Original subtitles

[Ramsey jingle]

[cheering]

BILL GATES: You graduates are coming of ageat an amazing time.

BARACK OBAMA: As Americans, we enjoy more freedoms

and opportunities and citizens than any other nation on earth.

AMARI SIMMONS: So my American dream is pretty simple.

My American dream is not living paycheck to paycheck.

BARACK: We have the chance to get an education and work hard,

and give our children a better life.

COURTNEY POLETTA: You don't go to college, you don't get a job.

That's the only way you could make a living for yourself.

MARK ZUCKERBERG: The challenge for our generation

is to create a world where has a sense of purpose.

JUSTIN MCDANIEL: From a pretty early age I knew I wanted

to be an Orthodontist.

BARACK: What has always been certain is the ability

to shape that destiny.

JOSIAH POLETTA: My mom was a teacher, I just

ended up falling in love with history

and went down that trek.

OPRAH WINFREY: You will be happy.

You will be successful and you will make a

difference in the world.

BARACK: Congratulations on your graduation!

[cheering]

[dramatic music] SETH GODIN: A college

degree is a signal.

MALE 1: Attend the best possible university you can get into.

MALE 2: You'd be wrong to forgo a college education.

FEMALE 1: The return on a college education

had never been greater.

SETH G: What it is a signal of, is: I'm able

to speak a certain way, and understand a certain

set of cultural tropes and, this group of people,

maybe not so much.

MARIA BARTIROMO: Finance is very tough for many Americans.

FEMALE 2: Tuition has gone through the roof.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Post-secondary education

is now the largest source of consumer borrowing

behinds mortgage loans.

MALE 4: So many families are borrowing to the teeth.

SETH G: And the thing that we say to these kids is:

Do this schtick in high school, and it will

get you into college.

And then we say, now do it again, and it

will get you a job.

MALE 5: They fall into a trap our society

has created for them.

ALI VELSHI: Student loan debt has been steadily increasing,

affecting approximately 44 million Americans.

MARIA: The cost of getting a college education

is having a lasting effect on graduates.

COURTNEY: It's just so natural, like everyone knows it.

SETH FROTMAN: This is good debt.

AMARI: $13,000 can turn into $25,000 easily.

SETH F: There's a good return on investment.

JOSIAH: I'm paying all these bills and I have nothing.

SETH F: You did this to chase the American dream

that we all cherish.

FEMALE 4: People are alive but not living.

MALE 6: This is not the way the American dream was set up.

JUSTIN: You know, I'm 36, I have a million

dollars in student loans.

SETH G: Every piece in the system did what

it was supposed to do.

And the victims are 17 years old.

SETH F: The story has all come down to one thing.

"How has this happen to me when I did everything correct?"

[ominous music]

ANTHONY ONEAL: I remember man, when I was, you know 17.

Guy walked in from a local college there in

the city of Fayetteville and said, "Hey,

if you haven't started thinking about college

education, you are late...

and if you really want to be successful,

you have to go to college.

Because if you do not go to college, you will

not be successful."

I didn't know how to process it.

My entire young life, I was never taught

the proper education of what I needed to be

successful. I was just told "Go to college.

You will be successful, and if you have to take out

student loans, that's okay.

Everyone is doing it."

And I became, like everyone.

DAVE RAMSEY: The culture in the last three

or four decades has dramatically shifted.

It used to be that we said education is important.

Study something, so that you can further your career.

It moved from that to where education was

permission to play.

You weren't gonna be valid in the economy

unless you had a four year, or more, degree.

Not only is it necessary, but it's like a guarantee --

That you're guaranteed to be more successful.

And so, you have to have this, cause a degree is the answer.

MAN: Society has rules.

And the first rule is, you gotta go to college.

You want to have a happy and successful life?

You go to college.

If you want to be somebody, you go to college.

If you want to fit in, you go to college!

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Is a four year college degree

still a good investment.

ROBERT FRANEK: I mean, not surprisingly,

we at the Princeton Review think it's a good investment

for a couple of reasons.

One, a student is gonna earn a million dollars more

over their lifetime career opposed if they didn't have

a college degree.

They're more nimble.

They have lower rates of unemployment.

Even Robert Wood Johnson says, they're going to live longer

because they're likely gonna better insurance.

EVERYONE: Okay.

MIKE ROWE: We set the table in such a way that we doomed

millions of parents and kids to take the bait.

When we elevated the pursuit of a four year degree to here,

we inversely relegated a two year degree,

or a community college, or an apprenticeship

program, or all those other things down here.

Higher education became a thing.

Everything else became an alternative.

DR. JOHN DELONY: There was some studies that came out and said,

if you have a college degree, you will make this much more

in your lifetime.

That became the marketing slogan for higher ed.

Which is if you come do this, you make more money.

The shift of a public good, turned into a private good.

I'm getting my degree so I can make more money for me.

Then the markets got involved.

And this thing was not something all invested in, like roads,

or police or fire departments.

It became a way for me to get rich.

MIKE: The cost of college had grown faster

than the cost of energy and the cost of real estate,

the cost of healthcare.

All of it.

Some how we got in our heads that it's priceless.

And we've told an entire generation of kids,

if they don't borrow whatever it takes,

then they're going to enter into this crazy rat race

hopelessly disadvantaged.

So you got a 17 or 18 year old kid,

being told to sign on the dotted line, or else.

His parents aren't cautioning him not to do that.

Guidance councilors aren't saying "Hey, take a breath,

be careful."

Nobody is.

SETH: I think where this really becomes a crisis

is millions of people who faithfully

pay their student loan bill every month,

where that debt is having an enormous

implication on their lives, and their communities.

Things like the ability to buy a house, save for retirement,

what career you choose, even if you're gonna start a family.

BRAD BARNETT: It's this unintentional consequence

of just living in society and being surrounded by everything

that says spend and have a certain lifestyle,

and it's okay to borrow and to go into debt.

And just make sure you can afford the payments.

They're just following on a path.

ANTHONY: Normal ended me in the back of my car.

Because I didn't have no where to sleep.

Normal ended me in the YMCA washing myself,

because I didn't have a home to go to and take a shower.

Before I even turned 19, I'm $35,000 in debt.

I was that young kid thinking about committing suicide.

I was that young kid wondering how I'm gonna eat.

And it was during that season of my life,

that I just decided I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I'm tired of not being able to have the options.

What can I eat, what can I do, where can I go?

And so, I got myself out of debt.

Learned a lot about money.

Learned a lot about life.

CREW LADY: Alright, Anthony, we're ready for ya.

ANTHONY: Had to lose some friends. Had to better myself.

And I said, when I get out of this,

I want to be in front of young people

and help them go after their dreams but make sure

that their dreams do not become nightmares.

And when I look at this table, I see dreams,

but if it's going down the wrong path,

I also see future nightmares.

And so, I'm excited to be here with you all tonight.

It's to have a conversation about your life,

and what you are experiencing.

You all are about to step into the real world.

What is one thing that you're feeling about graduation?

CAMRYNN PLEASANT: So, once I get outta high school,

I gotta make sure I get the right steps to make sure

that whatever I do going forward can put my kids

in a better situation than I am.

ANTHONY: Does that make you fearful though?

Are you nervous about that? Why?

CAMRYNN: Yeah, cause I'm a teenager!

So, you know, I make bone-head decisions.

[laughter] CAMRYNN: So like, my

small decision can play a big role in my future.

ANTHONY: Aye, but you know what?

At least you admit that, bruh!

My man said, "I'ma teenager.

I'mma make some dumb decisions."

