Why This Money Advice Has EXPIRED
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Is a college degree still worth the cost in today’s economy?
Expired. Like the old milk in your fridge, this money advice might have been good at one point, but now it's time to pour it down the drain.
I am so excited because today we get to look at five pieces of financial wisdom that people traditionally considered to be true, and we're going to tell you why that might not be the case anymore.
I'm Brian, he's Beau, and we're financial advisors here to make sure you aren't working off of expired advice. With that, let's jump right in.
All right, Brian, so the very first piece of advice that we think has expired, I think this is going to get a little bit, get us in a little bit of hot water, and that is the advice that you need a college degree. Look.
This might on surface seem spicy, but we got the numbers. We are actually showing up with the receipts. Without a doubt, education is a ladder of opportunity. You crawl up this, become a better version of yourself. But somewhere along the way, we have turned the goodwill of education into something that is just... It's expensive. And if you need proof, here's the receipts.
Look at this. In 1978, the cost of one year of college was $2,142. At that time, minimum wage was $2.65 an hour. So if you just took the cost of college divided by the minimum wage, it would take you about 808 hours or about 16 hours a week working part-time to be able to pay your way through school. That's what it looked like back in 1978. But if we fast forward to today... the average cost of one year of university is $22,178. You compare that with minimum wage, which is $7.25. Now, it would take you 3,059 hours or 59 hours a week just to be able to pay your way through school. These two are not the same.
Yeah, I mean, because look, in the first one is where all the movies and stuff where you're working the part-time job, you're going to college part-time, and then you still got a little time to go out there and make memories with your friends. The second one, not even close. close to being in reality when you have to work 60 hours a week. And that doesn't even include school, doesn't include anything else you get to do with memory making. It's just a bad deal. And a lot of you probably watch this and go, well, inflation has been bad. Well, guys, let us go ahead and pull the curtain open on this. This is, you're looking at this and go, yeah, college has gone up. No, no. Look at what this slide is actually showing you.
This graph is saying the annual cost of college inflation adjusted, meaning that if it was just keeping up with inflation, this line would actually be flat. We went above and beyond. Cost of college has gone up way beyond what inflation is.
Yeah, for those of you out there listening, back in the early 1970s, the cost in real dollars of a public four-year college was just under about $10,000 a year. Now inflation adjusted, even after accounting for normal increases in inflation, the price has gone up in real dollars to almost $25,000 a year. That's 150% increase over the last 50 years. And if you think that's bad for public institutions, Private colleges is even worse. They went from a real dollar cost of about $20,000 per year up to over $50,000 per year. It's not just inflations. It's causing the cost of college to increase.
Now, let me bring this into, because you guys know, you're like, when did these guys start hating education?
Should you still aim to save only 10% of your income for retirement?
We love education. And I want to make sure everybody knows that, look, I even attribute a lot of my success to, I got an accounting degree in college that gave me the fundamentals understanding of speaking the language of business. And I couldn't have done that without going to college and getting that education. But if you're going to college without understanding what you're there for and what your return on investment is going to be on this degree, then you are the product that is being sold to and being taken advantage of. And if you want proof of this, let us also share with you. We survey our millionaire clients and we say, hey, do you actually work in your field of study?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Is a college degree still worth the cost in today’s economy?
0:00–3:55
2
Should you still aim to save only 10% of your income for retirement?
3:55–8:10
3
Are used cars really the best financial choice right now?
8:10–12:29
4
When does strict budgeting stop being effective?
12:29–16:49
5
Is homeownership still the fastest path to building wealth?
16:49–20:16
6
How can a cash‑management plan replace rigid budgeting?
20:16–24:29
7
What strategies maximize wealth building in 2026?
24:29–28:42
8
What are the final takeaways and resources for smarter money decisions?
28:42–32:53