a bit different than in flagship elites where again a lot of you know wealthier parents sending their kids off to school and finishing school kind of put the stamp on my kid, you know, is smart.
00:22:51.680 --> 00:23:00.480
He got it he went to a good high school uh and I'll I'll come out and I'll still be smart after my four years of college, but it's not that the college did a ton for me.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.920
It's just a very different sort of experience that you're getting there.
00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:06.960
I think the other difference to note is just fields.
00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:09.839
You know when people go, hey, you know, what about your field?
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:16.079
Well, you know, with business I mean could I inject some some wild ideological stuff in there?
00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:18.160
Well yeah I could, I guess, but it's pretty hard.
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:27.279
I mean accounting I'm teaching marketing I mean what is you know yeah at the margins but you get into some other fields and it's a you know different game.
00:23:27.519 --> 00:24:02.640
My son was uh an education major for a while and had to do some ridiculous stuff at the large state school um you know the social sciences have more room for this but if you're taking whatever I mean Spanish engineering accounting I mean you know you know people just assume that all colleges are the same people assume that every field in the college is equally woke that doesn't make any sense once you press on it that the level of of you know range of shenanigans is going to vary tremendously with the the sort of field you're studying.
00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:05.279
Yeah no I I think that that's definitely true.
00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:07.519
Let's go ahead and talk about tenure.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:17.279
This is something that I know is very controversial in higher education and I know that there are some schools that have moved away from teacher tenure some that have very much clinged onto it.
00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:44.000
I I did I think ma'am again this 300th episode of this podcast and I'm a public education teacher I'm against tenure for public education teachers because I think it's a bad again I I kind of kind of not to anticipate your answer but I think it creates a bad set of incentives for people who are supposed to be public servants and I was critical of that on an episode of my show way back when um so I'm I'm very much opposed to it at the at the primary level in uh in American public education.
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:47.039
But talk to us about tenure um why does it exist?
00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:52.480
How does it work uh and and what are your thoughts on on the impact that tenure has on higher education?
00:24:52.880 --> 00:25:08.240
Well first thing to say is that you know tenure is a form of compensation and a lovely fringe benefit for those who have it and then yeah I think a lot of times people analyze labor markets in a vacuum if you offer someone a really nice fringe benefit you don't have to pay them as much.
00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:15.440
Yeah so one of the complaints about you know teachers don't make much well yeah but you have de facto tenure so what are we talking about?
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:26.000
Just the wages shouldn't talk about wages you should talk about your fringe benefits, your retirement, your job characteristics, the fact that you get to take two months off in the summer you know that's the whole package.
00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:30.960
So one thing to say about tenure is it's offset by lower wages.
00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:50.640
Uh I would make considerably higher wages in the private sector but I'm happy with the package that I have I think important thing that I do in the book though to talk about it is to give a justification for why tenure in higher ed specifically research oriented higher ed makes a lot of sense.
00:25:50.960 --> 00:26:02.000
And not at the high school level not for a teaching college but when when research becomes a bigger deal the case for tenure becomes stronger and I think it's pretty easy to explain.
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:21.279
I mean if you think about most jobs when you go to hire someone you have to hire the best people because the people above you the management can tell they can evaluate the talent reasonably well that you're bringing in if you bring in trying to bring in knuckleheads with midling talent they're gonna say what are you doing?
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:23.680
I that that's the best candidate bring them in.
00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:26.319
Academics is really different in that way.
00:26:26.480 --> 00:27:07.839
So if our dean uh is a professor in a different area the vice chancellor is a you know right now an English professor how is an English professor going to judge whether we bring in even a good economist right they're not in a position to judge their teaching they're certainly not in a position to judge their research and so they depend completely on us to bring in the best talent and they cannot monitor that effectively so given that that's the key point given that we have to be incentivized to bring in the best people who may be better than we are and that's not a comfortable thing to do especially if I can be fired.
