1067: Higher Education | Skeptical Sunday

25:17Wait, where are we? Where aren't we on there? How do what do you mean we're number six instead of number four? Come on. Yeah. So I guess that makes sense, but only 25 schools can be in the top 25, right? Yeah, not really. I mean, they have a lot of ties on the list and people can brag that they're in one of the 70 schools in the top 25. There's an essay called Higher Ed's Prestige Paralysis by Professor Brian Rosenberg. And he makes the argument that with or without these rankings, college reputations are fixed, valuable and based on almost no hard evidence. And I love this. It makes sense to me because these U.S.

25:56news rankings are based on almost no actual evidence of quality and the rankings reinforce the existing structure of institutional wealth and prestige. I mean, any non-academic can name a lot, if not most of the schools in the top 25 because the list, it's been the same for centuries. I mean, does that make sense to you? No school can raise its game and get on the list. So there's no underdog. There's no scrappy, like, bad news bears of academia. Right, right. I mean, plus college rankings, it doesn't seem to include the quality of the academic experience. They rely heavily on retention and graduation rates and how successful their faculty is.

26:40Well, the quality of the college experience, it's so subjective. So it's difficult to do, right? If it's even possible at all. I just don't understand how you rate the quality of something like this. I know I said that earlier. Yeah, but it is possible. Like if I had to measure quality, I'd look at how many students had one-on-one time with a faculty member, how many participated in an honors program or a research program, and how many small classes they were a part of. You can consider internships, mentored research, study abroad programs. That list can go on and on. I mean, look at how many students shared a meal with a faculty member or visited a professor's house or, you know, whatever extracurricular activity.

27:24So here's my objection to that. Won't those indicators discriminate against schools that serve large numbers of part-time and commuter students? I mean, not necessarily. There's a lot of two and four-year schools that make student engagement a defining feature of their undergraduate experience. But U.S. News is not the only one doing rankings. Is anyone doing it better or different? Not in a comprehensive way. In Washington Monthly, they measure the economic mobility of students. And Georgetown Center for Education reports on ROI. But in the world of colleges and universities, reputation, brand, prestige, call it what you will, that is more important than anything else, including the quality of the actual education provided.

28:13I mean, in fact, it would be difficult to find another industry in which reputations are so fixed, so valuable and based on so little hard evidence. Yeah, I guess. Although U.S. News did not create the prestige of Yale and Harvard, the list just kind of tell people what they already know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, of course, there's no surprises, but U.S. news is not the cause, you're right, but it's an unpleasant symptom of how higher education operates. It measures quality based on average class size, faculty qualifications, and standardized test scores. You know, I know you know, even bar passage rates for law schools can be misleading.

28:59You know, it's a good use of those student loan funds. One of the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it is because of my network, the circle of people I know, like, and trust. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at 6minutenetworking.com. This course is about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to want to develop a relationship with you, and it takes a few minutes a day, not a whole big commitment. It won't make you look like a knucklehead or a cheesy, awkward jerk.

29:28is not going to put you out, make other people feel bad. And many of the guests on the show already subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. The course is free over at six minute networking.com. Now back to Skeptical Sunday. Well, the bar passage rates seem pretty steady over the last 20 years, at least. I don't know how those rates stay the same. I'm not sure about that. But what's completely misleading that I've caught on to from at least from law schools is the employment rates that they show and they report. So law schools will say like, oh, we have 100 percent employment after graduation.

30:03And everyone's like, wow, everyone gets a job from this school. That means I'll get a job if I go to school. So it's like a good investment. Right. You can sort of guarantee ROI. Well, OK, but graduates, there's always a few knuckleheads. Right. And they'll get placed, for example, in a mailroom of the law school career service office or whatever, making 30 grand a year with 150 plus thousand dollars in student loan debt and not working in the legal field at all. But the school keeps their sort of nonsense, 100 percent employment record for graduates, which looks great on the recruiting materials.

30:37And law firms kind of do the same thing. They'll do something called a cold offer where they're like, we gave offers to 100 percent of people who worked here. And it's one of the offers will be like, please don't ever work here. We're offering you a job here, but you really shouldn't take it and you should look for another firm that's a better fit. And if you get that, you're supposed to report that to the career services office because they don't like that. But I'm like, but you are doing the same thing with the employment thing. Like you're pissed off at the firm for doing it, but you're doing the same thing with the employment.