What is one decision you're scared of making?

CAMRYNN: I wanna enjoy my life to the fullest,

cause I live for now.

And then, I also gotta live for the future.

So you don't know which one you wanna choose.

KAMERON BOWLING: My mom, tells me all the time to

do what makes me happy.

She'd support me 100%!

But then, I also have my dad, he tells me,

"Look, you have to pick something.

It has to be something that's high paying

because you have to feed yourself." You know?

And when in old society, today you can't

just not go to college.

Well, you can but, it can be a little rough.

CLAYTON: Of course you're growing up, your

parents always tell you, "You can do anything want to do.

You can do anything you put your mind to," yada-yada-ya,

"If you work hard in high school and you keep these good grades

and you take these classes.

You'll go anywhere you wanna go."

Well, they don't tell ya that there's

a $180,000 price tag attached to it.

ANTHONY: So do you think college is the only way

you can be successful in life.

ALL: Yes.

Always.

CLAYTON: Going to college is like a safety net.

No matter what you do in life, no matter what dreams you chase.

If you have a degree to fall back on, you're always safe.

[soft dramatic music]

JOSIAH: My game plan was the game plan that

everyone else had.

I'm going to apply to get student loans.

I always thought everything was just gonna be fine.

Every thing will sort itself out.

[engine starting] [soft piano music]

JOSIAH: College was always in the picture.

Older brother went to college.

Older sister went to college so, me being the youngest,

also go to college.

And, get the best I can for myself.

[soft piano music] For that first year,

was $24,000.

I didn't work.

I played through three sports, so to me, it was real easy

to just say, "This money will just take care of itself.

I'll make enough money."

Went off to school and didn't really worry about it

for a year until we had to do it all over again.

INTERVIEWER: Free money?

JOSIAH: Free money!

[bell ringing] JOSIAH: Get out the notes

that we started on before, we're gonna keep going

over values and beliefs and things that we have

in our society that tells us what we can and

cannot do and so on from there.

COURTNEY: I met Josiah through mutual friends.

We were only dating for a couple of months,

and he just brought it up, and I didn't even think

twice about it.

Like, everyone had it like that.

It's fine. Whatever.

And I don't think it really hit me until, like,

the week after we got married.

We got a decent amount of money from our wedding

and that instantly went straight to like, all of our bills.

And then, like, it was gone.

[soft piano music] JOSIAH: Everyone in the

pictures, they're so happy, holding their diploma,

walking across the stage.

By the time the graduation ceremony was,

I had realized it's not this happy-go-lucky time.

I had taken out about $110,000 in student loans.

Interest had been gathering the entire time that had to balloon

to $125,000 after four and a half years of college.

It was something that I was not prepared for.

It was an avalanche coming down on me.

I had a total of 11 separate bills coming in the mail

for eight hundred and seventy some dollars

that I was gonna have to pay per month.

[soft piano music] ANTHONY: Student loan's

on the table for you?

CLAYTON: Yes.

ANTHONY: Man, you jumped straight to yes, bruh!

[laughter] CLAYTON: I mean, I'm not

the first, I won't be the last, like -- 'Cause --

ANTHONY: Is that the only option?

CLAYTON: I mean, technically no.

CAMRYNN: My thing is, whenever you gotta do something,

you gotta take the good and the bad with it.

CECI DANG: Yeah.

CAMRYNN: So like, my thing is, if you want

to be real successful, you might have

to take on the debt, but is you gon' work hard

to get out of the debt?

KAMERON: But how much debt is too much debt?

CAMRYNN: Well, really, you know like --

That's the whole thing when it comes to the student loans.

Like, what is you feel like is enough risk for you?

CECI: Yeah!

And in life, like everything sucks.

Everything has, like, a backdrop.

Everything has a trade-off.

You're never gonna get the good only.

You're just choosing what sucks less.

CLAYTON: Well, yeah.

That's true.

KAMERON: I know people that are planning to die with that debt.

Like, they're only paying interest.

CECI: I'll take the blow.

Like give it to me.

You know?

MARIO MIKHAEIL: So you'd like, hold that burden

for the rest of your life, paying off student

loans, hundreds and hundreds of thousands --

CECI: Yeah, when you want something really bad,

you gotta take all of it.

SETH F: This is probably one of, if not the most important

financial decisions in your life.

And I think a lot of this stems from this unfortunate thought

that we don't need to worry about student debt

because it's "Good Debt".

There's something about the word "student"

being before the word loan, that just makes us think

about this differently, and like differently in a very bad way.

[soft music] DAVE: The student loan

problem has reached epidemic proportions.

The curve on the growth of credit card debt,

even though it's been ridiculous, has

been much more gentle than the curve on

student loan debt.

It's gone to a mushroom cloud in terms of the Mathematics of it.

The problem is that you don't register emotionally

that it's money.

I mean, when you borrow money, to buy a $20,000 car,

you have a completely different emotional experience

than if you write a check or put down $20,000

worth of Benjamins right there.

You have an -- You have an emotional experience

that you do not have when you just sign

and go, "I think I can make those payments."

It's the same thing that happens with student loans.

SETH F: There's a whole lot of people who have a big target

on your back who view you and your ability to take

on a ton of debt as their chance to get rich.

- College tuition has risen enormously

over the past five decades.

Why would someone pay for this?

Well, everyone seems to agree that graduating from college

if a guarantee to a better life.

So, it's no surprise that the student debt level

has risen exponentially as people

pursue their shot at the American dream.

But is the pay-off really there?

When the student loan program was first started

by the government, it had really good intentions.

Students can only borrow up to $1,000 a year for school.

The expectation was, as students completed

their higher education, they would in, in turn,

contribute their knowledge and skills back into society.

And the money for all of this came directly

from the U.S. Treasury.

But as the demand for higher education grew, so did tuition.

Now, the government had to open up the student

loan program even more.

So, they brought in the banks.

That meant the government didn't have to foot

the initial bill anymore.

But, they still guaranteed the loans if the borrower

couldn't pay it back.

So the banks, they were getting paid one way or the other.

And on top of that they got to collect

any and all interest from the loans.

In business, this is called making a profit.

So, fast forward.

Tuition is still rising because the demand for college

wasn't slowing down, and the banks, they couldn't keep up.

This is where the government stepped in and created

the Student Loan Marketing Association.

More conveniently known as "SallieMae."

As a government sponsored enterprise,

they were designed to fund the money into the

student loan program.

They would buy the loans from the banks which allowed

the banks the cash flow to issue more loans.

And over the next two decades, SallieMae became a major player

in the student loan market.

But in 2004, SallieMae cut their strings from the government

and became a fully private company,

and this meant they were a real business.

A business that exists for one thing.

To make a profit.

This is where the student loan program

went from being a public good to big money.

Actually, this isn't even a program anymore.

It's an industry.

The real nail in the coffin though came a year later

when SallieMae convinced congress to make

private student loans nearly impossible

to discharge through bankruptcy.

This has resulted in growing default rates,

record amounts of interest accumulated

and dragged out repayment plans that never go away.

Now, we're left with entire generations of people trapped

in student loan debt, who took it on in hopes of making

a better life for themselves.

Because that was the original goal for all of this.

But it's companies like SallieMae, Navient, Great Lakes,

Pheaa, Osla, Nelnet, and countless others

who's pockets are overflowing with the money your future

was supposed to be built on.

So, with over 45 million Americans sharing

this 1.6 trillion dollars of student loan debt,

the question still remains.

LACY YOUNG: Hey guys!

It's Lacy!

And, I am broke as [bleep].