00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:25.359
So if I'm in charge of hiring the people beneath me who may be better than me and I have no job security then the incentives are jacked up and I'm gonna tend to soft pedal that and bring in softer people especially if my supervisors have no way to discern the quality of the people I'm bringing in.
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:26.400
That makes sense?
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:37.599
Yeah no absolutely no I I I I can see that completely and again it's it's uh kind of like you were saying the incentives are a lot different at that level than they are at at the like the lower levels that I'm in, you know.
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:40.000
Yeah it doesn't make any sense there.
00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:49.440
That's that's the unions and government I mean that's a different it's all it's all political it and it's it's a pretty it's pretty pretty ugly game but that is a story for another day.
00:27:50.160 --> 00:28:09.519
Another question that you addressed and this is where I think your insights as an economist are really helpful is the question of why college is so expensive because you'll hear people and this is this is true I mean even when I went to college I graduated college in 2012 so well that was 14, 15 years ago, not that long ago really and my degree was way cheaper than the average college degree today.
00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:18.720
And people that graduated college in the 1980s were spending I mean just a fraction of what I even I spent on my college degree just just a few years ago.
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:25.279
So talk to us about the economics of paying for college and why college has become so just insanely expensive.
00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:31.119
Yeah there's a number of complicating statistical problems here make it really difficult to measure.
00:28:31.279 --> 00:28:48.319
I mean for one thing we have conflating of conflation of college with living at college for example right so you have to take that right off the bat right a lot of times these days again it's an upper middle class sports for the most part as for the dorms are really nice.
00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:58.480
I mean you hear people talk about that man we didn't live like this when I was going to college so if you're complaining to me that your dorm costs 12 grand I don't want to hear that.
00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:07.599
That's not that's not college right that's you choosing a bougie experience for your kid and that's where the market is taking us right we really need to reduce it to tuition.
00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:23.440
So yeah of course everything's more expensive than it was we used to live in$50,000 houses too by the way so I think we used to make a lot less money.
00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:41.680
So let's make sure we're including uh we're including uh inflation in that but the other thing that really makes it difficult and and distracting and people get get off on on missing the point here is that the most of the data that's collected on this is based on sticker price.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:50.799
And so if you think about you know if you were assigned with hey tell me what it costs to go to college you would go to the website of you know the colleges and you would find out what their tuition rate was.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:58.720
Well over time there's been a bigger and bigger gap between sticker price and actual price paid there's more discounts.
00:29:59.279 --> 00:30:21.039
We might get into the reason for that but uh in a minute but it causes a statistical problem that if people are lazy or just going for the low cost way to collect any kind of data and they don't understand or talk about how, well, wait a second sticker price is not the same as actual price paid then it makes the numbers look worse than they are.
00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:34.720
When you have people that do the careful work and look at actual tuition paid after scholarships and this, that, and the other, the rate is really not that you know, and inflation the rate is not you know much different than it was back in the day.
00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:44.400
Yeah talk about some of those underlying economic factors because I know that you address like the question of subsidies and the effect that that has on college tuition and um you mentioned college dorms.
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:50.079
I know that at a lot of universities they're putting in things like rock walls and very nice gym facilities and things like that.
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:52.880
I think sports is probably another one that's really expensive.
00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:58.400
I live in Kentucky and so I know how much like uh the University of Kentucky pays for all of their sports programs.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:30:59.440
It is a lot of money.
00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:02.960
So talk about those other economic drivers of college costs.
00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:12.480
Experience dorm or whatever so if you really want to focus on the education piece you've got to separate that out right so the bundle of goods idea is important.
00:31:12.799 --> 00:31:28.000
You mentioned subsidies and then you subsidize anything you're gonna tend to inflate the cost because you're you know putting space between what consumers pay and the actual cost of something so it provides underlying incentives for the cost to rise over time.
