Do you hate the thought of working past 55 or 60? Do you hate not being able to live the life you deserve today? Do you hate not knowing what your financial future looks like? It's time to stop doing what you hate, here's your host, Mr. Harold Green.
(00:20): Oh, hi everybody. This is Harold Green and it is sincerely time to stop doing the things that we hate. I hope you are having a fantastic day. I'm having a pretty good day over the weekend. I was contemplating something and I was contemplating buying a set of wireless headphones so that my wife, she works from home and sometimes my daughter she's she's at home. And so our schedules vary and I don't have the proverbial. Man-Cave where I can just go and hide out somewhere. So our TV is in the living room. And so when I want to watch football or something or whatnot, my wife may be doing the accounting. So it's just, just really hard to try to like, you know, navigate this whole thing. So I was, so I was contemplating the wireless headphones that have a sound control on them.
(01:19): I do have a pair of iPod pros, but they don't have the sound control. So I can't control the sound and my TV, the Samsung, we just bought doesn't work with the headphones. So I'm like, man, what do I do? So my daughter, she said, well, I need to go to best buy and recycled some computers. And I was like, okay, aha. So I'll go to best buy and I'll look around. And if I see something that I like, I will buy the headphones. Well, I found a pair of beats and the, the ones that go over your ears and try them on in the store and everything. But I got 'em home, broke them out of the box, hooked everything up, got it all synced up, started wearing them. And next thing you know, my neck starts to hurt because these headphones are so heavy.
(02:04): My, like I swear, they were, they, they, they, they weigh like, like five pounds. And so I'll say, okay, okay. Maybe I got to get used to them. And then the next day I woke up and I had a sore neck. I'm like, okay, I know I'm getting old, but dang. So try it the next day. And the next thing you know, I'm like, okay, look, this is just not working out. So today I took back the pair of beats headphones. And so I'm in the market for some wireless headphones. And if you guys are friends with me on Facebook, just hit me up and let me know what you guys are using. I needed some light that don't weigh like 15 pounds, you know? So that's just kind of been like how my day's going, but and hopefully again, you guys are having a great day.
(02:42): I want to get into a conversation that's, that's really near and dear to my heart and it's about education. And so the title of today's show is college craziness. That's right. College craziness. I really don't even know where to begin, but I want to start with my personal feelings on college and, you know, some of those things that I've gone through in regards to get an educated and I know education is not only by way of a four year college degree. There's many different avenues out there to, to get educated because the primary purpose of an education I believe is to get training and to gain skills in order to get to get employed and to make a valuable contribution to society, which we all should be through, you know, being productive, being responsible, taking care of society and our families, the way we should taking care of our planet, all of those things that go along with, you know, learning skills and get an education and contributing.
(03:46): And I'm one of the albums I see. And I want to talk to you guys from my perspective of being an African American male. Well, you know, I, which means I just simply have different experiences than, than you guys. I, and I'll put this out there. I don't think my life matters any more than anybody else's life. I think all of our lives matter, just the same, just a matter of perspective and how we treat each other, you know, with kindness and care and, and things of that nature. But, you know, growing up, I had an opportunity to go to college and I turned it down because I just didn't like the circumstances under which I was supposed to go to college. And so I turned all that down and and I chose the GI bill to get, you know, I went to the military, got the GI bill in order to help get my college paid for.
(04:34): And so, so by the time I, I went to college, I was married already. I had two kids. And so here I am getting up at five o'clock in the morning and then staying up till 12 o'clock at night, writing papers, doing assignments. And I was, I went to the university of Phoenix online and I did change my major. I think it was once I forgot it was business than it was a business information and technology. And so that's what I was say studying at the university of Phoenix. And it was all online, which at the time it was really cool because, you know, I could pop online and get everything done when I wanted it done when I was done with work. And and I had a lot of time on my hands after, you know, the kids went to bed and things like that.
(05:17): So studying for me and not love learning. And that was a very important thing. And so I use my GI bill to go to university of Phoenix online. Now I did not have the whole entire college experience of football games and all of that stuff, but, you know, in today's day and age, depending on what we are attempting to do, that can be highly, highly, highly overrated. And so I want to get into some of the college craziness that I see going on in regards to people overpaying for college, more than they should kids taking longer graduate. And it's just been just like very interesting. And so I stumbled across an article that I read the other day, but before I get into that, I want to just kind of like set, set the stage here, and I don't want to be preachy or anything like that, but I want to go to one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible.
