They Trained You to Be Broke — And Called It Education
Kamilah Stevenson argues schools teach compliance and memorization instead of wealth building. They skip investing, taxes, leverage, and credit while degrees in STEM and trades pay better than liberal arts without extra skills. Real wealth comes from psychological habits and early financial education, not credentials alone.
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What's up, Wealth Family? Let me tell you something that I wish I knew earlier about school, or traditional school. School will teach you how to memorize information, how to pass a test, how to follow a system, but school will not teach you how to build wealth. Y'all remember we used to dissect frogs, we learned about Pythagorean theorem, we study all kind of things, but nobody taught us how to invest. How to manage money or how to handle credit, how to buy assets, or how to build a life that we actually enjoy. That's not taught in school. And here we are, grown, educated, stressed, working jobs that we don't like because school prepared us to comply and not create. So today I want to talk about the truth of why traditional education is outdated and what kids really need to learn, because you're going to have to talk to them about this. You're gonna have to help set your children up for real financial freedom, right? Now, quick reminder, this is not financial advice. I'm sharing what I've learned through experience, through research, and through my own journey to financial freedom. And if you like conversations about wealth, then go ahead and hit that like button for me. It really helps the video and it helps push my video out to more people. And also make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next one. If you notice, I may be talking a little weird because I just had some tooth work done. But this shows you how much I love you and how dedicated I am to this page that I'm still here trying to give you the game. All right, first of all, let's start with this. We want to be clear, school is not bad, but the system that the school operates under is very outdated. It was created during the Industrial Revolution when the goal was to train people to become employees, clock in, follow instructions, don't question the process, Go home and then repeat. And guess what? A lot of schools never evolved past that. So we have kids learning information that they will never use in the real world, but they're not learning how to manage money or how to navigate credit, how to save, how to invest, how to communicate, how to actually think creatively or solve real-world problems. We're training them to get a job and not to build a life. We also teach them how to take tests, but not how to take risks. We prepare them to follow connections, but not to create opportunities. And then we wonder why people graduate, start making money, and still have no idea how to handle it. It's because school teaches academics, but wealth is psychological, emotional, behavioral, strategic. You learn how to get a diploma, but you didn't learn how to get free. Now let me go ahead and be balanced, okay? Because college can absolutely serve a purpose. It just has to be the right purpose. College makes sense when you're entering a specialized field, you need a license, or you need credentials, or you want access to a specific network. Degrees like maybe computer science, cybersecurity, engineering, finance, accounting, nursing, pre-med, pharmacy, mortuary science, IT, trades like welding, HVAC, electricians, or plumbers even. These can lead to real income, real stability, and real career opportunities because there is a direct translation from classroom to paycheck. These degrees pay your bills, let's not get it twisted. They still won't build wealth. You have to do some things with your profits in order to build wealth, but they do give you a skill set that the job market actually needs. So I'm not anti-school, I'm anti-wasting time and money on a degree that won't feed you. Now let's talk about the degrees nobody wants to be honest about. I'm going to say this with love and respect, but it's also with truth. These are degrees that simply do not translate into high-income careers unless you combine them with entrepreneurship, marketing, communication, or business skills. So degrees like political science, sociology, English, communications— unless you specialize African American studies, any studies, gender studies, women's studies, liberal arts. Now, are these subjects valuable to society? Yes. Are they culturally important? Yes. Are they interesting? Yes. But do they automatically translate into a job that pays, I don't know, $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year right out the gate? In most cases, no. And that's the part schools don't tell you. You're gonna graduate with a degree that you can't use, then you have debt that you can't pay off, and you have no clear path forward. Meanwhile, someone with a trade, a tech certification, or a STEM degree, they walk straight into the job market. So if a student chooses one of those degrees, I always tell people, go ahead, but you must pair it with skills that pay. That means, again, marketing, sales, communication, entrepreneurship, content creation, investing, or a tech skill, because the degree alone will not carry you anymore. And you know what's crazy? You know why school had us memorizing all of these equations, dates, and definitions? It never taught us the skills that actually produce income. Like, seriously, we spent months learning how to break down a frog but not learning how to break down a paycheck. Nobody taught us how to understand taxes, how to make money work for us. They didn't teach us leverage. And then don't get me started with communication. Communication is literally one of the highest paying skills in the world. Public speaking, sales, persuasion, writing, leadership. Yet schools never prioritized it. And because of that, people don't know how to manage money. And to be honest, most people aren't broke because they're not smart. They're broke because nobody taught them how to use their intelligence to produce income. School teaches us how to work. But wealth requires you to know how to think, how to strategize, how to create, how to position yourself. And no shade, but it's hard to learn wealth from someone who's never built it. And you can't learn freedom from someone who's always needing a paycheck to feel safe. And this is why so many adults are struggling. They're educated, but they're not equipped. So here's what I tell parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and honestly, just grown adults who are trying to restart their lives. This section is in partnership with iTrustCapital since they're the platform I use when it comes to crypto IRAs and rollover options. Let me say something real quick because a lot of people don't even know that this is possible. If you have an old 401k from a job you're not even at anymore, the money is usually just sitting there, and most people leave it on autopilot for years, sometimes decades, without ever revisiting what it could be doing. One option, and I'm saying option, not advice, is that you may be able to roll that into a crypto IRA. And when you understand what that means, it's not all about the hype. It's about access and structure. It's about positioning without constantly thinking, if I sell this, what's the tax bill going to be? That's why I've been using iTrustCapital. I like having a setup where I can get crypto exposure in an IRA framework and I can manage it without the same tax friction you deal with on regular accounts. If you do choose to work with iTrustCapital, there is a link that will give you a $100 funding bonus. If you want to look more into it, the link is in the description. You can reach out to them if you have any questions. Teach your kids how to invest before you teach them how to impress. Teach them how to build wealth before you teach them how to build a resume. Show them what an asset is, what ownership is, how compound interest works, how money grows over time, how to research companies, how to buy their first stock, how to save a percentage of every dollar, how to develop digital skills, how to solve problems, how to communicate clearly, how to think independently. Because once a kid understands investing early, They don't feel pressure to pick a career just for money. And that's what most people have to do. Instead, they can choose something that they actually love, right? And I really think this generation is connected with purpose and alignment and just really doing things that they're passionate about. But it's hard for most people to operate in passion when it's not profitable. And see, once you're able to do that because you're an investor, now that's freedom. It's not working a job you hate until you're 65 or living paycheck to paycheck or stressing out every month. Freedom is when your money starts working harder than you do. And that's what the next generation needs. Not more worksheets, not more tests, not more memorization. They need wealth education early. And I'm teaching my family this every single day. All right, family, if you can resonate with this, do me a favor and hit that like button for me and subscribe so that you don't miss a video. Share this with someone who needs to hear it. There's parents out there and grandparents that need to start having this conversation. Even if they didn't do everything right, the conversation needs to be had. And I want to hear from you in the comments. What's one thing you wish school had taught you about money? Drop it below. I love reading your perspectives. Also, make sure you check out the links in the description. We got community resources, powerful tools, and financial education programs to to help you raise your wealth IQ and build confidence around your money. And if you want to go deeper and you're ready to build the mindset, the habits, the strategy that leads to real financial freedom, that's exactly what we do in our 90-Day Wealth Accelerator. The link is in the description. All right, stay wise, stay intentional, and keep building wealth the healthy way. I'll see you in the next one.
