S2 EP3 - The Squid Games Of Education - Finances In Higher Ed

Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to MU talks with your hosts Aline Bransilla and Rob Hildebrandt Today. Boy. Today we are talking about, I think, a topic people are gonna be interested in, the whole notion of where we're at in this country with finances, disparity, the cost of living, income, unemployment, the Squid games, you know, it, we'd like to talk about. So if you're on, if you're able to leave us a comment, join this discussion, Go ahead, because we're going to talk about it today.

Welcome to the educational Squid game. In this podcast, there's a person that has watched part of Squid Game. There's a person that has read commentaries about the Squid game.

True.

So if you're a Squid Game fan, why. Why are you a Squid Game anyway? If you're. If you're a Squid Game fan, we're taking an idea from there. An interesting idea. Rob, walk us to what is Good game.

Right. So I think, I think this show has become massive. If you've been, if you've been paying ATT 90 million or 90 countries in the world, it's the number one Netflix show set to break all the records. And I think it struck a nerve with people. I think it's touched the zeitgeist, if you don't know what that word means, the spirit of this age. You look around, you see all the help wanted, you see the unemployment, you see perceived financial ruin or certainly desperation, financial desperation and kind of an eat the rich mentality among some. And I think a lot of folks in the first world are feeling like there's an increasing disparity between the musks and the Bezos of the world with their space faring, you know, hobbies. And then the average person who's just trying to afford their iPhone 17 or whatever, their $2,000 iPhone, you know, just the poor guy on the street, sorry. Starting controversy. Anyways, along comes the show, the Squid Game. Now the big. We don't want to spoil it because, I mean, maybe we don't want to. No. By the way, precursor. The just kind of. It's kind of gory. And so for me, I, I watched it, but I definitely fast forward a lot of stuff. And there's also some other stuff you want to fast forward in later episodes. But the fast. The premise of the show is fascinating. It's dystopian. That means it's. It looks to a future, that is where things have gone bad. But it's not very futuristic, like it could happen tomorrow. Like it's not, there's not like hover cars and stuff like that flying around, but it's basically a situation. It's. It's a South. South Korean film, a foreign language. And, and it's a situation where there's all these people who are in desperate straits financially. Like, they've, they've made. Some of them have made bad decisions, some of them have had things happen to them unexpectedly, but they're desperate. Like loan sharks are ready to come and break their legs kind of thing. And, and so they run into this guy who, who basically offers to give them a bunch of money on a chance betting game. And so they do this chance betting game, and when they don't have money to pay it, he goes, okay. He's like, I'll let you know. Pay off your debt by me slapping you. And, and the guys are so desperate, they say, okay. And so they're playing this game and they keep getting slapped and finally they win the money and they're happy. Just like, I don't know, a thousand bucks or 500 bucks, something like that. And so then he goes, if you want a chance for more, call us here. And so these, whatever, 450 or so people all join this, this contest which becomes increasingly violent, which people die because. Because they're desperate for money. Now, now, obviously there's a hundred stories, but the big story is it's looking at the world and saying, look, we live in a world where people are so desperate financially they're willing to be killed, to kill, to become, you know, hurt, just to try to survive. And that says something bad about our society. So, you know, crazy, crazy stuff.

Well, interesting to look at the great resignation that is happening in our nation. A great deal of people quitting their jobs. I, I recently talked to somebody and said, look, we have a youth group here and we wanted to invite you and another person to talk about mandates, to talk about all these. Because this young generation, they're just gonna quit their jobs, but they're not. They don't have informed opinions. They have opinions, but they don't have informed opinions. And they're willing to sacrifice their careers. All their stuff. Yeah, for, for some, some information, for some opinions. And so let's talk about this more detail. You have the greatest res. Are let go from their jobs because they, they oppose a mandate or they just want to change their careers.

Yeah.

I traveled recently and it was fascinating to see airports shutting down, all restaurants, all stores, all this at 7pm in the night. I actually went to PDX. I went to the Sacramento Airport, nothing. You couldn't buy a bottle of water. There's nothing. They're not, they're not enough people. American Airlines, they can't hire people because they. Yeah, they can't hire people. People don't want to go back to that kind. Airlines canceled a thousand flights in, in Chicago, not enough people. People come back. So.

Right.

So there are some things happening around us. And so I want to hear your thoughts on the financial disparity and, and all these things. For me, I'm thinking of education. I'm thinking of. Yeah, of now. Nothing has changed in terms of how much education costs.