GUY: $200,000 -- LADY: $172,000 in debt.

GUY: I went to a regular-ass state school.

LADY 2: I have only paid off $7,231.11.

How much interest have I paid in 13 years.

$19,030.27.

Holy [bleep].

LADY 3: I got in there one day, and they said,

"Your loans would be forgiven if you die."

Oh. That's nice.

AMARI: So, I feel like my time in college

wasn't really the ideal picture that I had of college.

I felt like college was supposed to be fun,

and the time that you're away from parents

and rules and can make your own decisions.

But, my college was pretty much filled with

how am I gonna make sure I'm stable?

[soft dramatic strings] AMARI: My view was like

"It's not the end of the world.

It's normal.

It's life to have debt.

Everyone has debt.

Everyone has it!

So, it was fine.

Brush it off.

Don't worry about it."

[soft dramatic strings] When, I got my final

finished-aid report, and I seen how much

more money I needed, you can't start class if you

don't have a zero-balance.

I had to do something.

I couldn't get that amount of money from home.

I talked to the financial aid advisors

that we have at our school and they introduced me to loans.

I did look at it as an investment for myself,

like it's okay.

But then, once I realize I had to continue to take things out,

it was like, "Okay, wow, this is, like,

adding up very quickly."

It became a thing of like, dreading the fact

that I'm gonna owe so much money when I get outta school!

[dramatic piano music] That is when it like,

hit me the hardest.

It's like you don't wanna have to be in debt.

So it's like you gotta comfort yourself

with the notion that it's normal. But you don't want it.

So, it's like a constant, like, dissonance and conflict

going on through your whole collegiate career,

because it's like "Yeah, I'm excelling

as far as I'm getting a high education,

but at the same time, I'm gonna be just like everyone else,

working to pay off debt."

[soft dramatic music] KRISTINA ELLIS: The weight that

people feel from this decision, they haven't even

made their first rent payment on an apartment.

They haven't had to own bank account, for a lot of students.

Like the pre-frontal cortex isn't even fully developed yet.

And yet we're saying, "Do you want $50,000 in student loans?"

That's a lot to put on an 18-year-old,

especially when you have well- respected

adults working at banks, or admissions offices

sayings, "You know, hey!

This is a great thing.

Just take out this loan.

It's no big deal!"

People shouldn't leave college in chains from the decision

to get an education that helps them contribute to society.

That is a good thing.

It's really sad to see people struggle as a result

of this great decision to get an education.

JOSIAH: And add another one to the list.

They said some of these other bills were going to be

a little bit lower, but, you never know.

So, we might even have additional stuff too, so,

cut back on groceries.

So, if we could change -- What do we need --

We need about $60, $80...

If we could change this -- COURTNEY: You would think, "Oh,

I have a house, we have a car, we have jobs --

Like, we're fine.

We're the average American." But, we

weren't making ends meet.

JOSIAH: We were living paycheck to paycheck,

and I thought I made a decent salary.

Well we could get the taxes this month,

that puts us at about $20 short.

So, if I donate plasma like another time,

that's another $20 or $60 or so.

Depending on which on it is --

JOSIAH: We are on our way to Lima to donate plasma.

It's something that I do usually every Tuesday and Thursday,

after football practice.

[whistle blowing] JOSIAH: White!

Drive it, man!

Drive it!

Split.

Outside, linebackers, widen out.

-- have to stay in still.

Quarterback is still your guy, cause if they do a cross --

I don't get home till about eight or so, but,

gotta make us a little extra money somehow.

And that money I make during the month, our donating

is a big difference in my life.

People say, like I go through a crazy schedule, but you know.

I've left Courtney at home for the last 12+ hours.

I've worked and worked and worked at a job I didn't like.

But, I had no choice.

I had student loan payments to make.

I didn't make enough money to pay it off in 15 years

like the plan they wanted me to.

It's gonna take me 30 years to pay off.

I took up credit cards when I was out of college because,

that's what you do.

I still had a car payment that time too.

I was broken.

I'm paying all these bills and I have nothing.

ANTHONY: I want you to be successful.

I want each and every one of you all to go

after the American dream.

But I gotta ask you this question, what is one thing

that could stop your dreams?

CAMRYNN: Debt.

ANTHONY: Say that again?

CAMRYNN: Debt.

ANTHONY: One more time?

CAMRYNN: Debt.

ANTHONY: My man!

You gotta take debt off of the table.

I'd rather take six years to graduate debt free

than to graduate in four and spend the next 30 years

paying back my student loans.

Let's be real!

If all of you all went to college, didn't listen

to my advice today, two of you all will

graduate from this table with $100,000 or more in debt.

Studies are showing that the average person

takes some 20 years to pay back their student

loan debt. Lemme go deeper.

Studies are showing that y'all right here, young people,

when you graduate college, the number one goal in life

is not to get your dream job.

The number one goal in life is, when you graduate college,

is not to go out there and buy you a nice car.

It's not to go out there to buy a house and start a family.

You know what the number one goal is for college people

who are just now graduating?

ALL: Pay off student loans.

ANTHONY: Is that the American dream? No!

The number one mistake I see with your generation is,

you take a kid's approach to an adult decision.

DAVID WILSON: It's funny, talking with my mom

and getting her story of, "You know, I went to

college for $4,000!"

And thinking to myself, that's cool,

it's not that cheap now!

[soft music] Growing up, we were more

in the lower middle class.

Single mom who has two boys.

You could tell that we didn't have an endless supply of money.

[soft music] For college, I ended up opting

to go the business route, I saw what the financial

situation was like, and realized if I could

create a business and grow that and be able to give back,

how much more of a difference would that make if I could

fund 20 of me to go to college.

U of M, in Minnesota was my big choice.

It's a very large, substantial campus.

And you get this sense of pride, you know,

walking in that situation knowing that this is where

I could be cutting my teeth for going out

in the real world.

So, one day, go to the mailbox, I got in!

It's what I wanted, I was totally set on going there,

I done everything I needed to up until that point.

Basically I could coast all my senior year, right?

I made it to the next step.

That's the funny part.

They don't send the tuition with the acceptance letter.

That letter also had shock.

When you open it up.

You look at it, and $22,000 a year.

At that time, I'm driving a car I paid $600 for.

I was totally ready just to dive deep into debt

because that's what the journey looks like, right?

That's what everyone expects it to be.

And, I was gonna be one of them.

ANTHONY: What college are you going to?

KAMERON: I haven't gotten like, my financial

package for the college I'm going to yet, but,

Duke is my passion.

ANTHONY: Why is Duke your dream school?

KAMERON: I've been to the campus.

I've toured and I fell in love with it.

ANTHONY: You fell in love with -- ?

KAMERON: Like the exp -- Like the classes, the people there,

the overall, like, experience of being there.

The connections.

ANTHONY: How much is Duke goin' to run you?

KAMERON: Yearly, about 75?

ANTHONY: Ooh, my Lord!

KAMERON: [chuckling]

It's undergrad, so, I'm still thinking about it --

ANTHONY: Still?

KAMERON: Yeah.

ANTHONY: That's $300,000...

KAMERON: Yeah, I know.

ANTHONY: ...for a degree!

KAMERON: Yeah.

ANTHONY: What about you?

CECI: N.Y.U. really.

ANTHONY: N.Y.U.?

CECI: Yep.

ANTHONY: Why is that your school?

CECI: Because it's like saturated with music artists,

with producers, with opportunities

just out at every corner, for music in particular.

ANTHONY: How much is it?

CECI: 75?

ANTHONY: My gosh!

$75,000?