00:31:28.319 --> 00:32:11.839
I think the most uh I think most people understand those points pretty quickly but uh the most interesting one this goes back to sticker price what I was saying earlier is that when people fill out their um uh what do you call them uh the financial aid forms yeah the FASFA FAFSA that's wrong FAFSA uh but yeah when people fill out for FAFSA and you think about okay what's on the FAFSA form well it's well do you know yeah it it's uh I mean because I had I had to fill one out when I went back to grad school but it's like they ask you about income and then like what your uh I guess I get if your parents I didn't do I because I paid for my own grad school but my parents were involved but like what your parents do there's all kinds of information about like demographic type and um socioeconomic type of information.
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.200
Income, wealth and are there other kids going to college?
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:19.039
In other words they're trying to say how much money can we get from you guys?
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:39.440
That's what you know and so and then you're like well the government makes me fill that out and then hands that information for free to the college who then turns around and knows how much they can charge me because my parents are making the big bucks or my parents have two million dollars in their retirement accounts and so they can turn around and charge a higher rate.
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:45.039
So this that's that's where that gap with sticker price and actual price paid and maybe it's a better thing, right?
00:32:45.119 --> 00:32:50.960
Well wealthier people are paying a higher price and and middle income are paying a lower price.
00:32:51.200 --> 00:33:05.119
Maybe that's socially desirable but in in terms of the statistics if you're looking at sticker price and if sticker price has risen dramatically compared to actual price then you're not really measuring what you think you're measuring.
00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:09.039
Yeah that that all makes sense and I think that's really great leading to the next question.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:24.880
And this is something that on the face of it might be shocking especially for a lot of parents that are looking at sending their kids to school um but you argue that you should not go into debt for a college degree and that there are actually lower cost paths that families sometimes overlook.
00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:32.799
And I think going back to that great middle class reflex that you said, going into debt for a college degree is the norm and it's kind of an expectation.
00:33:32.960 --> 00:34:09.760
So how do you go about the process of selecting a school that won't put you in debt and what are some of those other lower cost alternatives to education that families don't can often consider consider the cost of tuition obviously you know at our school I I don't know the exact number but fewer than half of our students graduate with any debt and those that have that is pretty modest so again to tighten it a little bit I I think debt for grad school could make sense you know if you're going to become a a doctor uh a lawyer or something that's like that where there's not a grad assistant ship available.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:39.599
Uh I'm not sure I'd recommend that for every master's a PhD but you know certainly a professional uh terminal degree debt there makes more sense but for undergrad I I don't think so I it's just not worth it uh to me if you know if you run the numbers you look at the power of compounded interest uh it's it's brutal and again you're not usually paying for education you're paying for that bougie college experience for your kid and then after four years of that you've got in essence a house payment.
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:40.800
What are you doing?
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:42.079
It's just not worth it.
00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:51.280
Send your kid to the local school the re and and and have them live at home and get out debt free and get an education that's probably better in the first place.
00:34:51.440 --> 00:35:18.480
So you know the the values of people uh pursuing debt I mean you could do a whole show on that by itself um people that just hold the college experience up on a pedestal I think is part of the problem like you know I know like I gotta send my kid to the the big school and they gotta have the this that and the other and they gotta go see football games and oh okay if you can afford that but debt for that?
00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:19.360
Are you kidding me?
00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:20.800
You know I I just don't understand that.
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:26.559
So I think there's you know too much emphasis on debt too much emphasis on on the college experience rather than the education.
00:35:26.719 --> 00:35:34.960
If you're telling me you want an education, then just go to the regional local school, get your good education and then move on from there.
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:40.480
Yeah and you you can watch college football on TV for free so you don't even have to pay thousands of dollars to do that.
00:35:40.960 --> 00:35:50.639
You do give some practical advice to students which I think is very wise and also very Christian that they need to cultivate the values of discipline and delay gratification.
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:56.880
Something that is very difficult for many 18 to 19 year old males in particular to do.