31:06And so, yeah, it's a whole thing. It's a little scam. The manipulation is everywhere. I've read that schools can game the system by restricting admissions into those programs. And those programs can focus just on passing the bar. So you have two things working for you. You have a high passage rate because you're teaching to the test and you're only admitting a small percentage of applicants. So your school looks really hard to get into. And we equate this with prestige and a higher rank and a better spot in the higher education marketplace. I get that, but I don't think the problems start in college.

31:47First, it seems like it starts with prepping for and taking, what was it, the ACT and then the SAT. I don't even know if both of those still exist. I assume the SATs do. I don't know if the ACT does. Still exists. So aren't those problematic as well, or am I getting too far off topic? I vaguely remember those coming under fire, even in the 90s. They're problematic. They are both, by the way, like written and graded in Iowa City. like both the ACT and SAT. And a lot of people who grade the essays work for both companies. It's very scandalous. But anyway, I mean, we are examining these exams because wealth and prestige are an enormous factor in the SAT and ACTs as well.

32:31But at the same time, those tests can also show a high school student's potential. So it's another really complicated issue. Right. And that's because studying for and taking the SATs, for one thing, it's expensive if memory serves. I mean, you might need a tutor. You certainly need a bunch of courses. I don't know how they run those now. But is it a good predictor of success in college or is that also bunk? I mean, again, it's complicated, but a lot of evidence shows that it's not correlated, that your high school GPA, regardless of what high school you went to, it's found to be a better predictor by some, but it seems to me the SAT test itself is not the problem.

33:10It's the inequity of students taking the test. So wealthier families can invest in study aids and money buys SAT prep, which buys a better score. Ah, but there are free test prep courses though, right? Or are there not? Yeah, it's Khan Academy. They offer free study aids. Yeah, that's great. That guy's amazing who founded that. So that's got to level the testing field to some degree, I suppose, now that everybody has access to high quality study aids that are free on the internet, unless you don't have internet, I suppose. Yeah, which sadly, that is actually a thing. But yeah, I think it does level it somewhat more than it used to.

33:48And for a while, the popular opinion was that the SATs are just very biased, even with the free prep available, and the want for the test to be an objective measure of academic achievement. But there are these intensive and expensive prep classes like Barron's and Princeton Review that they kind of, in a way, increase the objective measure when you drop a few grand. I remember those giant books that were so thick, they wouldn't all fit in my backpack. They were kind of like recycled paper, phone booky things. So yeah, it sounds like maybe test prep shouldn't be for sale. Not that it shouldn't be available to people, but I don't know.

34:26You're right. The money advantage kind of sucks. Right. And even if the test prep is equal for everyone, there's more to consider than just that. Standardized tests, they at all levels have been demonized in recent years on the basis that they hurt diversity. and the pandemic, when that came along, it allowed the perfect opportunity for many schools to drop the SAT and ACT requirement. Oh, so those are no longer required? That's interesting. I had no idea. Yeah, at some places. And those against the use of the SAT, they like to point towards a bias towards rich kids in the selection criteria colleges use for their admissions programs.

35:11Statistics show that kids born into the top 1 % of income have a one in four chance of getting into elite or Ivy League schools, but kids born in the bottom 20 % of the income distribution have a one in 300 chance of getting into the same schools. That's 77 times less likely. Okay. But that can't all be due to looking at someone's SAT scores, right? Right. Totally. But some will blame the tests completely for inequity in admissions. There's a lot of research now finding, you know, it wasn't that long ago people were demonizing the SATs, but now there's new research finding that that school of thought's mistaken.

35:55Standardized tests, they do relay real hard data predicting college success. And a growing number of researchers on the topic say the SATs highlight potential in students from lower income and minority groups. Oh, what a plot twist this is. So we used to think that the SATs kept out the disadvantage, but it turns out that they might actually be a magnet for potential or to use a college metaphor, it might be like using a blacklight in a dorm room. I would not recommend doing that ever, Jordan. Some things you cannot unsee. Yeah, maybe a magnet picking up iron filings out of sand is a better sort of metaphor here, or at least a less disgusting one.