Right.

No, we, we know that. But the good question, that remains in.

The last couple of years. Like, nothing has changed.

Yeah. In the last couple of years. My statement through Covid.

Oh, right, right.

But things have changed. And I'm thinking if, if co. Really reopened the conversation of the cost of education and what am I, what am I going to get out of it? Is it, is it now that we are offering what we're offering in education is worth playing the Squid game of life and doing anything you can. Possible.

Yeah.

You know, under the sun. For you to actually get this education. At the end of that game, will you actually get what you're promised to get? Would you be sacrificing that? You'll be really cool to see if, you know, if we have people live or people commenting after they see this podcast on this, responding to this, thinking, like, would you do if, if you were now independent, would you do your, your university again? Would you, would you go through your program again and pay what you paid, get the debt and all that. Would you do that again?

So I had, I was making a comment actually on the Squid game. We were talking about finances, and I had one friend, a very smart friend, who wrote a good comment on the post talking about basically that how he feels that society lied to him. Like, you know, you'll. If you get your degree and if you get this, you'll be set up to go to this job. And I think that's not uncommon for people to be asking that question, you know, because, you know, the whole idea of a degree will guarantee you the American dream. And I think a lot of folks have given up on that notion. And so, you know, it's hard to say now, here's where it's tricky about it. So you're like, okay, sure. So is education a good investment? I think the numbers still say that it is. Like, when you look at the studies, you get the degrees and you, you Know if your life is only about money, I think it still makes sense. But it is tough when guys can go into the trades and get a real good living, you know, and without, without the degrees. And I, you know, I applaud them for it. I'm not, you know, against that. I think that's a good move for some folks for sure. But on the other hand, you're kind of thinking, well, you hate to limit your options, too. So when you're thinking of your own kids, for example, you have kids, will you tell them to go to school? I'm going to tell them, yeah. I know, me. Same for me. I'm like, I see how it could be a good financial move to go straight into building a business. But on the other hand, I still like the options that education affords you. So it's tricky. What do you think? You think it's a good deal? Is it a. Is it a.

Well, I think it's. It's actually why I, I like this period, even though I work in administration in higher education.

Right.

It's because it's actually making the universities answer some questions that they thought it was status quo or they thought it was. They were already answered, and I don't think they were answered.

Yeah.

And that is, what are we doing? Why are we doing what we're doing? How is what we're doing connected to the heartbeat of society? Are we preparing people for today's or tomor tomorrow's world or for yesterday's world? Is our curriculum? Is our education? Is our process, our processes built to prepare them to meet the world that is tomorrow or even today? Let's say, let's not be so, so bold as to be futuristic, but, but today. Or are we preparing them for a world that no longer exists? Right. So I think this is forcing and the financial discussion is forcing these points more than ever where people are now considering. And they're voting with their budgets. Right. Yeah, here's. And they're voting with their. With their money. One of the shockers that happened for me, Rob, in, In participating in a meeting with provost from United States of America organized by eab.

Yeah.

Was the fact that nobody experienced a drop in enrollment.

Yeah.

Not one university. Actually, there were multiple universities that have experienced an increase in enrollment throughout the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic. So I was really, really interested in, in people. In times of crisis, they go back to school. Right. And, and, and yet the changes with the pandemic are significant in terms of the marketplace. So many openings, so many jobs. All this, you know, and you are going to invest a great deal of money. Is that going to connect you with the marketplace? Is that going to help you? So I'm, I'm curious about that.

Yeah, I think. And you know, a lot of people. So you're in, you know, you're seeing posts on Facebook, people saying like, promote the trade schools is with the same forever. You promote the regular schools. And a lot of people take sh. Education and sometimes I'm one of them, you know, but. But I think, honestly, I don't think there's bad people trying to run these schools. I think it's just the way the country has kind of evolved and it's. I've described it sometimes as a tuition's arm race and it's driven by the consumer, honestly, because let's say you got school A and they build a better sports field and they build a better dining hall, and they hire more people to support you and give you toe pedicures or whatever. And then the students choose A and so B, School B is kind of like, well, we got to have a, you know, dining hall and we got to have more meatballs and we got to have someone to do manicures as well. And. And it just kind of goes back and forth. And so the schools keep spending money, but, oh, there's our camera.

That goes. Our camera.