00:35:57.119 --> 00:36:03.119
But talk about why that is why why those qualities are important and how they benefit students when they're in school.
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:11.199
Yeah I mean this kind of ties back to the last question a little bit right where you know part of your way to do this is work your way through school.
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:14.559
And well that's that's what I did, you know, that's what a lot of people did.
00:36:14.719 --> 00:36:22.639
And I know times are different and all that but if you know if times are tough in your family and you're you know that's your beats going into debt.
00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:28.320
But as to the character part of it, I think that's also important to give people ownership.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:37.199
As an economist I'm used to talking about property rights and incentives with ownership people just handle things differently when they got some skin in the game uh that's just different.
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:43.760
And so you know with our kids you're you're gonna pay for D's and F's after the first one we'll give you one mulligan.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:50.880
We're gonna pay for Ds and Fs we're gonna have you pay for half of your books we want you to have some skin in the game uh for those decisions.
00:36:51.119 --> 00:37:02.559
So I think just to find ways to uh connect what Johnny or Jenny is doing uh make sure that you're not just writing some kind of blank check there is really important.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:06.880
You know in terms of work, you know people have different ideas on that.
00:37:07.039 --> 00:37:17.199
I think to me, you know, college you generally have quite a bit of other time and I think there's something to be said for just working on improved time management.
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:25.280
Even if you do sacrifice GPA a little bit the gains that you have and and uh combining that with time management, I think they're really important.
00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:31.280
I mean for me it was just life changing to work my way through school and learn those skills and people go, how do you get so much done?
00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:52.000
And I would point back to my college years and say, you know I spent four years paying my way through school and juggling a social schedule or church life and work life and doing the best I could and econ and math and I I think a lot of it goes right there that I learned how to do that just being having to be ruthless with my time.
00:37:52.239 --> 00:38:05.840
It's funny to me how often you'll hear people say something like yeah I worked my way through school the best thing ever and I can't wait to pay for my own kids' school going what'd you just say I mean you do you hear yourself you're crazy.
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:08.320
You know it it is a tremendous opportunity.
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:13.440
So I'm not saying it has to be if I'm a parent I'm not saying make it as hard on your kids as it was on you.
00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:20.000
I'm not saying that I'm just saying come on let's let's be real about it's what are we trying to achieve here?
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:35.280
And it's not simply education it's character formation it's time management that these are things you take with you the rest of your life and the reality is when you have your kids put a little money into the game it does change how they perceive it.
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:37.199
Yeah and I I totally agree with that.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:53.039
And I also work through school and I feel like and I was a pretty straight shooter as a young kid but I do think that a lot of the trouble that kids get into especially when it comes to not cultivating delay gratification and not cultivating discipline is that they just have too much free time on their hands.
00:38:53.119 --> 00:39:02.800
If all you're doing is going to class and hanging out in the dorms, well then you're going to wind up finding yourself in some trouble because there's nothing else for you to do or you're going to get involved in something that's going to cost you more money.
00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:13.440
And having a job and paying at least a little bit of your way to get through school really helps prevent you from just wasting all of that time on stuff that isn't going to develop you and make you a better person.
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:24.960
Look at the peer effects here do you want your kids mixing with people that are also working their way through school or do you want them to mix with the people that have everything handed to them on a solar platter?
00:39:25.199 --> 00:39:41.679
And just even that alone, you know, we're worried about the friends our kids are going to make well you're you know if you don't have them work or do those sorts of things you're basically begging them to be hanging out with the people sitting around playing video games rather than the people who are trying to figure things out like we just talked about.
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:57.440
Yeah yeah you also you push back on the idea and I think this is is really important and as a youth minister or as a former retired is what I call myself a retired youth minister uh I very much resonate with this idea but you push back on the idea that college itself is what causes kids to lose their faith.
00:39:58.079 --> 00:40:06.400
And you make the argument that if a student goes to school and they wind up compromising their faith, that they never really had a solid faith to begin with.