CECI: I'm gonna reach for what I can.

And if N.Y.U. is it, then I'm gonna reach.

Oh my gosh, that was so serious, please stop.

Don't leave the silence!

ALL: [laughing] CLAYTON: Okay, so, I toured

Buffalo back in November, and I don't know,

I feel like it'll be a lot like high school as far as like,

arriving, like, there -- Like I know, my parents

talk about college was like the best years

of their lives and da-da-da.

So, I feel like, the experiences I'm gonna get at college

are going to be like, unmatched.

ANTHONY: So you're going all the way to Buffalo State

just to have an upgraded high school experience?

CLAYTON: [laughs] Yeah.

Keyword, upgraded.

SETH G: Well, if I wanted to sell a college

to the normal group of semi-unmotivated,

semi-uninformed people, I would start

with the football team.

[marching band and cheering] SETH G: I would move

on to the parties.

[celebratory music] SETH G: I would then go

on to shiny pictures of people at graduation.

WILL FERRELL: We are...

GRADUATES: SC!

WILL: We are...

GRADUATES: SC!

I wouldn't mention student debt.

I wouldn't mention all the hours you have in-between class,

because most colleges aren't good at helping

people through that.

BRAD: Picking a school is a complicated process

between applications and essays and costs and visitation

and the stuff out there on the web. It's just overwhelming.

The average person doesn't know what to look for.

Cause this isn't their world.

And then, all of a sudden, you get thrust into it,

and it's information overload, and how do you synthesize it

into something that makes a whole lot of sense?

GAYLE KING: The new 30th edition of "Best Colleges"

was just released this morning.

We've got it.

Brian Kelly's editor of US News and World report.

Good to see you again, Brian Kelly. BRIAN KELLY: Hi.

GAYLE: This is getting to be an annual visit,

and we like it!

DR. JOHN: If you were to ask me, what's the worst thing

that has happened to higher education

in the last 20 to 30 years, I would say unabashedly,

a fledgling magazine decided to start ranking colleges.

ANNE-MARIE GREEN: Which schools would have the greatest chance

of giving you the American dream?

BRIAN: Uh, the usual suspects I would have to say are Princeton,

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, are the top five.

The whole world wants to go to these places.

DR. JOHN: Education is a brand now.

It's a label.

It's an industry.

SETH G: One of the things the US News and World Report measures

is the percentage of people that college rejects.

The more people you reject, the better college you must be.

BRIAN: I always look at their alumni.

They have their very loyal alumni.

People who go to Princeton love Princeton.

They give it money.

They come back.

They stay engaged with the school.

That makes a difference.

DR. JOHN: And then they came with this ever

evolving matrix of points.

Really important things like, your reputation.

How other people think about you.

That turns into a higher ed arms race.

CLAYTON: It's like Nikes versus Gucci.

They're both shoes.

They both work the same, but one has more value

because of the name.

SETH G: Some colleges figured out if they

made their dorms nicer, or their gyms fancier,

more people would wanna come.

SAVANNAH: What's up with their dorms?

What do they have?

BRIAN: Beautiful campuses.

10 different residence halls.

There's a food service.

It's pretty awe -- SAVANNAH: Looks nice!

HODA KOTB: That's beautiful!

SAVANNAH: Wow!

SETH G: If more people wanted to come,

they discovered the US News and World Report

would rank them higher.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Do you accept bribes?

[laughter] BRIAN: Only very large ones!

I have been lobbied by some of the finest people in the world.

SETH G: If US News and Report rank them higher,

more people wanted to come.

If more people wanted to come, they could charge more,

because their piece of paper was worth more.

So the ratchet kept turning.

And it kept turning.

And it kept turning.

DR. JOHN: The parents are demanding it.

The college students are demanding it.

You have to build it!

Otherwise, they won't come because your college

isn't good enough.

SETH G: The idea, that you could spend four years,

not living at home, going to class three hours a day,

yeah, that's the definition of privilege,

where ever you came from.

HODA: Best campus food?

ROBERT: It is fabulous.

SAVANNAH & HODA: Wow!

SETH G: So let's be really clear,

you shouldn't go to a famous college.

There should be no reason.

I hope you go to a great college, but I also know

that some of the cheapest colleges in America

could be great if you make 'em great.

If you use your time there to have a series of experiences

to change your life and other people's lives --

'Cause that's what you get.

You get four years of freedom and leverage.

What are you gonna do with it.

Cause if all you're doing is saying "I'm

gonna give up four years of my life, and all my money for

a piece of paper at the end," well, it doesn't

make sense to pay what you're currently

paying for the paper.

DAVID: What really was apparent to me was how much debt

can be that ball and chain on your ankle

when you actually hop into the real world.

Once you can change that mental state of debt actually

doesn't have to be an option, I can do this a different way,

there's a new found freedom that comes with that.

Going forward with school I knew that I wanted to pay for it.

Later on in my senior year when I went and toured

Wisconsin Lutheran College, I went to the school

with the mindset that I'm gonna hate this.

I was thinking, "Am I shorting myself

by going to a small school?

Will I be able to get the job I want to because

I went to a no name school?"

Everybody knows the University of Wisconsin, the Badgers.

[cheering] How many people know

the Wisconsin Lutheran College Warriors?

As exciting as D3 football is, I knew we weren't gonna

be known for that.

But then, when that tuition bill came,

paired with some scholarships that I earned in high school,

meant I wouldn't be going in debt my first year.

That was an eye opener.

DAVE: I'm convinced that most of the mistakes around college

are simply college choice.

It's that simple.

30 years ago, the difference in cost of a community college,

a state school and a private school was not a lot.

And the difference in what you got 30 years ago,

in terms of the quality of education was a lot.

The weird thing is, is that the quality of

education has come up, on the community

college, so much, and on the state school so much,

that they're almost all three parallel now.

But, the cost went dramatically different.

But here's the thing.

A lot of people get the basic knowledge of business.

The basic knowledge of a communication.

The basic knowledge in an I.T. field

at a community college and get a really good career out of it.

Information is just much more accessible now

than it was 30 years ago to the average person.

SETH G: So let's talk for a second

about whether you should go to college at all.

Given that every single course at M.I.T.

is available on-line for free, given that with motivation,

you could cover four years of college course work in a year,

that there are ways to cobble together

what you would learn in college and even show up with a degree

without going in the front door, without paying full price.

And the giant shift that's happening is that

the people who are hiring, what they want from you is not

that you went to a school with a better reputation, or at

least a better football team.

What they want from you is the real skills.

Creativity, honesty, directness, leadership, resilience.

And I think we gotta strip away the easy and fun part,

stop rewarding it, stop confusing it

with a useful signal, and instead get back

to the hard part which is, how we're going

to get productive, generous human beings.

[soft jazz music] DEDAR HIMELDI: I'm not

really going to college to get my degree.

I'm going to get the knowledge.

So, my plan was to go Cal Arts right?

That's like, the Harvard for animation.

ANTHONY: It is.

DEDAR: Yeah.

And then, I was like, "I'm set."

But then, two schools here have animation pr --

so I was like, you know?

Might as well.

I go and check out Lipscomb's animation program.

And it's the -- the professors are Disney animators.

So it's like, what I'm getting here in my home state,

and home city, is like, for free.

Instead of like getting into $400k debt.

ANTHONY: Right.

DEDAR: It's like, why would I not?

You know?

ANTHONY: Wow.

So you turned down, the Harvard of animation to come here.

DEDAR: Turned down the chance.

Yeah.

ANTHONY: Okay.