I think the Lord's unhappy with the. No, I don't think the Lord's unhappy. I'm just kidding. I'll keep talking while he changes the camera. So, so honestly, I don't think it's that you've got evil and certainly you don't have overpaid. Like, a lot of educators are not paid a ton, like quite, you know, fairly modest, I think salary. So it's not that people are getting rich off school, but I think it's just the. The market is responding to the supply. Is that right? The demand is responding to the supply. You know, the students choose this and so the schools have to do it. And so it's. It's a complicated problem, the cost of education. Because if one school, let's say we want to say, like, I'm always like, man, I wish we could make tuition 10,000 bucks. It'd be great for our students. But then we do that and none of the other schools do that and the other. So the students looking like, hey, where's my. Where's my toe pedicure? I'm obviously being facetious. You know, where's my really good dining hall food or whatever. And, and so it almost forces our hand to, to stay in line with the market. And so until there's some kind of major disruption, I don't think you're going to see a lot of changes on tuition.

And, and let's, let's talk about that. This is mu talks, this is university talks. We don't shy away from talking about. And, and we not financial experts. You're not, I'm pretty sure you're not coming to our podcast for financial expertise.

Dave Ramsey's brother in law.

Yes. We're not, we're not going to chase in the parking lot that you went to a restaurant. That's not what we do here. We're not. Dave Ramsey's right. But we do wrestle with the fact that what would be, what would be another, what would be so disruptive to. Actually I'm curious as we, as we think of this. So I'm, I'm part of a few, a few places where there's, there are a lot of discussions about the future of education.

Yeah.

And I like to keep myself in those spaces because the discussions are really good.

Yeah.

I was part of a discussion, it was a few hour long discussion with a few hundred people, experts from different fields on the future of the future of the world. Right. In terms of work, in terms of science, in terms of. So the discussion went for like six or seven hours. Shout out to clubhouse if whoever's a clubhouse member. These were experts in all the areas. What was interesting is nothing was left off the table. There was a person that was working in space issue like you know, they were the space architect.

Rob.

Space architect. They were building cities in the space. Cool. Talk about financial disparity. I'm still trying to get signal with my local provider here on. In Oregon. They're building cities in space.

Yeah. Yeah.

What was fascinating, that conversation most of most of those discussion had nothing to do with education. They in on, on everything they put on the table that needs be adjusted, needs to change. This is how it's going to change. Very little discussion education. And I remember coming and saying but who, who's going to train all these people, all these new crafts, all these new things? Like nobody. It's been three, four hours of conversation from every work from, from work from societies, from smart cities, from all the things that are going to happen in the future, in the near future. But almost no conversation on education and how much it actually had to be disrupted. How much is going to have to change to adjust to now we have smart cities in America. We have A race to space. We have all these things and yet the least disruptive and disrupted is education. So I'm curious how, what is going to be that disruption that is going to help education get to the next level, maybe become affordable? Maybe there's something, I, I'm curious what you think.

Yeah, I mean, you wondered if the for profit schools were going to do it. I'm not a fan of them at all. But you know, just by way of competition, it. Yeah, not a fan at all. But you wondered if that was going to do it. Obviously if students in large numbers just decided to reject the strategy, the life strategy, that would do it. I think in some ways, maybe some folks have mused if the halls of academia have overfilled their banks a bit. Like, you know, you had a time where the folks that were interested in ongoing study would go to school, but then, then along came this belief that you must go to school to succeed in life. And so that forced people that maybe weren't real interested in school to go to school. And maybe this is a correct, maybe it'll be a correction the other way back just to kind of a smaller crowd. Maybe some of the schools will go out of business. You know, that, that could be a thing too. I don't know. It's interesting. But the belief that's fascinating to me is watching the young people, a lot of them kind of with this eat the rich mentality like that, somehow, you know, those of us that don't make a ton of money are, are, I don't know, unfelt unfairly held back in a class system. That is predatory. And, and maybe there's some truth to that with some of the loans and things like that, predatory loans and credit cards and things like that. But boy, I don't know. I, I don't know. What do you think? Do you see the world? Is, is it predatory? Is. Feels like there's some disparity. Do you. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, and I actually wanted to ask you, I was curious what you think about, about this. If, if you think we have a, a financial problem or an education, a financial literacy problem.

Yeah.