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:11.519
I I completely and totally agree with that and I've seen that happen in real life time and time again.
00:40:11.760 --> 00:40:13.199
Talk to us about that dynamic.
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:28.159
Why should we not be worried about college for students that have a rock solid faith and very worried about college for students that don't start with the negative I I think that people don't understand what discipleship of Jesus really is, right?
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:36.639
They reduce it to church attendance, moral conformity on the big issues and my kids are pretty nice.
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:54.079
And they do well in school okay great uh that's that's really nice uh that's part of discipleship of Jesus I guess but that that is not nearly the sum total of it but if you reduce it to that especially attendance and moral conformity and why are they morally conformed?
00:40:54.239 --> 00:41:06.239
Because they're living in your house probably and they haven't been exposed to a bunch of stuff and now you're saying you want to send them off and pay for everything and give them a bunch of free time and they are not required to go to church anymore.
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:09.199
They're not required to stick to your moral norms.
00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:10.639
Well what else do you expect?
00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:15.840
So I think it's just a basic confusion about Christian discipleship that starts here.
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:22.880
If someone is a disciple of Jesus and that's been well cultivated, will they face temptations in college?
00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:23.679
Well sure.
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:34.880
But they're equipped to handle those it doesn't mean they won't fail and that some proportion of them will struggle or come up against ideas that are difficult or drag them away to something sure possible.
00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:36.559
But that's not what's going on here.
00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:41.199
I mean the the main problem is that they were never disciples of Jesus to begin with.
00:41:41.360 --> 00:41:45.360
They were church attenders who were nice kids and that's not the same thing.
00:41:45.760 --> 00:42:01.119
Yeah I I agree and again going not not only not only seeing that from the perspective of someone being in student ministry but also going to a Christian college for undergraduate myself there were a lot of kids that were either homeschooled or went to private schools that were completely cordoned off from the rest of the world.
00:42:01.199 --> 00:42:09.440
They had no idea what reality was like and even going to a Christian school when they got exposed to a little bit of freedom they just like lost their minds and went all the way.
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:14.960
And it's because their parents just their parents were just protecting them from the outside world they weren't actually developing their faith.
00:42:15.039 --> 00:42:26.159
And I think that that's such a good insight and something the parents really need to think about like you can't just expect to take your kid to church every week or put them in a youth ministry program and and just you know kind of expect that they're gonna have faith.
00:42:26.239 --> 00:42:39.119
Like it's your responsibility as parents our responsibility as parents to make sure that we raise our kids in the faith and give them a substantial and solid foundation to build on and if we're not doing that then we shouldn't really be surprised if they go to college and then lose it all.
00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:42.559
But that's not because the college did it it's because like we kind of did it to them.
00:42:51.199 --> 00:43:02.639
But Jonathan doesn't know about it and he just comes off and eats honey and of course he's a chicken butt and kill Philistines and all that stuff right and then the the people and the other church so eventually go wild and start eating raw meat.
00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:19.039
And to me that's kind of what we're talking about here is you have this legalism, you have this approach to you know moral conformity that's that's uh shallow and it results in you know just terrible things many times where people overreact and I think we see that with college.
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:32.719
I think one other thing to say here is that you know let's say you've done everything right that we're talking about parenting and discipleship and you're like you know I just still think my kids are not in great positions to make those kind of decisions.
00:43:32.880 --> 00:43:54.639
Well that's another reason to have them live at home and do a couple of years at the local college I mean have them gradually move into the college life instead of just going yeah let's just send them off for four years and pay for everything and hope for the best well I I I don't I don't understand uh why that is uh wisdom uh so again why would you do that?
00:43:54.719 --> 00:44:03.679
You're likely to waste a lot of money maybe you know tempt them into all sorts of things that you Really don't want to do the local college is more conservative.
00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:06.960
There's not as many opportunities to quote get into trouble.