36:39So, okay, so it seems like the SATs provide some empirical evidence, which I think would be a good thing for making a decision about a student. Yeah, absolutely. But people want to hold something accountable for the inequity seen admissions. Standardized tests are stuck on this cultural pendulum and the importance of them keeps changing. In 2020, Forbes ran an article like absolutely demonizing the SAT and it had convincing arguments. Then in January, just last month of 2024, Forbes ran an article about what a mistake we have made ditching the SAT requirements. If the SAT is the only factor in admissions, I would imagine it would change the diversity of acceptance rates.

37:25Yeah, of course. But no one is suggesting the SAT be the only factor in admissions. But there are good arguments of why it should be part of the overall criteria. You know, critics like to point out that the original designer of standardized tests was a racist, which, I mean, I'm sure that's true, but one can argue that many parts of the admission process hold racial biases. I'm not saying the tests are completely objective, but like we have to look at the new evidence that shows the SAT is not the cause, but a symptom of the inequitable society. And come on, man, like rich parents are going to spend money on whatever they see as the strategy of getting their kid into Harvard and Yale or wherever.

38:09And I mean, case in point, Aunt Becky from Full House went to prison for bribing some officials at USC for her ungrateful daughter who didn't even want to be there and also didn't have the right to be there. Oh, my gosh. I mean, what an embarrassment. But that happens to parents every year. She was just high profile. I mean, there's three big ways money allows parents to get their kids in through legacy admissions, extracurriculars and fancy sports. Plus, if your parents are educated, they can edit your essays. Connections are everything, of course. But what do you mean by fancy sports? Well, there's like a certain set of sports.

38:51Squash, fencing, sailing, rowing, polo. Very elite schools tend to over-select kids who play these sports. And these sports are also pretty expensive to participate in. The system works if you can afford it. And high-income families are more likely to understand this. So people exploit the system and rich people can afford to exploit it more. Schools must have some understanding of the socioeconomics of their athletes, no? Yeah, I mean, for sure. Harvard is trying to set up a non-bias system, but rich people ain't dumb and they know how to work the non-lottery way kids get accepted. Coaches would say, we just want the best players.

39:32We don't care how rich they are, but the richer you are, the more likely you play one of these fancy sports. So there are some things money can buy. like expensive equipment and living in a community that even has these leagues. My high school definitely did not have a polo team. So if you can afford fancy sports, you can obviously also afford fancy test prep. I get it. They're not exactly hiding the weirdly small and not very bouncy squash ball here with these strategies, I suppose. It's so true. But I mean, some some disadvantaged neighborhoods have taken this cue. I mean, look what the Williams sisters did to the city of Compton by building a tennis facility.

40:17I remember back in episode 121, I interviewed this guy, Freeway Rick Ross, who was a drug dealer who generated something like a billion dollars in today's dollars in the crack trade. And he essentially pioneered the crack trade in Los Angeles, which we all kind of know what happened after that to the rest of the whole country, especially L.A. And he said that his plan initially was to go to college and play tennis, but he had nowhere to play tennis. So after he got past whatever sort of level he was, there was just nowhere else to go. So he instead he just started to sell drugs and he became one of the world's biggest drug dealers instead.

40:53It's so sad to think that this guy would have been like a tennis player if it was up to him. He wanted to be Arthur Ashe. Wow. And instead he was like the biggest crack dealer in the history of drugs. Crazy. Wow. Wow. It's heartbreaking. It just shows higher ed is financially and morally unsustainable. It's totally broken. I mean, elite schools are also buying data from the college board to recruit students they know that they won't admit because it changes the acceptance ratio, giving the appearance they're a tougher school to get into. This helps your ranking. I mean, it's all a game. Less than half of college grads even work in their field of study.

41:32Wait a minute. Wait a minute. So are you telling me that colleges ask people to apply knowing that they will reject those people just to keep their acceptance percentage low? First of all, that explains why Harvard sent me those letters back in high school. But why am I understanding this correctly? Because that sounds that's like a weird, almost conspiracy theory where I'm shocked, but also not shocked that that happens. I mean, from some standpoint, it's that's smart business, you know, supply and demand, I suppose. So why even why even go to college in the first place? Maybe I need to back up and ask that fundamental question.