(06:10): And it says, Proverbs 22, verse six. And it says to train up a child in the way he, you can say she should go. And when he or slash she is old, they will not depart from it. And there's, this is very, very personal to me. And and before I get into this article, I just, I just want to talk about what's been happening lately. I've had parents bring their kids in for the full talk and the talk is not the kind of talk you guys think the talk is it's a different kind of, it's the kind of talk where there are some hard things that need to be said in regards to bringing a big dose of reality to, to our kids. Okay. These kids are 16, 17, 18 years old, and parents are bringing them in for the talk because there's a lot of things that mom and dad just of don't have a, you know, they probably said some other things before, but they weren't, they want their kids to hear it from, they call me uncle Harold.
(07:14): And so we have the conversation about college. And why is college important to you and what do you need a college degree for? Anyway, what the magic question I always ask is what is it in the world that you want to create to benefit society? Okay. What is it that you want to do to benefit society? I don't say, what is it that you want to get a degree for so that you can, and you know, for yourself what's how will you benefit society from going to college? Or what is it that you hate in the world so bad that you need a college degree to change it? And what I'm doing here is I'm helping them to set the stage to understand why they should or should not be going to the type of schools that they are looking at. Because I tell you guys, no 98% of the time, there's something off with the responses.
(08:10): Or for example, you know, I had like just several kids come in and they say, well, college to get a degree because, you know, I want to make a lot of money. I'm like, you know what, there's a lot of ways to make a lot of money. And just having a college degree is not going to help you make a lot of money. And sometimes you can make a lot of money and be the most miserable person in the world because you don't have a purpose. Okay. So we really want to dig into purpose because until we understand what the purpose is, then we're way off basis for what we are attempting to do. And I'm setting the stage because I want to see what's really in this case, heart, or, you know, I really want to try to understand like how motivated they are in order to get this done, because we get into deeper conversations where we talk adversity, right?
(08:56): So if you really want to be a doctor, or can you persevere through all of it, all of what it's going to take in order for you to main on remain on track, because college has a lot of distractions. Okay. There's a lot of distractions out there. The kids are away from mom and dad, you know, and they don't have their support group, so, or they make the wrong kind of support groups. And so it is very important to, to begin to have these conversations with your kids from a very early age, I would say from as early as six, sixth grade to middle school, start having these conversations about purpose in college, because, you know, if you know, Goodwill that they're not going to be college material, like don't even go barking up that tree. So I want to bring it back to myself, being a black, African American, and my parents didn't have all the money to send me to college, but there was a way for me to go, like I said, I just didn't like the circumstances under which you know, that they were offering it.
(09:47): It was a, I don't want to get into it. It just was not right for me. And the ultimate goal, you know, from my mom was for me to have a good life, you know, and for me to be happy, you know, like I said, we didn't grow up with a whole lot of stuff, but my mom wanted these things for me. And so the way she raised, he was in a very respectful way to respect my elders, to be kind to people and always do it always do right thing. And, and one of her phrases is haste makes waste. So you're going to do something, do it right. Or else I'm going to make you do it again. And I just kind of heard that from my mom growing up. And so it just kind of goes hand in hand with training up the child and the way they should go so that when they're older, you know, they won't depart from the training.
(10:29): And so back to the college conversation with the kids, we definitely want to make sure that that we're, we're doing it the right way and that we're having these conversations early on. But again, for myself, it was for my mom. It was for me too. I have a decent life. Okay. And so there's college, there's the four year degrees. There are the two year degrees and there are community college and there are our apprenticeship programs and things of that nature. So to me, for the government leaders out there, you know, they all always promise us a lot of stuff. You know, we're going to help you do this. We're going to help you do that. Yeah. And there is a program, it was a formal live action. I don't know if I shared with you guys this before, but through affirmative action, I became an air traffic controller in the military, which was horrible because the people that were already there hated the fact that now they're bringing all these African American kids in and you know, you're going to make them become air traffic controllers, all the Hispanic kids come in.