00:44:08.719 --> 00:44:10.400
Why are we doing this so often?
00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:12.000
Send them to the local school.
00:44:12.320 --> 00:44:12.639
Yeah.
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:20.079
You you talk in your book too about kind of the the choice between like choosing values over material comfort.
00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:21.440
Talk to us about that.
00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:25.760
And how does that how does that relate to the way that we should think about higher education?
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:29.920
Well, we can go a lot of different directions here.
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:33.760
Um, you know, why why are we sending kids to college at all, right?
00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:38.639
We can go back to that, we can go to the the kind of things that you're pursuing in college, right?
00:44:38.719 --> 00:44:42.639
The the extracurricular, we talk about the sort of fields that you choose.
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:47.360
Why are you wanting to be an accountant or you know, whatever?
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:48.960
Is it to have a good job?
00:44:49.119 --> 00:44:50.239
Is it to make a difference?
00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:53.679
Is it to equip you for missions?
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:55.360
You know, what what what are we doing here?
00:44:55.519 --> 00:45:02.159
So again, we're kind of back to some basic questions about discipleship and what what does it mean to follow Jesus?
00:45:02.320 --> 00:45:07.199
So are we talking about again, are we talking about just being nice people to go to church?
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.239
Are we talking about like kingdom sort of discussions?
00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:17.519
And so if you've got that latter lens, then you're thinking about any significant decision differently.
00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:20.639
And presumably it's based on values, not comfort.
00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:23.760
Comfort is not a high priority uh in the kingdom.
00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:29.039
After all, we worship a suffering savior, so it wouldn't say suffering, and we and we admire it for that.
00:45:29.199 --> 00:45:29.840
Thank you, Jesus.
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:32.079
And now please, no suffering for me.
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:36.400
Um, comfort's fine.
00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:46.880
I'm not saying go out and you know do harm to yourself or anything, but when it becomes a top-tier value, then I probably not in the right space there.
00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:47.599
Yeah.
00:45:47.920 --> 00:45:56.079
Well, let's say that a family comes to you, a Christian family comes to you, and they're undecided about whether or not they want to send the kids to college.
00:45:56.239 --> 00:46:00.960
Now, we've been talking a little bit about the like the faith aspect of this, how to process this as a Christian.
00:46:01.039 --> 00:46:04.639
We've been talking a lot about the kind of the underlying economic realities of college.
00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:15.039
How what what kind of advice would you give for a family like that based on both your economic and your your Christian perception of how we should make these two?
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:24.880
Non-Christians, um, which goes back to the book I think really is applicable to anybody in a sense that these are things that anybody should be thinking about.
00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:38.639
We're really at the end of the day, talking about benefits and costs, really understanding what college actually delivers, thinking about the different pieces of the college experience, thinking about human capital versus signaling, you know, what each kid can handle.
00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:45.920
You know your kid, you know if your kid's gonna get lost if you send him to the big campus with a 400-seat auditorium.
00:46:46.159 --> 00:46:52.239
You know if your kid's gonna, you know, tend to struggle with you know being a knucklehead.
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:52.719
Right.
00:46:53.039 --> 00:47:11.199
So I, you know, I don't I don't know that my my general advice would be all that different, except don't have the reflex or one thing about college in general or sending them to a particular sort of college, that this was a very individual specific decision that involves a number of variables.
00:47:11.679 --> 00:47:16.079
And um I certainly wouldn't write a blank check for my kids on this stuff.
00:47:16.159 --> 00:47:22.159
And we talked about uh FERPA, uh, mentioned that, but you know, that I guess to the privacy stuff.
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:25.840
Once you send your kid to college, we don't have to talk to you anymore.
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.000
So you better make arrangements with your kid that look, I'm not paying for X, Y, and Z unless I see your grades.
00:47:32.079 --> 00:47:36.079
I'm not gonna do this with this from this unless I have this kind of input.
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:38.880
And you know, but it depends on the kid.