42:09Yeah, I mean, many, many people aren't 50 years ago, 20 % of people went to college. Now it's about 60%. But that is totally declining. So there's 4 million fewer students in college right now than there were 10 years ago. There's lots of ways to succeed in life without spending the time and money on college. And many young people are skeptical about the ROI. Many companies have removed degree requirements for certain positions like data scientists, software engineers, and graphic designers. So as long as you're building your skill, you don't necessarily need a degree, but it has a lot to do with what employers choose to reward.

42:54So are there still a lot of jobs that require degrees? Oh, absolutely. I mean, of course, but it tempts some people to bypass the college experience and take the fast track and head to a diploma mill. These are not the answer to anything. So I don't know if you know about these, but they're schools that are handing out degrees for cash. So like a mail order college degree. Nice. Why suffer through finals week if you can just cough up some dough and get a degree in the mail? That's amazing. I have heard of these. Yeah. I mean, they are just so dangerous and it's an incredibly insulting thing. I mean, student loan debt is over$1 trillion in this country.

43:37So it's not surprising that some people just plunk down like five grand for a master's. Instead of attending years of classes, it's possible that you never even go into a lecture hall and you just pay for a degree from an unaccredited school and voila, you can put down PhD on your resume without ever doing any coursework. But this can land people high paying jobs. That doesn't happen. Really? You get a job with this? Doesn't anybody like Google it and go, oh yeah, this is a fake school? Sorry, Jordan. It it it does. It does happen, though. These fake degrees, they've been around since the 1800s and they work.

44:18In 2004, it was discovered that the federal government was paying for degrees from unaccredited schools and handing them out to federal employees. Oh, my gosh, that's ridiculous. So technically, the taxpayers will. So you and I are paying for these B.S. degrees. I'm paying for this. Who's giving these things out? What's the website so I can make sure I never ever go there and buy one for myself? Oh, well, there's plenty of websites. You can also buy degrees that say you're anything, a doctor, a teacher, a mayor, whatever. There was a dog named Chester from Vermont. He has a master's in business administration.

44:55So I don't know what's crazy. You're a dog with a fake business degree or a human with a fake mayor degree. That's like you might want to look at what being a mayor is. I don't know why a mayor degree, why does that even exist? But I mean, then again, I guess it doesn't exist. It's just, it's fake. So, but still weird thing to even have fake. Really strange story. But in the case of the dog, the dog's human paid only$500, submitted a resume and a week later had a packet that included an MBA diploma, two sets of college transcripts, a certificate of distinction in finance, and a certificate of membership in the student council, which, I mean, what would an online school have student council?

45:37I don't know. But this is an extreme problem, like an extreme example of the problem. But it is a problem. In 2007, one out of every six education doctorates was fraudulent. Fake doctorates. I mean, employers are not obviously doing thorough enough vetting of their employees, but I'm still hung up on the fake doctors. A sham education doctorate, okay, That's one thing. But a sham medical degree is something else entirely. That's far more terrifying. Absolutely. In the 2000s, two men in North Carolina bought medical credentials and degrees for$100. It's a good deal. They were arrested for manslaughter after taking a woman off insulin and giving her their own tonic.

46:22Ooh, yikes. Okay, so these degrees are not just immoral. They're potentially lethal. That is a special kind of stupid. It's one thing to buy a fake medical degree, but another thing entirely to really believe you're a doctor who's innovating in the health care field somehow with sham credentials that you bought online. That's just delusional. Yeah, it's wild. And this practice, though, it can put people in positions of influence. In 2018, a mayor in Florida was found to be lying about her degrees. Her degree was from LaSalle, not the one in Philadelphia, but a famous diploma mill that sells degrees.

47:00I mean, it's infuriating. Just, I think, last year, a coach at Indiana State, which is like a big sports school, they found out all his degrees were diploma mills, but he still has this high-paying job. Employers don't do a lot of background checking on people's education. This is very different, though, from exaggerating something on your resume, like I assume many people do, right? It's not like, oh, I played varsity football when I was like the video guy. That's what I did. Right. And they were like, well, you're technically on the varsity team. The coach was like, yeah, you should just put that on there.