(11:32): And you got to understand that we came from like very diverse and different backgrounds and communities. And a lot of us did not speak perfect English. We had draws, we had [inaudible], we just kind of tore apart the English language. And when you're sitting there talking to a pilot and you're trying to tell him what to do, and he can't understand you, that is disastrous. Right. And so it was a meaning program. And however, it just, it probably wasn't right. For a lot of us, it was people that were sincere in what they were attempting to do, but they were sincerely wrong. And for a lot of us, we didn't need to be forced into something that, you know, just to look good or fill quotas. Cause it, it ruined a lot of our lives. And I went through a lot of hell because of that.
(12:13): And thankfully by the grace of God and me changing things in my life, I was able to, to find what I'm doing right now in order to make an impact in the world and my community and the state here that I'm in. And so if you want to do something to help people, you really have to look at what the people really need, because for most, I'm going to be honest for most African Americans. Like we don't need a four year college degree. We don't need to be like, okay, the door is open. You guys can go in there and we're going to like pay for everything for free. But I mean, we don't need to be taught like history and all these other different for the most part, if we're just kind of here hands on and we just want to do things with our hands, then maybe that's an apprenticeship program.
(12:54): So when we look at the education system from top down, it's like, look, all right, figure out what these kids need and then get them exactly what they need, make sure corporations can, you know, these guys are trained and that they can go right into the core, you know, into the, into the working world ready and trained and ready to go. And that kind of leads me back to that article that I stumbled across. And it was a very interesting by the, I think it was the president of a company called Chegg. And they're an online type of thing where they, they make textbooks or whatever or not. And they were talking about like the $1.6 trillion student loan debt crisis. I mean, $1.6 trillion is a lot of money. And so you guys can look that article up I'm I think it was on Apple news.
(13:41): And it was, it was a CNBC video. I mean, you can just look up check CEO, discusses the $1.6 trillion today, debt crisis. And, and it's because a lot of people have gone to college and the problem is, is they don't graduate. Right. And it went on to say the average age of students in college, I think it was like 25 or something like that. So what it means is there's a lot of working people going to college that are still in there yeah. That are taking longer to graduate because the younger kids, the ones that are serious about college, either they stay in and get their degree in four years and they're done or they drop about men. So there's just a lot of people there that are trying to get, you know, a better degree, a better you know, make a better way for themselves.
(14:23): And so that's why I look at it. Is it a good idea to start off at the community college and then go onto the four year college degree? I'm sorry. And then transfer in, or is it better off to start from the very beginning and you know, your freshman year at a major school and it all depends on a couple of different things and I'll, I'll break these down to you guys real quick. Number one, it depends on the major that the kid is looking for. Our motto is career plus major equals college. And so career major equals college. You figure out your career and then you figure out what major you need to study. And then you find the college that has the best internship programs and the best pathway. And to that education. And one interesting point that CEO made was said, we have to accelerate the pathway from learning to learn.
(15:09): In other words, there's too much bull in the education system. And a lot of people get bogged down with that. So, you know, if you're good at a certain subject and you were required to take all these different subjects and it has to be nothing to do with you, the career that you are attempting to like launch yourself into. I think we really seriously got to look at that in colleges, not colleges, but corporations and corporate America has to stop requiring all these different things that they, you know, they require maybe they should stop saying you need a four year degree for this job. Maybe they should say, okay, a two year associates and this level, or this amount of training is good to go. Maybe they should have like an aptitude test. There's all kinds of things that can be done. And in order to get people working in great jobs and it just like, it just astounds me how crazy the whole process is.
(16:01): And so community college may be a good start. I'd like to save mom and dad money and to knock some of these other things out of the way, versus going to a liberal college right off the bat and paying 90 grand a year. Now, if you can afford to do it, knock yourself out. And you know, if you can afford for your kid to have that experience, then by all means, you know, do what your heart desires. But a lot of times is the college experience worth it for a lot of people. Is it really worth it? Is it all it's cracked up to be? And that's something you're going to have to sit down and talk with your kids about the other reason for a community college, whether they should go or not is, do you know what you want to do with your life?
(16:34): A lot of kids have no idea absolutely of what they want to do with their life. And I tell parents, this is the worst mistake you can make to send them off to college without them understanding what it is that they're going to do with their life. Because again, there's too many distractions and there's too many negative things that can build up void. And I feel that if they stay home and they work maybe part time and they go to community college, a lot of it is online. Anyway, right now you're going to be saving your self a lot of money. The only downside to that is they don't get the maturation process launched until a little bit later. Cause a lot of times when they're still home, you know, mom was still cool looking food and the clothes are still being washed and the house is still being cleaned.