You're banking on student loans and work,

if not, sounds like you may not be going to school.

CLAYTON: That's the reality I've come to face this year.

ANTHONY: You still might not be able to go to school,

or your dream school?

CLAYTON: I wanna be able to be comfortable at school.

Like, if I don't go to my dream school.

Cause I've picked my dream schools to be the schools

that I would be happy at.

That I would be comfortable at.

ANTHONY: Why?

CLAYTON: It's like the price you pay for certain things in life.

Because I could skip out on college, and go

work a full-time job.

Won't have any debt, but I won't be happy.

Can't come up with $13,000 a year, so --

ANTHONY: You can't?

ALL: No.

[chuckling]

[ominous music] DAVID: I honestly didn't

know how I was gonna pay for year number two.

I -- You go through the first year of bliss,

but when the tuition bill hits and you get that

letter in your mailbox that says tuition

is going up for next year, no one wants to pay

more money for school.

I was fully prepared to take a gap year, or

do anything to avoid having debt my second year,

and continuing on.

KATIE COURIC: College tuition can now cost

as much as $50,000 a year, but luckily one woman

says she's figured out how to get a college

education for free.

Kristina Ellis earned half a million dollars in scholarships

and is the author of "Confessions of a

Scholarship Winner," welcome Kristina!

Nice to see you.

KRISTINA: A lot of times when people hear that I won a half

a million dollars in scholarships, they

sometimes assume that like, I just got to pocket

anything that I didn't use.

They're like, "Where's the car that you bought."

And it's like, "No, that's not how it works."

That being said, a really cool thing about pushing

for a lot of scholarships is that you can actually

get a refund check.

If you live off-campus, I would actually get

like a $10,000 check each semester to be able

to pay for my housing and my books and meals

and transportation, so, winning scholarships can allow

you to have a lot of freedom and flexibility with

how you live your life while you're in college.

ANTHONY: Well, what are your thoughts on scholarships?

Are you all currently applying for any right now?

KAMERON: Yes, and it's like, I don't know where to look.

And it's really overwhelming because you

hit so many dead-ends.

CLAYTON: It's like 10 million scholarships, it's just --

It's overwhelming.

It's stressful.

KAMERON: I went to the library and got scholarship books

and they're garbage.

Like, I'm trying.

ANTHONY: Alright.

AMARI: I was aware about scholarships.

Honestly, they were just a hassle.

It's just too many non-guarantees in there

when I could be working.

Because most of them only range from like $200 - $1000,

and that doesn't even put a thump in how much tuition is

at most universities.

[soft music] KRISTINA: I think it's great

to have the conversation about scholarships

your freshman year.

Because it gives students time to develop a resume

without a lot of pressure.

That being said, a lot of students think

that it's too late to apply for scholarships

if they already started college, and that's just not true.

There are scholarships that are available for students

all throughout their college experience.

ANTHONY: The gap is, really, there's a lack

of financial education inside of our schools.

And then, too, there's just a lack of wise

council along this journey, and were not taking the time

to teach our young people to step back

and to do the research --

KRISTINA: If you spent two hours filling out an application

that allows you to win a $1000 scholarship,

that's like making $500 an hour.

That is significant.

I mean, what other part time job in high school

are you gonna find that makes that amount of money?

DAVID: I decided I wanna make looking at scholarships

like my full-time job.

If I just hit one of those $500 scholarships

after applying for ten of them, it's still worthwhile.

KRISTINA: So much of it is about habits and just getting

in a groove of consistently putting in the effort.

It doesn't have to be so overwhelming

if you just break it down into just manageable steps.

ANTHONY: You may have to come home, spend two hours --

Spend three hours on the internet, grinding.

You may get a lot of no's, but that one yes, that second yes,

that third yes, is gonna be worth all the no's that you got.

Scholarships are a great opportunity.

[soft dramatic music] KRISTINA: There are millions

of scholarships given away, every single year

for so many different reasons.

You can get a scholarship for being tall, for being short,

there's a vegetarian scholarship.

There's a scholarship for being a golf caddy,

for having the best zombie apocalypse escape plan.

The criteria so broad that it's a numbers game in many senses.

Don't write off the $500 scholarship.

Don't write off the $1000 scholarship,

because those are often where students find the most success.

DAVID: There are some I didn't find out until the last second.

And there some that I got, that I didn't even

know I was going to get.

KRISTINA: If you are still enrolled in a university,

you should still do your research and try

to find scholarships.

If you are currently taking out student loans

to get through school, take a moment to do some

research and see the vast options available.

DAVE: Where you do not have set goals, and you do not go through

a series of behaviors with intentionality

you are never going to be, in that area of

your life, successful.

And college is no exception to that.

ANTHONY: Every single day, you're being intentional

about the decisions you make that's going

to get you in college and through college

without borrowing a dime.

[soft dramatic music]

ELEVATOR: Going down.

[beeping] AMARI: It sets in once

you apply for graduation.

It's like "Okay, I will no longer be in school,

so I no longer have that crutch of putting off."

Because now at this point, I am gonna have

to come up with a plan as to when I'm gonna

start paying it back off, how much I'm gonna have

to start paying back off, and what I can even

afford to pay back off.

And, there's a bunch of stuff that comes with adulthood

that you just don't account for.

It does kinda make me worry about what I'm

gonna do then. You know?

Like, I don't wanna be still paying back student loans

when I'm supposed to be nearing retirement.

But, being realistic in life, looking at it, it's like,

well, maybe I won't be because $13,000 could turn into $25,000

easily depending on how I manage that.

Because it's a lot of my peers who leave a four year university

and still don't have a job for six months.

And that's when you have to start paying

back your student loans!

So it's like, what do you do?

[soft dramatic music]

COURTNEY: Moving to Van Wert, we tried buying a home.

Like it wasn't a very nice home, but it was in well means.

And, we applied for a loan and got denied.

Definitely like, put us in perspective, like,

we would never get a house.

We wouldn't be able to have kids. We're not

gonna be able to live.

JOSIAH: We had a point in time where we actually

did not go shopping for a full month.

And we didn't have food outside of basically

some boxes of pasta, and, like, watered down

spaghetti sauce, 'cause we did not have enough

money to literally go for -- to buy groceries.

And that's with every credit card maxed

out, everything, like, just literally backs to the

wall, pinned up against it.

COURTNEY: Like, we've officially hit rock bottom.

JOSIAH: I had just looked back at that money I owe,

and realize, what did it actually get me.

I know it got me a college degree.

And I know it got me experiences, but

is a college degree and experiences

worth $125,000?

DR. JOHN: We don't think anymore. We just do.

So much of our mental health challenges in this country

are because we let our feelings and our emotions drive our day.

College choice is no difference.

We've gotten so unintentional about it.

And then we figure out how we pay for it later.

Now we blinked and there's a couple of trillion of dollars

floating around out there on the backs of 19, 20,

25-year-olds, 40-year-olds.

It just comes like a car payment, like a mortgage.

That's just a payment we have.

That's a way of life, and we've got to re-center that.

JUSTIN: So who's the first person on the schedule?

LAUREN MCDANIEL: It's a console.

JUSTIN: Oh, okay.

When I was ten, I got hit in the mouth with a golf ball.

So it like, broke my two front teeth.

And unfortunately I was the one that hit the golf ball,

so it came back and hit me right in the mouth.

I was kinda in and our of the dentist office as a kid,

so that's what got me interested in Orthodontics.

I got out of undergrad debt-free.

But, then it quickly went the other direction.

[soft dramatic music] JUSTIN: Finished dental school.

I had probably somewhere around $400,000 in student loans.