47:31I mean, I'll validate it. You're still on the team. But I didn't play football. Right. I was injured. And but this is like you didn't even go to the school that had the football team in the first place. It's just way beyond the pill. Right. I mean, yeah, you're not alone. I think it's like 25 percent of people inflate educational achievements. so you're in company with george santos yeah right that sounds low because isn't it like 90 of people think they're above average isn't there a number like that it's like the vast majority of people think they're above average even when it's really obvious they're not i think so but yeah i mean it doesn't change the fact that many companies they just don't fact check every resume plus diploma mills are they're quite sneaky they accredit themselves through their own accreditation agencies.

48:21Only 12 states have laws against using unaccredited diplomas for some reason. And since not many get caught, there's little risk and high reward for the diploma mills and the people buying the diplomas. It stands to reason that something has to be done about this. Yeah. Well, there are ongoing investigations. There's a professor in the Northwest trying to get these dirty businesses shut down. He paid a diploma mill and he took their hundred question test and purposely answered 79 questions wrong. They offered him a 2.7 GPA and an associate of arts degree. I think it's kind of funny. Well, no, it's not, but it is also a little bit.

49:05Also, how do we know he deliberately answered 79 wrong? Is he just like, wow, I got 79 wrong. All right. So my test was I got 70. Like he didn't get 80 wrong. He didn't try to just get them all wrong. It's a strange number. Yeah. Oddly specific, pal. I think he just failed the test. OK, so if he only got 50 wrong, though, would he have gotten a master's? I mean, getting people who get fake degrees, they know they're paying for a fake degree, right? There's no wool over the eyes. It's straight up pay to play. Nobody's like, oh, I'm getting a real degree when I didn't do any work. I would think almost nobody believes it except for those doctors.

49:38Yeah, it's pretty clear they aren't legit. But if you're already delusional, I mean, who knows how it all works. But bottom line is there's a lot of money to be made. Some guy in Romania, he made$50 million in one year selling fake degrees. Wow. Yeah, it's hard to read about. Degreeinfo.com and DegreeDiscussion.com are two pretty famous, reputable sites, and they compile lists of schools that are believed to be diploma mills. You know what's better than shelling out for textbooks? Supporting the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show.

50:18Your support of our advertisers does keep us going. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are all in one searchable, clickable place over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Now, for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Man, we do love lists. First, the school rankings. Now, a list of fake diplomas you can buy if you don't get in to one of the schools ranked in the other list. All right. Yeah, it all works out. I mean, legitimate accredited colleges, they provide an education that meets academic standards. Diploma mills exist to perpetuate a scam. Accredited schools undergo rigorous review from independent accrediting agencies who evaluate schools based on academic missions, student success, and faculty qualifications.

51:03It's not a perfect way, but at least it's a standard. So schools who don't meet these standards are not accredited. Okay, so diploma mills, objectively stupid, but also so is paying$200 ,000 for a legit degree that gets you little more than a cool sweatshirt and the piece of paper that you could have gotten in the mill. Yeah, well, your dad likes to wear that sweatshirt. He does. That's true. You know, there's while debt on cars, credit cards, homes and everything else has pretty much stayed the same. Student loan debt has gone up 700 percent since 1989. There's a lot more debt and default rates than even 10 to 20 years ago.

51:46And college debt has doubled in the last decade. The fundamental problem, like we've been saying, is the ROI. Everyone's outraged about college debt because they're not getting the ROI. And we're told college is an excellent investment. But if the rich get better access to college and the best colleges get you rich, we are creating an insane feedback loop in our society. Just sounds like classism in a college sweatshirt and debt in a uniform with a name tag for the most part. Yeah, totally. And it's financially unsustainable because over the last 50 years, college tuition has increased at four times the rate of inflation.

52:26And to what end? You pay the institution without knowing what you need. And you're also 17, 18 years old. They provide you what they decide you need. And in the end, you have no sure way of knowing that you needed it. And college tuitions are going up so fast because technology is expensive, construction is expensive, and most importantly, it's because they can charge tens of thousands of dollars. And the loans are flowing to the students to cover the increasing tuitions. And then the students hope for loan forgiveness in some instances here. True. And many students would be happy to have loan forgiven, which is understandable.