Because we do live in the United States of America. If you live on the west coast of America, you are, you, you should be quite. At least you have access. Access and opportunities. And I'm not saying that people are not struggling. I think a lot of people are struggling. But we don't compare that to the rest of the world. We compare it to the rest of America or we compare it to the 1% and so access to resources, you know, all, all kinds of things here. I'm just curious if there's a financial literacy of saying, okay, you know, you're looking at your money, but are you looking at your money wrongly? Are you, you know, you're spending like left and right on all kinds of things, but you don't spend on what is, it's important. So I'm curious.

Yeah, I mean you probably heard my dig earlier with the 1700 iPhone, 17, $2,000 phone, you know, I, and okay, so you know, young people, I love you. You guys know, I do whole life working for you. There are a lot of times I walk into class and I'm like, I'm trying to fight for lower tuition, I'm trying to fight to save them money. And then I go in and everybody's got a newer computer and phone than me. I'm the one with the job. And I'm like, guys, you gotta, you know, you can't buy the five dollar coffee every day. And, and so like on one hand I think that the young people of this world have been dealt a very tough hand with the cost of housing and the complexity of their educational need and the cost of it. Those are tough things that they've got to navigate. But I think, and this is maybe part of, you know, both of us have some background in youth men, that the whole expanding period of adolescence, you know, it used to be that you kind of went from being a kid to being an adult. You MARRY Somebody at 17 and get your job and you build your little one bedroom house and you're ready to go. And now we got huge expensive houses and you got like 15 years of adolescence. You know, you're, and, and that whole elongation or prolongation, whatever of adolescence I think has sort of almost conditioned the generation to like, what are you going to do? You're stuck in the school. Well, you've got this money, you got a part time job and you've got all kinds of, what's the word? Cash, spendable, expendable, whatever that is. When you have money that you can spend. Discretionary income.

Yes.

And so you may as well go out to eat with your friends and you may as well go see the movie in the movie theater. And, and, and so I do think that's part of it. You know, I think some of the game that they're forced to play is awfully tough, but I do think it can be played and I think it can be won if you're disciplined and you just Learn how to say no to stuff. I, I made a comment on my Facebook about the importance of living with one within one's means. And I was surprised at the pushback I got on that. It just feels like such an obvious good life strategy, like, live within your means. I've been poor, you know, when I was a youth pastor, I remember dropping food off at the, at the homeless shelter and they were showing me the, you know, who qualifies? And I was looking, I'm like, I 100% qualify for food. And I was like, full time youth pastor. And again, I'm an immigrant. I'm an orphan. I know, I understand being poor. We had like our TV sitting on boxes and, and yet you live within your means. And this, I will say as an immigrant, this is the greatest country in the world for being able to escape your financial situation. You know, if maybe you're not able to work hard, if you're able to work hard and make some good decisions, you can beat it, you can win the game. But it does take discipline.

Yes, yes. And, and there are complexities to that. We acknowledge the complexities. I acknowledge the complexities. I'm an immigrant to this country and I acknowledge the complexities that are even next to me when it comes to, you know, race, ethnicity, all these things. There are many complexities.

Health care, the cost of health care.

You know, somebody made a mention to this recently and I, I, I thought it was profound. Jesus is going in a temple and flipping the tables, right? And he's flipping all these tables, money fall everywhere, all this, right? But he gets to the, he gets to the people with the pigeons. And he was like, take these away from here.

Oh, I didn't notice that he didn't flip that.

Right. He was like, look, man, you're, you're already, you're selling pigeons. I mean, you know, yeah, you're in this house, you're doing some business here, but you're selling pigeons, which means that, you know, like, you are literally on the lowest on that food chain. So I'm not going to flip your thing, but take these away from me. Right? And I think it's a great observation in the way that there is a disparity, Right. We do flip every table.

Yeah.

In higher education, you come in here like, you, you, that's it. Like you're on the same table. Doesn't matter that you come with pigeons. Doesn't matter that others. Everybody gets the same financial aid. People that needed, people that don't, whatever that happens there. We're not going to question the system. But I think what, what's interesting is that, you know, every time that Jesus dealt with something, he dealt with the system as well, not just with the person. If he healed somebody on the Shabbat, he healed the person and questioned the system. I'm quoting Paul Metzger right now, which, you know, he, he was saying, why are you doing it today? He could have done it on Monday, he could have done it on Tuesday. The person was still sick on Monday or Tuesday. He didn't just heal the person. He actually also addressed and heal the system and in, in financial disparity. I mean, we, we just, we keep talking about it, but there's not much being done about it because this is not an individual issue. This is not somebody that can come to the university and all this. I remember when I tried to apply to a university, I'm not going to give them their name here. It's a competition of our university. Even though this would put them in such a bad light and it'd be good, they're very expensive. Expensive, Very expensive. So I wanted to apply. I didn't know how much they cost. I wanted to apply to that university to do my masters there. And, and I told the admissions person that was working with him like, well, how much is this? He told me the price tag. And I was like, I'm a youth pastor. What? Like, I'm not. I can't. And he was like, man, you know, I'm gonna tell Jesus about this, that I can't come to. To university because of price. And he was so on the spot. He was like, if you talk to him, can you tell him about my salary, too?