(17:11): You guys are going to have to set some hard and fast wrong rules. If they're going to stay home, right, what time they're going to come home, like all, all of that good stuff. That's a whole nother family conversation. And that's an expectation conversation that you should have with your kids if they're gonna, if they're gonna stay home. And so again, community college, maybe a good place to start, but then let's take it down to a different level. So I had a parent who came in, they had two kids, one kid went off to, I think it was somewhere in Arizona for college, but the other kid, you know, surprisingly enough, this kid could care less about going to college smart kid, really good with his hands hardworking kid. And so what he decided to do was he said, I'm not going to go to the traditional training route.
(17:57): He said, I'm just going to go to trade school. And I'm going to, I'm going to learn a trade. And so he went to trade school. And then at the same time he was working here in Hawaii at a car dealership. He was one of these, one of the most hardest work in people at that car dealership doing he was doing. I mean, so they laid off a bunch of people, but they kept him and it, yeah. You know, and he just, he just, he just grew in blossom. Now he's making money, he's getting his trade. And so he's skipping all of this, you know, history and all the other things that go along with it. And so understanding your child and understanding ending, you know, what their pros are. I mean like what their, what their skills are and what they're good at and training them up in that, in that way is really going to help us in the future fight against the crazy thing that are going on on college campuses.
(18:48): It is not what it used to be. And again, there's so many different distractions. And a lot of times the kids aren't really good. The getting the experience that the parents are hoping that they are paying for. And so I won't really want to get into my college learning and planning process and something I've created some years ago and helping kids understanding why it's important to start having these conversations sooner, because there are some steps and processes that you're going to have to go through. And I'm just going to read them off for you. We have student positioning and planning, you know, where we, we help position the student for the right type of college environment or training program that they should be in. And then we help them organize. It has all of that with the different tools that we have. And then we can help them understand which colleges based on their grades and their scores are going to give them the most amount of free money.
(19:38): So there's a couple of different ways. Look at it. If a student says, I don't know what I want to do with my life. And they're super smart, then I tell the parents, Hey, let the colleges pay for them to figure it out. So yeah, you find the school. That's going to give them the most merit based money, the least amount of loans, and you send them there, but you have to determine how much you are willing to pay for that out of your own pocket. And so if it's 20 grand a year, then we have to find and schools that will fit the rest with merit based aid because the student don't know what they want to do anyway, but they are a super smart kid. Then you really don't want to limit them by going to a community college or even trade school.
(20:11): You really want to help them maximize their potential, but it's going to have to be at a decent school. That's willing to give them the most amount of money that they qualify for based on grades and scores and different things like, and so when we figure out the career plus major equals college, we can plug that all into, you know, different types of software and then help that student figure that part out. But in the same token, mom and dad, you're going to have to do your part as well in regards to continue on planning for retirement, looking at ways to reduce your college cost and then figuring out cashflow and then figuring out what that magic number is in order to help those students achieve their at the right school. Okay. So there's a lot that goes into that. And it's, it's such a complicated process.
(20:56): It's better to get started sooner versus later. And I say middle school is where you want to start having these conversations because you know, these days gets talk about all kinds of stuff. They teach our kids all kinds of stuff in school. So why not talk about what it is they're that I need to do to start contributing to society and how to be a responsible individual? Why not talk about that? You know? And so that's a very, very, very important thing to understand. And so I just wanted to share with you guys today a little bit about my life and a little bit about something that's near and dear to my heart. But again, college is not what it used to be, and we're really going to have to figure out how to fight this thing the way it needs to be fought versus waiting on government or some other entity to step in and bail us out.
(21:38): All right. So we're smart people, you know, a lot of us are, are hard workers and we want to see, you know, we want the best for our families. And so that's going to mean figuring out how to fight this college craziness the right way. So if you're out there, you got young kids, you want to start having these conversations. Now give me a call (808) 521-4401 at the end. And let me help you figure out how not to do something that you guys hate before you even get involved in the process. All right. Thanks a lot for letting me share this with you guys today. And until next time, one, two, three, let's get it.
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