53:06But forgiveness will not fix the out of control cost of higher education. Student loan programs themselves are robbing people of the American education dream. Yeah, I never I was never a fan of this. Like, look, I get it. People are overburdened with debt. I completely understand. But forgiving loans is going to, first of all, add to inflation. And that's the least of the problems. But the real problem is that if loans are forgiven, there's incentive for schools to then charge as much as they want slash can. And for people to pay those rates because they're like, well, the loan's just going to get forgiven.

53:38Chances are, or at least I have a shot at this just being a kind of lottery ticket for me. So I might as well do it. We need to get to the root cause, which is that it's too dang expensive because the prices are inflated. Yeah, it's not what people want to hear, I know, but the forgiveness program is not the answer. The funding model for higher education needs to be totally reimagined, and that should start with the loan programs. You are spot on about incentive to raise tuition, especially if there's no limit to what a student can borrow. Every year tuition goes up and every year there's more students applying than there is room for.

54:16So colleges charge more and more. Like, why not? In 2016, of the top 25 percent income households with kids, 58 percent got bachelor's. Of the bottom 25 percent, 11 percent got bachelor's. So that's critical when we're thinking about the inequality. It seems like universities are acting more like luxury brands than they are institutes of higher education. I've heard this from, I think, Scott Galloway and other folks like that. With all this debt, I mean, no wonder people aren't buying houses and starting families. How are you going to do that when you owe$200 ,000 and now you're making 50, right, a year?

54:53Yeah, the middle class will rent forever, I suppose now. There are experimental like pay it forward models that some colleges are testing. They essentially make lifelong donors out of graduates instead of charging them. Get graduates to commit to donating to the college to fund new students. Purdue University implemented an income share agreement a few years ago, and they were followed by several other schools. and it looked like a really good program. And then federal law got in the way and shut all the programs down. Private schools have a little bit more success. There's Hope College in Michigan and they're testing a pay it forward model right now.

55:37And like I said, they're having more success because it's private. But, you know, unfortunately, there's just not a lot of conclusive data on how this is working out yet. I'm guessing that's going to take a few decades at least to get the data and figure it out. Another thing that adds to student debt, and it drives me crazy, is once you pay for tuition and you pay for housing, then you've got to drop a freaking grand a semester on textbooks in many cases. Oh, yeah. The big textbook scandal. I mean, this is another part of academia that is so super complicated. A study that just came out in October shows that students learn more effectively from print textbooks than screens, though.

56:18and students are more distracted by e-books and over and over again it's shown that retention and comprehension are better with hard copy print books and print books create a healthier effect on brain plasticity overall well no wonder it's taken me over a decade to learn mandarin using a freaking pdf but the resistance to textbooks it comes from the cost it's insane that tuition is huge but it doesn't include the books. I'm already giving you$42 ,000 a year for room, board, and tuition. You can't throw in$800 worth of books. Come on, man. It's absolutely insane. And depending on your major, you'll spend from hundreds to, like you said, like$1 ,000 a semester on textbooks.

57:05So even if you are from the lower class and you win that lottery into Harvard, how the hell are you going to buy the books? Yeah. When I was in, of course, undergrad, I bought all the books like everybody did. And then when I went to law school, I bought all the books for the first year, like everybody did. And then the second year, I was like, ah, I'm gonna buy some of the books and then some of the books on the library and I'm gonna borrow some of the other books. And the third year, I didn't buy any of the books because I realized I could probably look up almost every case we were reading online if I needed to.

57:33And honestly, I just listened better because I didn't have anything on my screen because this is like the laptop transition period, where it was like one year, nobody had laptops, maybe one or two people. and the next year, one or two people did not have laptops. And I was like, it was like a massive overnight change. So I believe you about the PDF slash print thing. But yeah, I just stopped buying the books. I was like, I refuse because I refuse to spend$400 on a book that isn't changed from the previous year and also is just full of public domain legal cases. I'm paying$400 for a binding at that point.