That's crazy.

He was right on the spot. He was really good. Yeah, he was a good sport about it.

Right.

But it was, it was interesting because we were both people, you know, I'm not being able to go to that university because the price was just way out of my, like, I couldn't afford that university. And he was working there and saying, like, look, if you pray about this, I can afford my life because I work here.

Right?

Yeah, there is a system. It's bigger than my story, than that story. Right. This is a systematic issue that I think, think. I think right now it's coming under some pressure, so maybe, maybe something is going to happen. Because I'm a firm believer in education. I believe there's tremendous value in it. I do think of the ones that cannot come to the university, especially the, you know, the ethnic people, the people, you know, people of Color that sometimes cannot afford that, you know, and, and Paulo Freire is, I'm a big, I'm a big fan of Paulo Free Air. He said the poor people are not stupid, they're hungry. And it's a fundamental difference. We think that somebody that doesn't have access to this and somebody can afford this, they're lesser, they're not intelligent. That's not true. There's a lot of critical thinking happening. There's just brilliant minds and we're missing that, we're missing that voice in higher education. We are right. And I think, I don't know how I, I work, I work on the non financial side of it, but I think there is, there is a pressure put on us now, a healthy one, to make sure that the, the table is equitable, that we can bring people at this table somehow. And it's not just because of the financial disparity.

I think it could be done. I really do. I think it could be done. Now again, I'm an idealist, but I'm also pragmatist. I, I boy. A couple thoughts, A couple thoughts. Yeah, I, yeah, it's going to be complicated. It'll be interesting to see what will happen in the world. But I'm hopeful. I'm also like with I, by the way, for all my comments on, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstrap. Live within your for all my comments. I do think we have a disparity problem in the country, in the world, certainly in the world between countries, even worse. But one of the things that gives me Hope, my friend Dr. Derek Chin, who is our seminary dean, he also has an mba, I believe, and he was talking to me the other day about a book and I believe it was called Pitchfork Economics. And I'm going to not define it well because I have not read it. But the big idea, or as I heard it from him, one of the big ideas was that if there gets to be too great a disparity between the rich and poor, it actually hurts the rich as much as it hurts the poor. Because then of course the pitchforks come out and you get a French revolution and guys are losing their heads and obviously that's not good for the rich folks, you know, and, and, and the fact that there has becoming, it's becoming perceived and maybe really there is a greater diversity between the Bezos and the Mus. I think the government's probably going to do something and, and something like, okay, now to introduce more controversy. Universal health care paid for by the rich, you know, or something like that. And again, it doesn't have to be that. It's.

Here's the Canadian ladies gentlemen. The disclaimer of the fact that MU talks is not endorsed by multi university will come at the end. So just wait for it, wait for it.

But like, you know, there's got to be some way of, you know, setting the table fairly so people can get a shot at life. And I think the only good thing about the disparity increasing and becoming more visible is I think something will happen. I really do. So I'm actually optimistic.

You know, some. Somebody made a statement about universities and, and stayed with me and the fact that the universities are a brilliant space of the great leveler.

Yeah.

Because you have somebody that has very, very rich parents, they live in a dorm. You have somebody that barely made it to the dorm and lives in the dorm and they will be lifetime friends and you know, you get to make some connections there that we not make it in any other place. If you know, the university will actually bring people in the same dorms, in the same classrooms from different areas that you would not be able to go to the club where that family is going to go to connect with them. So, so there's a significant aspect of, you know, the alumni network. They're going to be part with the connections, lifetime connections beyond just the information. So I think there's another point for, for the, the value of, of connecting and being part of a community of learning and growing together with that.

Right. Yeah.