Ortho and oral surgery are two most competitive residencies.

And a majority of programs, I mean they only have

three or four seats each year.

And they probably have 15,000 applications.

So, I mean, you have to be up in the top of your class

to even get an interview.

Alright, you just gotta stay biting down

to hold that in place for me, okay?

PATIENT: Mhm!

JUSTIN: Once I was in residency, the tuition was $95,000 a year.

I mean, at that point, what -- I didn't have any other options.

It was either, you know, you're not gonna be an orthodontist

or this is what you're gonna do.

DR. JOHN: There is a "bottomless-pit of

money," if you will.

I consider private loan folks, the same as payday lenders.

There's always a place to go find money, right?

It's just gonna cost you your soul.

But there's money out there if you're gonna do the things

you gotta do to get it.

BRAD: We're seeing private educational

loans becoming larger and larger where there's no real

governmental control like there is under

the federal programs.

Those, you're at the mercy of your lender.

And for that, I can't tell you what's gonna happen.

But, you're at the mercy of a private credit-based lender,

and you owe tens of thousands of dollars. Good luck.

[soft dramatic music] BEVERLY WHEELIHAN: Think

about it like a car payment.

You've agreed this much money over this many months

at this much amount to pay it back.

When you don't [knocks], we want it.

Give me your pound of flesh, now.

And that pound of flesh could come in all different ways,

but they have to sue you to get that.

Then you have now, a judgement against you,

that they can then do other things. For instance.

Garnish a paycheck, if you have one.

Garnish a bank account if you have one.

Repossess a vehicle if you own it,

to be made whole because they lent you money.

What we also have to think about though, with that is,

roughly 90% of those are co-signers.

So the co-signer could be mom or dad,

grandma and grandpa is a huge one,

and there's nothing worst, sitting around

thanksgiving table, telling grandpa

you can't pay that, and grandpa already knows

because he was served with a lawsuit too.

SETH F: We had borrowers with private student loans,

where they would be paying their loan on time, faithfully,

and they're, like, parent or grand parent

who co-signed their loans died, and instantly, despite the fact

that they were paying, they're like, "Now your in

default, give us all our money."

BEVERLY: I had someone -- She was in a horrific car accident,

paralyzed her and her mother was killed in the car accident

which triggered the default on the private student loans.

She was hoping to get back to work.

She was, you know, working for her degree in nursing

and she had a closed head injury.

And I thought, okay, this is the case!

This is it!

We can do this!

And, the court, in that at the end of the day,

because she was gonna qualify most likely for

home social security disability, that meant that she had

the ability to pay it back.

LAUREN: Green bean casserole with stuffing,

but I want to try to figure out how to make stuffing,

cause even if I add some broth to it, it won't be so dry.

JUSTIN: It won't be dry.

[chuckling] LAUREN: Yeah.

But we'll try it and see.

JUSTIN: One way to find out.

When it came to student loans, like you could

get whatever you wanted.

[ominous music] There's problems

on both sides of that.

There're people that are giving them money,

and there are people that are taking the money.

I mean, $95,000 times 15 residents,

you're talking about 1.3 million dollars

in tuition from 15 people.

[ominous music] And the international residents

that were there paid $140,000 in tuition every year.

140.

You're a number.

You're a paycheck.

[ominous music continues] And who you're surrounded

by in those years are people who probably know nothing

about personal finance.

Have the same loans that you have.

And you literally just -- You do everything you can

just to not even think about it.

It's not like, I'm getting a loan and they're

giving me the money and then I have to actually

give it to the school.

I never saw it.

It's scary.

But at that point you're just like, whatever man.

With all the interest and everything that I

already had on my loans, I probably had 500 or $600,000.

I'm like, sure just throw it on there.

[ominous music continues] LAUREN: You wanna go ahead

and take care of that?

Can we do the impressions?

JUSTIN: [indistinct response] LAUREN: Okay.

It's a ton of money, and it is.

It's scary.

And I think early on too, it was just --

We had to have like a lot of, like, hard

conversations about it.

How are we gonna pay it off?

Do we just go on a minimum repayment plan

and you just pay it off forever?

Like, how do you even begin to get out of it.

JUSTIN: The people who are writing the loans,

they don't care.

I just got an offer on my student loan, like,

"Oh, you qualify to lower your interest rate!"

Well, why'd you wait till I have $300,000 in interest

to lower my interest rate?

Why don't you lower it before?

Cause you just wanted all the interest.

MIKE: These student loans, you know, they never go away.

Unlike so much other debt that can be "forgiven,"

you know in the wake of a bankruptcy for instance.

It's like stepping in gum, man, like it's with you,

forever and ever and ever.

LAUREN: So, it is accruing about $6,000 of interest every month.

[upbeat music] JUDGE: Mr. Frotman, you are now

recognized for five minutes to present your oral testimony.

SETH F: Over the course of the last decade,

I traveled all across this country

talking to thousands of people in big cities,

small towns and nearly every slice of America in between.

And from these conversations, I have found one aspect

of life cuts across.

The fall out from extraordinary student debt.

There are now more than 8 million student loan

borrowers in default.

We had a million student loan borrowers default last year,

year before that, the year before that,

year before that, So if you do the math.

That means, every 28 seconds, another student loan borrower

defaults on his loan.

On top of that, we have three million

more borrowers who are behind.

That's over 10 million people, or one out of four

student loan borrowers who are having their

financial lives ruined as they can't make

their payments.

People with student debt had just felt invisible.

You take on debt?

That's what you're supposed to do.

This is good debt, stop complaining.

But the ramifications for your financial life

are the same if not worse.

Like student loan borrowers have less rights, less protections,

and we use the full weight of the government

to make sure you pay that back.

[intense music] ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I look

at all of the things that are going on right here,

and I'm just -- Article after article,

what certainly seems like a very large amount of corruption.

In 2009, SallieMae CEO said, "If a borrower can create

condensation on a mirror, they need to get a loan this year,"

in order to put their sub-prime lending in place.

Navient forwarded wrong information of credit

reporting agencies, saying that permanently disabled

veterans had defaulted on their loans when they hadn't.

Then you have I.T.T. Credit Union using financial aid staff

to rush students up through an automated application process

when they knew that they had projected

default rates as high as 64%!

So they were setting people up to fail.

SETH F: These are series of public policy choices

at the federal government, at the state government,

that have gotten us here.

I think this is the intersection between so much debt

and illegal practices, right?

Because, there's this enormous mismatch between what borrowers

are promised and what's happening on the ground,

and in between are student loan companies,

this is not just some one-off company or like, one bad apple.

You see players across the student loan spectrum

who just view this as their chance to get rich.

[dramatic upbeat music] LYNN SABULSKI: My name

is Lynn Sabulski, I am a former employee

of Navient's call center.

I thought it was going to be really easy straight forward job

that I would understand the rules, that

I would perform well.

The longer, I was there, I started to notice red flags.

[phone ringing] People were being asked to lie.

People were not being given the right information.

In general, there was just this oppressive environment

that wasn't really allowing the representatives to do the job

that they were being paid to do.

BEVERLY: There is a memo that Navient Counsel told

and had the mantra to the people that you would call,

those customer service people.

Forebear, forebear, forebear.

Get these people that way.

- Forbearance: an agreement to postpone

your loan payments while interest continues to accrue.

LYNN: When Navient puts an account in forbearance,

they get to collect the interest.

Those loan balances increase, they are now collecting interest

on top of interest.

That is the most beneficial scenario for them.

SETH F: We sued one of the biggest student loan companies

in the country, Navient.