58:08It's just, it's insulting. And some professors who understand this I mean, they get in so much trouble if they print off, you know, photocopy a textbook and print it off and give it out. Like, that's not allowed to do that. I mean, I get why people are attracted to the PDFs. I'm all for integrating technology into the academic experience. But the science of our complicated brains, it all points to actually reading a physical book, not scrolling a screen. So that has to be a part of it. But in 2021, though, I mean, you're not you weren't alone. Like it was found 65 percent of college students don't buy textbooks.

58:50They can't afford them or they share them or they find them online or they just wing it. And I don't know if you remember, but if you went to the library, hundreds of people taking a class, the library would have one textbook. They'd have one copy. Yeah. It's like insane. But it's shown that if textbooks were included in the cost of tuition, grades and completion rates would be better. Plus, it might make sense for that crazy tuition. The college's defense is that textbooks can't be included in tuition because different majors require different books. But I don't really see that. The problem I see is publishers greed and they're just creating this expense.

59:33I'm having a flashback. There was this place. tell me if you had this when you're going to school, there was this place on like State Street or one of the main roads in Ann Arbor. And you would go there if you had to copy a bunch of news articles or other data into a binder because the professor, like you said, couldn't give it out, couldn't copy it for you. And the bookstore slash whatever the place where you want to make the copies couldn't do it for you because it was copyright infringement. But fair use or whatever sort of guideline, you could copy it yourself. So the professor would leave this big bound book in this copy place.

1:00:09And it would be like for anthro 102 or whatever it is. And you go, hi, I'm here for the anthro 102 materials. And they'd give you this big thing and they would point you to an assigned copy machine. And they'd be like, it's going to be 25 bucks or whatever. And you would just flip the pages, make the copy, hit the button, flip the pages, hit the button, make a copy. And then they would bind it for you. And that was how you got around it. Cause you were quote unquote, doing it yourself. And you just end up with all these copies of. Yeah. And it was so ridiculous because they're just, you know, it was like a copy of an article from the New York Times in 1989 about the Iranian revolution or something, you know, whatever it was and stuff that you could easily get on the Internet now if they just put it on a syllabus and they were like, look this up, you could find it.

1:00:48But you had to do it yourself. And I was like, how is this place not getting sued into oblivion if everybody actually cares so much about this? I mean, And it's just the bureaucracy of it all. I just give the students the information that they need. I don't understand it. Yeah, or buy the stinking books. But you know what? If the schools had to buy the books, those books would be 10 % of the price they are now because they would have leverage to negotiate. And they'd be like, we need 40 ,000 copies of this book or whatever it is, you know, per year. I don't know how many people take some of these big classes, but like some of these universities, the big 10, they could buy all the books in bulk, right?

1:01:25and then just, you could really just do some major volume discount. And we can't have that because that cuts into the profit margin of the publishers. And man, I don't know. Right. And they'll start some weird rebate program or something that, yeah, it'll get more and more confusing. I mean, students like PDFs and screens. I'm sure probably now you use the internet more than you did back when we were going to school 20 plus years ago. If using PDFs, using screens offsets a rise in tuition, I mean, why bother with textbooks? It's got to just be getting harder to defend those as the years go by.

1:01:59Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, I think regardless, tuition rates are going up anyway. I mean, maybe it's the funding structure of colleges that needs to change too. Instead of graduation rates, schools could receive funding based on the salary of the students they graduate, for example. That's true. So emphasize the role of graduates' wealth on the funding for schools. I mean, interesting solution. Yeah, I don't know. That's just one suggestion. floating around. I mean, these are systemic problems that can't be fixed with just a little tweak. Something very different must happen within higher education.

1:02:37We need structural disruption. So what are the alternatives to the four-year college model? The current model has been in place, what, since the 1700s? Would that change now? Can it change now? Yeah. I mean, this is going to sound weird, but I see higher education making the same mistakes the music and entertainment industry made. They are so pleased with themselves and the status quo, and they're in complete denial of how technology is changing the business of education. Can we really compare, I don't know, Syracuse to Spotify? Well, new technology changes existing business models, and it might benefit society and our overall intelligence if we let technology into education in bigger ways.