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:40.239
I think it's the Thomas Warner.
00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:41.199
Yeah.
00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:47.360
And the final question I want to put to you today is another one of these what would you do in this scenario uh situations?
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.880
And again, being I so I teach seven grades in middle school in Kentucky.
00:47:51.039 --> 00:48:03.440
And even at that grade level, there are a lot of a lot of uh forward-looking parents, forward-thinking parents who are concerned about the choices that their students make in seventh grade, how they will impact them uh and their ability to go to a school, right?
00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:07.280
So there are a lot of people that prepare for it early, um, but it is still difficult to tell.
00:48:07.440 --> 00:48:13.679
So on the one hand, like you have families that are trying to make that decision of are we going to send our kids to school when they graduate high school?
00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:22.880
And then on the other side of the equation, you have people that maybe, maybe they've they're adults, maybe they've never been to college and they're thinking about going, or they've been to through undergrad and they're thinking about grad school.
00:48:23.119 --> 00:48:27.760
How does someone determine when it's the right time for them to go to college?
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:35.920
The administration's very supportive, as you might imagine, especially before the course and I got its appropriate reputation, what it was gonna be like, right?
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:37.760
They didn't quite know what they were getting into.
00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:41.840
In the early years, I had a couple students who really struggled.
00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:45.119
And these are you know, seniors, they're ready to go off to whatever.
00:48:45.280 --> 00:48:47.119
And I had a student who was getting ready to go off to Duke.
00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:48.480
I find out later.
00:48:48.719 --> 00:48:53.280
And she cheated, she bombed the first test, cheated on the second test.
00:48:53.440 --> 00:48:55.440
And I was like, whoa, this is gonna be interesting.
00:48:55.519 --> 00:48:57.920
Because now in high school, I do have to talk to parents, maybe, you know.
00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:10.320
So I'm talking to the administrators, the parents, and the parents thankfully said, we are so thankful that this happened now, because now we know she's not ready to go to Duke.
00:49:10.480 --> 00:49:10.639
Yeah.
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:12.719
And so instead, she went to a local school.
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:16.960
I don't know what happened after that, but you know, they learned when she was a senior in high school.
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:22.480
Maybe they suspected, I didn't really get into that detail, but they were like, yeah, this is really not a fit.
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:33.760
And so I think this really requires us being honest, candid, uh, with each other, parents to children, children to parents, uh, getting other people involved, again, in a very important decision.
00:49:33.920 --> 00:49:36.159
And just we're what are we doing here?
00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:38.719
Because there's just too much at stake.
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:42.880
It's not like you can't recover, right, financially or otherwise, from these sorts of things.
00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:47.199
But on the other hand, wisdom would say, look, there's a lot at stake here.
00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:50.000
Let's be really careful in how we make that decision.
00:49:50.239 --> 00:50:02.400
The other thing that comes to mind with that question is high school, especially, that you know, you're gonna when your kids are in high school, you're making decisions, really important decisions, about the sort of classes they take.
00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:06.000
And generally speaking, there are two tracks in any high school.
00:50:06.159 --> 00:50:20.960
There's the college tracks and your honors and AP and dual credit sorts of courses, and your lower level courses, which often, even in your nice schools, would uh devolve into a glorified baby thing.
00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:21.599
Yeah.
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:36.960
And so, you know, where possible, even if your student is struggling, I'd say put them in the college track uh kind of courses, they're gonna learn a lot more uh than in than in those uh lower tier classes.
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:46.880
So you can come out of you know high school where you just basically attended that around get a 3-5 and those you know, that lower tier, and you're not ready for anything.
00:50:47.199 --> 00:50:57.920
Uh if you've got a 2-8 and those still credit AP, you know, then you're probably in much better shape than someone with a much higher GPA that's never really been pushed in those lower tier classes.
00:50:58.480 --> 00:51:08.079
Anecdote here, my my third son is borderline learning border borderline learning disabled in math, really struggled all the way through.
