Choosing College (Or Not)

Hi, everyone. Michael Horne here, back with my co author, Bob Mesta of Choosing College. And we're here to talk about the title of the book that we chose. Is it really just about college?

Yeah, I get this question all the time. It's like, you know, it feels like it's. You wrote it for college, but it's. It feels like I. This is why I choose this workshop or this boot camp or something like that. And so, you know, is this really just for college?

Yeah, I mean, I get this question all the time, and something I say up front is like, we just chose that title because we thought it would. I mean, just to be honest. Yeah, we thought it would help sell, but really the lifelong learning part of it, the fact that you're is actually way more important than this.

That's right. But the interesting part is when we did interviews around people who wanted, like, who would go seek help, it was like, people who were looking to go back to college, they're looking to advising on that thing. But the reality is, the way the book is written, it's all about any type of learning engagement you do, whether it's going to the Khan Academy or it's going to, you know, learning Pivot Tables on YouTube to sign up for a workshop. I think it's. It's all of those kinds of things. And to realize that satisfaction is dependent upon which job, which context you're in as you're choosing that solution.

So, yeah, one of the biggest aha moments for me was when we uncovered the help me extend myself job. And I sort of snidely said to you as we were recording and writing that chapter, I said, you know, I've never experienced this job in my life. I've never, like, I have two kids and a mortgage. I'm not doing this. And you're like, I. Of course you've experienced it when you hire a podcast or read a book that's extending you.

Right. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah.

I was like, oh, right. It's not just about the college. Right.

Yeah. I think the other part of this is that the fact is, like, as you start to think through like, like the series of jobs, the lifelong learning, like, to me, the aha is when you start to connect it to say, like, well, when I went to school, I was this. And then. And I came out, I did that. And then it's like, I was in this extend job when I learned, I went to these three workshops. Like, if you look at your life as a whole, you realize that you have These different sets and portfolios of a job. Like I think we talked about today, if we could rename the book we'd read, you know, choosing College Perenn or not.

Yeah, I kind of wish we had done that, but.

Yeah, but I think it's the aspect of like, you know, or what else. Right. I think, I think the reality is, like, there's. There's so much here where I think the solution set of being able to learn comes not just from education, but I think, you know, our initial premise was, how do we actually help people with this decision? And now we actually take a step back and look at it like, I could actually go get a new job and actually, actually learn. I could actually go, you know, to be honest, and go get a. Like a micro certificate and go get. Learn something.

Look, it's the same way, like, Snickers doesn't just compete again, it doesn't compete against candy bars. It competes against Clif bars and our X bars and so forth and coffee.

And Red Bull and other things in other categories. And so part of it is being able to see what those things are. So, you know, I. I think the one other thing that I would say is that, you know, you and I talked about the regret we had, as if we could do one thing, it would have been, could we actually understand when people fired college, like, like, what caused them to say, today's the day. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to go anymore. And most people will use the excuse that, well, you know, I just didn't run out of. I ran out of money. But the reality is like, no, they chose not to borrow any more money because they weren't making progress. And so if any kind of supplement we could do along those lines, I think would be very helpful so we can understand the firing criteria of when people actually decide, like, this is not working and I got to do something totally with you. I mean, it's not necessarily a blind spot. It was something where we went in with, again, that really focused understanding of, like, how do we help people make better college decisions.

Yeah, and I totally with you. The firing decisions would have been fascinating. There's a company I'm involved with, Re UP Education. It re enrolls dropout students and then mentors them through to graduation. So they've collected a lot of the data about why do students leave in the first place. Financial is like sixth or seventh on the list or something like that. And I'm like, oh, if we could just put this through the jobs filter to understand how these forces work together or don't work together. And what are the different circumstances?

Some.

Some of that isn't help me get away. For example, if I drop out, I'm running from college because that's not working. That's right. But there's more to it that we really could have gotten.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that might be a supplemental, but we might do a few interviews and do a supplemental.

Maybe we'll put something out for you. So stay tuned.

Got it. Be well.