1:03:22I mean, think of Netflix, right? It works better than network or cable TV because you can watch whenever you want. There's no limit on showtime slots and there's real-time data of what people watch to tell them other shows they'll enjoy. So if we opened up education in this way, a lot of the prestige and rankings would disappear. You could go to class whenever you wanted, or if you didn't have to worry about the seats available in a class and were guided to classes you're interested in and will succeed in, we might change how we learn and who the experts are. I mean, the classroom hasn't changed in hundreds of years.

1:04:00It needs to change. I sort of fear you're setting us up for Amazon University or Netflix College. Those sweatshirts probably exist. I mean, like, look, I know the Netflix model of education is far-fetched, but we must consider new models. Employers need to change their practices and loosen the reliance on four-year degrees making people employable. Nothing's going to change unless there's a push for innovative public policy regarding higher education. Of course, but how would employers get objective data that the people applying are like a talented writer or an excellent manager or qualified lawyer or whatever it is they actually need?

1:04:44Well, if employers can fall for diploma mill degrees on resumes, how objective is the hiring process. I mean, I get it. Business is not going to change radically overnight. HR still wants to look at the resume and see those degrees listed, but maybe the college board could make a college degree GED. You know what I mean? Like if you cannot go to high school and get a GED, why can't you not go to college and pass a college level GED? Yeah, I guess you'd have to do it in a way that creates the diversity of what employers need. A generalized test sort of sounds unreasonable at first glance. A fine arts major knows different stuff than a political science major.

1:05:26Right. Well, maybe employers would offer position-specific assessments. I mean, I don't know, but at least we have to start thinking about change. People from all sorts of backgrounds should have their individual talents developed, not just rich kids given a path to get richer. The higher education system is resistant to change, but people must try. It just doesn't sound like this is going to get fixed anytime soon. But it could be. American higher education has tremendous value, but its foundation was built in an analog nation. I mean, to make it work in the 21st century for our digital world, the higher ed model needs to be less structured, less fixed, and more open to a variety of methods to accommodate the diversity of students.

1:06:15There must be an effort to shake up the current system. Higher education needs higher innovation. Well, everybody listening gets two credits at the Harbinger College. Congratulations. That sounds expensive. Well, it costs no more than pushing play on your favorite podcast player. Thank you, Jessica. Oh, thanks, Jordan. Actually, it's Dr. Jordan, MD now. I just went and got the mail. Are you addicted to drama? check out this preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with psychologist Dr. Scott Lyons. Do you vent constantly? Do you find yourself changing the stories? Do you find that wherever you go, there's always something that's wrong or happening?

1:06:58Do you find yourself believing the other shoe will always drop? That no matter how good things are, something bad is going to happen? Do you find yourself crisis hopping? If you're in it, you will have no idea that that's what you're doing. And it takes a lot of time for those addicted to drama to recognize, to even be aware of the pattern is happening. Our primal needs as a kid is to be seen and heard, to feel safe. And so you will go to whatever extremes, intensity, shouting is needed to pierce through the chaos of a family household to be seen and heard, even if it's burning down the house.

1:07:36A wave of an emotion, it lasts 30 to 90 seconds. Anything after that is the story we're feeding to maintain it. We're trying to keep that emotion active. We're feeding off the emotion as opposed to processing or metabolizing it. We're not letting it go because there's some belief system if we let it go we'll be victims. If we let it go we won't be safe. Whatever it is why we won't let go of the emotion. Even a small trauma can feel like death because we feel helpless. And if we don't have the resilience capacity to know that someone will help us, there are tools out there to help us. If we don't inherently know that, it feels like we're going to drown.

1:08:18In that moment, it feels like death. Learn to recognize and heal from drama addiction on episode 836 with Dr. Scott Lyons on The Jordan Harbinger Show. Thank you so much for listening. Love that we're able to do Skeptical Sunday regularly now. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday. To me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. A lot of these topics come from you, so I am happy to keep that train moving. Show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes right there on the website. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:08:52I'm at jordanharbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her sub stack, Between the Lines, and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday.

1:09:20If you think we really dropped the ball on something, definitely let us know. We're usually pretty receptive to that. Y 'all know how to reach me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

1:09:48Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is$15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.