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:19.199
And uh we got to his uh I think it was junior year, and he was gonna take algebra two, and it's gonna be honors AP with a tough teacher, or the the gen ed track.
00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:24.880
And he had gone honors AP until there, and he kept getting, you know, C's, generally C's and D's, even maybe.
00:51:25.199 --> 00:51:26.880
And we were really wrestled with it.
00:51:26.960 --> 00:51:34.880
And I said, nope, I'm we're gonna put him in the honors A, you know, honors algebra two, and uh not not the lower tier.
00:51:35.039 --> 00:51:48.000
And went into the parent teacher conference and asked the teacher what he thought, and he goes, absolutely, you know, C or D in an honors of Algebra II is gonna be more learning than an A or B in that lower tier.
00:51:48.480 --> 00:51:52.079
So I was thankful that I was right, that that was the wrong thing to do.
00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:58.320
And then more verification came when he went off to college and took remedial math and had no trouble.
00:51:58.480 --> 00:52:06.320
He was spanking these remedial math courses that others are struggling with, and I'm pretty sure he was competing with people who are in those lower tier classes.
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:09.920
But the fact that he got a C or D in high school, who cares?
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:12.239
I mean, again, what are we trying to do here?
00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:16.639
Are we trying to hit a GPA or are we trying to learn and set ourselves up for college?
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:21.840
And a lot of times it's very easy for parents and students to get stuck on these short-run goals.
00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:23.599
College is a means to an end.
00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:26.159
High school is a means to other ends.
00:52:26.639 --> 00:52:31.280
Don't confuse means and ends in any part of your life where it'll mess you up.
00:52:31.679 --> 00:52:33.599
Yeah, well, that is great advice.
00:52:33.760 --> 00:52:40.480
Well, the the book is uh College 101, What Students and Parents Should Know About Universities, a really helpful primer to these questions.
00:52:40.559 --> 00:52:45.519
And even if you're just interested in higher education as a topic, uh there's a lot of good information here.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:47.039
I appreciate you coming on the show today.
00:52:47.199 --> 00:52:49.440
Before I let you go, where can people find your work?
00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:51.280
Uh, just through Amazon.
00:52:51.440 --> 00:52:54.079
You know, it's just a little e-book again, just to hold it up.
00:52:54.159 --> 00:52:56.320
I mean, we're talking a slim little volume here.
00:52:56.480 --> 00:53:00.400
We're not talking about, you know, lots of letters, big, big spacing.
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:02.239
Uh, it's an easy read.
00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:05.920
You could probably crank it out in under an hour, certainly.
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:08.719
So to me, I I don't know.
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:16.159
I mean, it's still uh it's uh patting myself on the back or or just you know, trying to get people to buy my book, I guess.
00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:27.360
But I don't know why you wouldn't drop three bucks on this to use it as a resource if you're in this position, because I just don't I I haven't seen other resources that that go through these questions.
00:53:27.440 --> 00:53:28.960
It's a quick, easy read.
00:53:29.119 --> 00:53:32.400
And for three bucks, you get a bunch of uh useful stuff, I think.
00:53:32.719 --> 00:53:33.440
Yeah, it's perfect.
00:53:33.519 --> 00:53:33.920
Well, Dr.
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:36.719
Shandsberg, thank you very much for coming on the show again today.
00:53:37.039 --> 00:53:38.239
Thank you, Alex.
00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:44.159
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.
00:53:44.320 --> 00:53:50.239
If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at the Protestant Libertarian at email.com.
00:53:50.480 --> 00:53:54.800
You can also find me on Twitter and follow me at the handle at Pro Lirtypod.
00:53:55.199 --> 00:53:57.119
Again, that is at Pro Lirtypod.
00:53:57.280 --> 00:53:59.119
That's the Awesome SP.
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:04.480
That's the Trotsky Libertarian Podcast.com.com.