And a single claim, as part of that lawsuit,

documented how the practices of this company added four billion,

with a B, dollars of unnecessary interest

on to the most vulnerable borrowers.

AYANNA PRESSLEY: Mr. Frotman, our friends across the aisle

have mentioned that student loan services are supposedly

not incentivized as to your borrowers towards forbearance

and they are not financially incentivized to give borrowers

poor or outright incorrect advice.

Yet, an audit release by the D.O.E. in February this year,

found that more than 60% of the department's oversight report,

contained examples of servicers acting improperly.

If our friends across the aisle are correct,

and loan servicers are not incentivized to make mistakes

and give poor advice, then why is this consistently happening?

SETH F: Because they're wrong.

Because they are incentivized to give bad advice.

They're incentivized to get their call reps off the phone

as quick as possible, which we see across the industry,

leading to the outcomes we have today.

LYNN: This part of our training was keeping your

calls to seven minutes.

If I don't keep my call to seven minutes,

I have a lower status at the end of the day.

I'm considered as not having performed as well.

If you're a representative and you're choice is,

"give this person the help they need,

or get in trouble in some way shape or form,"

then really, you're pitting one person against the other.

I was talking to my co-workers over lunch and over break,

and a few of my co-workers said that,

there's just no way to answer all of those questions

in a way that was satisfactory and maintain

the numbers that we were maintaining.

And so, they would be on their call, and they would just press

a button and go, "Oops!"

[phone dial tone] PHONE RECORDING: We're sorry.

Dial again.

BEVERLY: Funny enough, Navient's still in business,

making a kajillion dollars a year, and still has contracts

with the federal government.

Hm. Angry yet?

CATIE BECK: On the shoreline of Maui's Wailea Beach,

at the luxurious Fairmont hotel, SallieMae executives

and more than a hundred of its employees

are on a five day paid trip celebrating a record year.

5 billion in student loans to 374,000 borrowers!

RAY QUINLAN: Planning session and recognition

of accomplishments for our sales force, is but

something that has been done, I'm gonna say, since the

company was founded in 1972.

And it's recognition of the hard work,

but it's an important piece of planning.

I think we're done.

SETH F: That is, like, a general sentiment

that we hear frequently, which is, "We love getting the money

to be involved in the student loans system."

But when it actually comes to doing the work to help borrowers

to avoid the defaults, you know, how dare you

accuse us of being part of the problem.

And so, we sued this company in court,

and one of their top legal arguments were, "Judge,

you should dismiss this case because we have no

actual responsibility to help borrowers."

JOSIAH: I'm being cheated out of my paycheck.

I could retire two years after I'm done

paying my student loans.

It's like paying for retirement and literally never seeing

a dime of it ever again.

SETH F: You should know the names of the companies

that have targeted your constituency.

Citibank, Discover Bank, Navient, Pheaa, QuinStreet,

SallieMae, SoFi, Transworld, Wells Fargo,

and the list goes on.

[soft dramatic music] LYNN: In a way,

there's no morality in the student loan system

because there is no one that's going to stop

you from borrowing.

At the end of the day, it's just, you know,

you type a couple buttons in, and on the other side there's a

student loan with some numbers.

That is the most personal it gets.

[ominous music]

JOSIAH: So, this right here is my college diploma.

Don't even take it out of the envelope.

In fact, I had to have my mother mail it to me,

'cause I didn't know what it was.

So, let's see.

Stamped, signed and sealed.

That's not going to ever be framed.

Not going to ever leave this envelop again,

and I'm sure I could have the degree.

It allows me to do something that I love to do in teaching,

but this piece of paper is something that has brought

a lot of pain in my life.

I don't really want to look at it.

[soft suspenseful music] AMARI: You could talk to someone

who's graduated 10 years ago, and they still

owe student loans.

So it's like, if I could meet a complete stranger

and this is what we have in common, that's an issue.

[music continues] JUSTIN: The borrower is

a slave to a lender, and like, that's so true.

When you have this kind of debt or really any

debt, you feel that.

It changes who you are, and how you can behave.

It changes your life.

GPS: You've arrived at your destination.

DAVE: The choices that they've made now own them.

And they were led down this primrose path by a set of values

put on them by a series of guidance counselors and parents

who weren't thinking, educators who were out of control,

and a congress who continues this ridiculous

student loan debacle.

And here they sit trapped.

And they do not know what to do.

COURTNEY: I'mma try to do this without crying.

I feel like, when he told me how much student loan debt he had,

it wasn't going to make me change the way I felt about him.

Like, you're debt isn't bringing you down as a person, you know?

Millions of Americans are struggling with

the same problem.

Like, it's not just your fault.

I like, I don't care how much debt he'll ever have.

I will still always love him.

But I don't think he realized that.

JOSIAH: I feel like I've failed as the provider, as the husband,

because I'm the reason that we're in so much debt.

We only had a total of $142,000.

A hundred and twenty some of that is my college.

It's literally like saying, you're the reason

your team is losing.

If they -- If you weren't on this team,

we'd be winning.

But because of one thing, it takes everybody down with them.

[soft dramatic music] COURTNEY: The first hardest

thing it was for me was right after we got married,

we could not go on a honeymoon.

And I know that sounds, like, cliche, but like,

you don't realize you'll never have that,

like, moment, that like, time again.

Like, newlyweds get to go to like this awesome place.

Like it's something you look forward to when you get married.

And like, we lost out on, like, that time.

That was hard.

JOSIAH: I know she still loves me no matter what,

and I'm so grateful for that, but, it's stopped us

from being able to get a house when we moved down to Van Wert,

and it stopped us for a long time from not having kids.

Like, I'm not being the man that I'm supposed to be.

[soft dramatic music] JUSTIN: Looking at, you

know, what it's gonna look like to actually

attempt to pay it off, paying somewhere

around $10,000 a month, you know, sounds like

it's gonna, you know, actually do something,

but it's not gonna do as much as you'd like to

think that it will.

At some point, it's gonna have to be, you

know, you're paying 20, 30, $40,000 a month.

To be able to pay 30 or $40,000 a month, I mean,

you gotta be making a lot of money.

You know I think, realizing, you know, what it is

and just knowing that...

[coughing] you know it's probably

not going to be possible, you know without --

[voice breaking] the help of God.

I mean...How am I going to make that much money?

[sniffling]

But, all you can do is just try, so...

SETH G: There're a lot of people who quite rightfully say,

I did everything I was told to do.

Now, I'm in a boat load of debt.

I'm not happy about it.

How're we gonna keep this cycle from repeating itself.

Well to the first group of people,

I'm sorry that you shouldn't have trusted the system.

The system let you down.

How do we keep from repeating it is,

stop telling people this is what they're supposed to do.

Stop telling people that this is the path.

It might be easier.

It's definitely more fun in the short run, but here it is,

with sub-titles: "THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO."

What you're supposed to do is figure out how

to make a contribution, not figure out

how to make a marketing, industrial governance system

happy in the short run.

DAVID: What was the first step you took in

terms of you getting out the lifestyle that you were.

ANTHONY: Yeah.

Changed my mind.

What are you putting inside of this, that comes out of this,

that comes out of this.

A degree that y'all are tryn'a get,

is a small degree when it comes to your life.

This right here is everything.

And when I changed what I was putting up here,

that's when my whole life changed.

Each and every single one of you all need to have a clear vision

of what you wanna do.

The vision is not, "I wanna go to this school.

I wanna have this experience."

No, what is the vision for your life.

"I wanna have options.

I want freedom."