We're wrapping up this conversation today. Now here's, here's what you can do for us. If you're listening to this podcast after we post it. If you're listening to our Facebook Live after we, we concluded. Educate us. Tell us, what do you think? I mean we, I mean we really scratched the surface in 25 minutes on, on the discussion, but we're not afraid to talk about it. No, we are not afraid to talk about the fact, fact that we, we would love to see how this major system and it's not just a private education system or higher education system is a, is a social system with giving education the title higher. The higher education is a different kind of education with, with creating, you know, all kinds of incentives in workforce. If you have higher education, you get promoted this way and that way. You know, the credentialing and all the. There's an entire system that we're part of. We're not unique in this and everybody that tried to find alternatives, they actually perished somehow. Whether or not in a year or two, but they perished in time. So whoever comes and promises you something, you know, the shining star, immediately that's going to happen. They're going to have to fight an entire system. So, yeah, so we are not afraid to talk about this, even though it's way more complex than we're able to say it. But educate us, tell us. Tell us your thoughts on financial disparity.

And who knows, maybe you're the one to find the solution. You know, anytime you hear ideas that make you think there's any one of us could. Could fix this thing.

But what we want to raise attention to is the educational squid game. So I've learned from Rob today about squid game. I don't think I'm going to necessarily watch the whole thing because all the blood and all the stuff, my life is already complex enough that I don't have to with being involved in higher education. Yeah, but, but think of the, the metaphor. Think of, you know, the educational squid game. So in the squid game, I'm repeating in. Sure, correct me from wrong. Yeah. These are the people that put himself in a position. They've ended in a position. They got in a position to which now they can entertain options of seeing if they can get out of that situation by alternative means.

Yeah.

And they looked at these options and saying, okay, this is, you know, know. How do you look at education? What do you think education is going to do for you? Is this. You've put yourself in a position to which education is the only one that can help you. And if that's the case, how do you really see education? So for me, the metaphor of the squid game is an interesting one because you would be able to do sacrifices for something, but is the sacrifice greater than you actually expect it to be? So also, you know, people see squid game and they click on it now because they're stars of. So I hope you get to see this discussion on how I believe personally, and we are free to disagree here on this podcast. Rob and I don't think the same. That's why we're doing a podcast. Yeah, not always that education, even, even right now, even with the price tag of today, I'm gonna say something really do it is worth it.

Yeah.

Higher education is worth it. It's a lifetime investment. You know, somebody said financial aid is problematic. Somebody said that, and I thought it was interesting. Is the only investment is the only loan that you get that people don't assess.

Oh, interesting.

Because you go to a bank and they come and they do appraisal and they really appraise big time. If, if, you know they appraise, if that house is worth it, how much they're going to give you all this? You get a financial aid loan. I mean 160, $200,000 financial aid. And there's no appraisal, there's no assessment. It would be interesting to think if an assessment will be put together, would you pass it? If an assessment. I mean imagine the controversy of my discussion right now. Right. To be like, if they would assess, to be like. And this would be a self assessment, they would even you come and judge you. They will give you a self assessment.

Right.

And with really difficult questions in life. And you're going to get a 200,000 loan to actually invest in your education.

Yeah.

Would that raise some awareness of the fact that you're doing something that is lifelong? How is this going to influence you? How do you go about it? Because you're coming into it and you know, Malone University is not a party college.

No. Right.

But you're going to. You choose your school based on the fact that you can party, you can do all this and yet you take 200,000, $300,000 loan.

Ye.

And what do you, what do you expect out of that? What are you trying to get out of that? Right. Just to have a good old time or you're really into it to set yourself up. Anyways, many things to discuss. Rob, final thoughts.

No, man, don't take out 200, $300,000. That's for sure alone. But yeah, no, I've heard that too. It's education. And you know that kind of debt, debt's always bad. But if, if there is a good debt, betting on yourself, it's not the worst debt. You know what I mean?

Nope. No, it's not.

So I, yeah, I think education's still smart.

So thank you for being with us on the educational squid game topic here and really excited to hear your thoughts, whether it's on social media or wherever you see our post or on southcloud.com MU talks, Rob, let people know what we're about.

Oh yeah. So this is Mu Talks. It's just two friends talking in a room, a beautiful room, beautiful conference room on the campus of Multnomah University. While we both work for the university and love the university, our opinions do not necessarily speak for the university. Just a couple guys.

Just a couple guys.

Hope you enjoyed the show.

Thank you.

Yeah.