The question is, are you willing to put in the work upfront.

If you can grasp that, you will be successful.

[soft dramatic strings] DAVID: Going into my senior

year, I knew it'd be close.

I can do the Math, so can you.

Working at a normal hourly job would not pay

the necessary $14,000 I needed for school.

I knew what I had to do.

I went for something with more opportunity,

and that was a sales commission job,

and really went and made the most of it.

Usually worked four days a week, 10 hour shifts,

and then on my off-days, I'd sell lawn-mowers and flip them.

Driving across the state.

Hey, how's it going!

MALE: Good, how 'bout you?

DAVID: Good!

It's right over here.

Little did I know that, there was so much opportunity in it.

[uplifting music] DAVID: Well, I know you had it

listed for six but, would you take five on it, cash?

[mower running] ANTHONY: We gotta teach

young people how to really take ownership

of their life.

If they're paying something outta their pocket,

they will take their education experience

a little more serious, because now they can say,

my parents didn't pay for it, we paid for it.

DAVID: This is just simplistic to me.

It's something that I understand and,

I don't think lawn-mowers is for everybody.

So, someone who is interested in shoes would be better suited

to do something like that.

As long as you have knowledge in an area,

you can probably figure out a way to make money with it.

SETH G: During this expensive period,

if you have the resources, and the time,

how will you choose to spend it,

so that when the system tries to squeeze you,

you can say, "No thank you!"

DAVID: Got these pictures uploaded,

gotta do some cropping, get them posted, then wait.

There was one guy I bought a bigger zero-turn, paid $1,700.

Brought it home, washed it, listed it,

sold it for $2,600 same day.

My mom would be dumbfounded.

"Are you sure you're allowed to do that?"

Like, Mom, it's selling lawn-mowers, I don't

know what else you want.

You definitely have a lot of noise around you saying,

take out loans, you're not able to do this.

Once you find that window of opportunity though,

and realize that if you repeat this process over

and over like I did with lawn-mowers,

there's just so much empowerment.

And that feeling of running after this goal,

and chasing it down and putting everything you have into it,

that's hard to explain.

Alright, she's all ready to go.

CUSTOMER: $800, yeah?

DAVID: Yep!

When you start opening your eyes and looking

to these unique opportunities, you could

add value in unique ways.

All good!

Enjoy it!

In total, that summer, I probably made around $13,000.

That point, I could say, I'm getting out of these

four years debt-free.

DAVID: Well, I dunno if we're allowed to go here, but we are.

Ah sweet!

That's cool.

DR. JOHN: So I remember once when I was an undergrad

and I asked my history professor, "Why did

they send all these 18 and 19 year old US soldiers

to a Normandy invasion?"

And he said something that shook me.

He said, "Because any combat veterans who saw that plan

would have said no way."

[soft dramatic music] D-Day worked because

of some extraordinary planning, some extraordinary sacrifice.

And what he said, was good ol' fashioned,

unabated American teenage arrogance.

Cause they got up in front and told those boys,

Nine out of ten of you will not come home.

90 out of 100 of you are not coming back.

And those guys in line went, "Sucks to be that guy, right?"

And they did that all the way down.

'Cause when you're a teenager, you're invincible.

It's gonna happen to somebody else.

And so, I have to know, no matter how honest I'm being,

and how upfront I'm being, "Hey, this is expensive,

and you're gonna have to pay this back."

I have to know that my end consumer,

the 18-year-olds going "Okay, we'll get there,"

and has no understanding of what $700 a month

actually feels like out of a $2,400 a month paycheck.

CLAYTON: I just -- I feel like I'm just so worried about what,

like, having a sacrifice my happiness for

like a cheaper route.

Like having to sacrifice what really makes me happy

and brings me joy on a day to day basis just to save money.

Like, happiness is worth anything. Like,

you know what I mean?

That's the part I'm confused on.

Like, if you're not happy in life, at that given moment,

no matter what it takes, does it really matter,

the happiness later on?

ANTHONY: I'm not saying you can't be happy.

I want you to be happy.

But I feel as if your happiness comes from something

that is outside of education.

And I feel as if you're looking for something

to confirm something on the internal side of you,

not something to help you grow as a man.

Because, if you're looking for the education,

then you can get the education anywhere.

But from what you said, you just wanna go there

so you can have a good time.

I would really step back and ask myself,

what's more important.

Happiness for four years that cost me 30,

or a little bit of happiness but hard work

that really makes me happy for the rest of my life.

And if it was me, I'm saying, "Man, I'm putting in the work."

[soft string music] DAVID: I look back

at my four years, and, is was the time of my life.

I got to travel a bunch for really cheap.

Been to Alaska, California, Texas, Florida --

But the reality is, it's not the buildings,

it's not the sports, it's not the land around the school

that make the experience.

It's all up to you.

It's not the school that's gonna change that.

[soft string music] DAVID'S MOM: So which one

of these are you sitting at.

DAVID: I'm way, like, over there.

You'll have to get your binoculars out

and squint a little.

MOM: I actually brought them.

DAVID: You did?

MOM: I did.

ANTHONY: You know what the difference is between

a normal person and someone who is not normal?

Is the not normal person was willing to do the things

that normal people are not willing to do.

I do not want to live the majority of my life

not being able to do what I want to do

because I gotta pay for things in my past.

That's the normal I refuse to be a part of.

SETH G: Students need to begin by saying,

I refused to be brainwashed into believing

that if I get into a good college,

that means I'm better than if I don't.

So go find a door you can afford and go through that door.

And figure out how to marshal the resources you need.

Whether it's scholarships or only going part time,

or taking a gap year, and working like crazy,

putting $25,000 in the bank, so at least, your first year,

you're not starting with free and easy money

you're going to be paying off for decades.

DAVE: It never was the degree that caused people to succeed.

It was the knowledge base, the tools in their belt,

to be able to get their work done.

That's what caused people to succeed.

It's still what causes people to succeed.

Whether you can demonstrate that you have the skills

to do the job is going to be a much higher indicator

than where you went to school or for that matter,

even if you have the degree.

MIKE: I think there's a real opportunity for

guidance counselors and parents to talk to their

kids about how they wanna work, as opposed to what

they wanna do.

I think a smarter thing to tell a person who's

trying to figure out what they want to be

when they grow up, is to say, "Put it all

on the table."

And if you do that, you're liable to be a very happy,

satisfied plumber, making six figures a year,

or perhaps running our own mechanical contract company.

It's not the job that makes you happy, it's you.

SETH G: So what this is really about is freedom.

It's about earning the freedom to decide what

you wanna do next.

ANNOUNCER: David James Wilson, Bachelor of Arts,

Business Administrations, Summa Cum Laude.

ANTHONY: Here's a secret to you about being successful.

You're not looking at the picture today.

You're looking at the end picture, what kind

of future do you want, and the choice you're

making now will impact it.

DAVID: I can choose what opportunities I want.

I can choose where I want to live.

I can decide my job.

I can focus my time on things that matter to me.

Which will lead to greater satisfaction down the road.

The best feeling is knowing that this journey that I'm starting

with the rest of life, I don't have to carry

any baggage with me.

[uplifting music] ANTHONY: Can you imagine getting

off that stage, going home, walking into your

job for the very first time, it's your career,

and when you get that first paycheck, that

paycheck is yours?

[uplifting music continues] Can you imagine having freedom

at 22, making 35, 40, $45,000 a year?

[uplifting music continues] Walking the stage debt-free

is not just about walking the stage debt-free, but you're

walking into life debt-free.

[uplifting music ending]

["Polar Nights" playing]