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Well, some of you may find this surprising, others may not be so surprised. About fifty two percent of recent college graduates are working jobs that do not require a degree. And this is what's referred to as under employment. And for those who find themselves underemployed after graduation, it can be difficult to get get career earnings back on track.
In fact, after a decade, forty five percent of graduates are still stuck in jobs that do not require a college according or do not require college, I should say, according to report by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strata Education Foundation that looked at data related to educational attainment, employment, and career trajectories, more than sixty million workers. Perhaps that is why there seems to be a growing course of people questioning whether or not the high cost of college
is worth it. Our next guest says it is worth it. Jim Keys is the former CEO Blockbuster in seven to eleven. He's also the founder of the nonprofit Education Is Freedom Foundation. His new book is Education is freedom. The future is in your hands. He's here with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Jim, so great to have you here
with us. We did a little bit of a setup because I feel like there's so much of a debate that's out there when it comes to education, your own experience with education, How important was it to you to where you got?
Ultimately it was critically important. And I can't stress enough that education is such a fundamental unlocking opportunity, not just jobs. But the name of the book is literally, education is freedom. It's really about freedom. It's about the ability to move from role to role, from career to career if you choose, or even just to have a more fulfilled life. The more you learn, the more you can do.
You don't think anything in terms of education, because it's interesting. We've had a lot of conversations in the newsroom, your book, and just in general about this space about when I started out an undergraduate did open a lot of doors for me, but I didn't need a master's or anything. I was just doing it. Today it feels like I hear from my own daughter, She's like, Mom, I've done the undergraduate, but I'm going to need a master's to
go on. Is there a balance though, between going out and doing it versus just kind of continuing on with education? Help me out here?
There is. In fact, most business schools encourage you to get a couple of years of experience before going back. It helps you when you get back into graduate school to be able to have had that real life experience. But fundamentally, those tools that you get, the more you enrich the bag of tools that you have, the more you can do. And so it's all about flexibility and opportunity.
What about though, when we stay stats, Like I talked in the introduction Forgive Me, I was kind of running through them because I wanted to.
Get to you.
But you have graduates in college, graduates who are feeling like they're stuck in a job that doesn't require college education, and it feels like that's a pretty magnificant number. We're talking about forty five percent. So what's your take on something like that? It's one data point, I know.
Yeah, I just had to respond to an article that that was in the Wall Street Journal recently about Walmart not requiring a college degree anymore for certain jobs. But you've got to Remember, we're in a unique bubble right now with three and a half percent unemployment, and there are a lot of jobs out there that don't require a college degree, that are very well paying jobs. The question is where will we be when we have seven
eight percent unemployment? Because of course, these things are cycles and it will happen at some point in the future, and that degree will help you differentiate yourself. Think of it as your brand. At some point you're gonna have to raise money, You're gonna have to apply for a job, and not having that degree will make it difficult to compete with others who do all right.
So then how do you know the stories about the amount of student death that's out there, and kids who've gotten college degrees, they're indebted and it's taking them years to pay it back because they have been gotten necessarily a job that has made it easy to manage that debt.
Well, I'm going to give you a classic business example. You would never invest in a company based on today's returns. You basically run a net present value of future earning streams and discount it back for today's dollars. And if you look at I'm not sure why we don't look at our at college as an investment in ourselves because it's not going to pay back in today's dollars, but it will pay back over time if you look at all of the statistics about having a degree versus not
having a degree. Now, this doesn't hold for every degree that you get or every job that you have, but on balance, that degree does give you far more earning power over your life. And here's the way I like to look at it. Getting a college degree is an investment in yourself that pays dividends for the rest of your life. Right, So think of it as a business investment in yourself.
It's interesting because you are so all in on education.
Oh yeah, and it's.
It's interesting when you've got schools now that are sixty seventy eighty ninety thousand dollars a year that automatically make it kind of problematic for some people to afford them, and that again they have to tack on a pile of debt that doesn't go away so easily.
I had to address the same thing because I've had people Now I'm out there on social media, I've got kids going, Yeah, it's easy for you to say, boomer, you know, you had it easy. College was cheap, so I ran the numbers, and when I graduated from college, my tuition was seven five hundred dollars a year. In today's dollars is fifty five thousand a year. So yes, it's a little bit more today, but not extraordinarily higher.
And this is a really important point. Endowments have been massively improved today versus twenty thirty, forty fifty years ago. And college discount rates, this is a really important factor that no one takes into consideration, are as high as forty five, fifty, sometimes sixty percent discount written in other words, the amount of scholarship money that they provide. So beware being intimidated by the sticker price because the actual price may be significant.
The thing I will say about scholarships having gone through the college route with my own daughter, and that there's not a ton of academic scholarships anymore. There's a lot on the sports side of things, and then there's a lot on depending on your economic well being or not so well being that and I'm so glad it's there for that, but there's a lot of people in the middle that kind of get stuck with that debt load.
There is the middle is tough, and it's always been tough, and I guess if you look back at history, this is not unique to today. We've always had that challenge of the kids that really can't afford it are in a much better position to get scholarships. The kids who can afford it almost doesn't matter. Is that middle group that are challenged. But again, I can't stress enough from two perspectives. From the individual's perspective, it's critically important to
differentiate yourself down the road and make that investment. But for a corporation, you know, you remember from from my bio, I ran two fortune five hundred companies, right, we had a hard time in employing an educated workforce at that at that store manager level, and that's even more challenging
today with three and a half percent unemployment. So if we're going to be competitive, if our corporations are going to be competitive twenty thirty forty years from now, we better step up and recognize the importance we'll go there.
Because I do feel like before the pandemic, and very much so after the pandemic, the role of the corporation and kind of taking care of employees. What do you think should be the role of employers when it comes to helping to educate their workforce.
Here's the way I look at it. It's a it's a classic kind of turn everything into a classic business problem. It's supply and demand, right, Yeah, we're the demand. Businesses are the demand for an educated workforce, and yet we very rarely make the investment in that education state and local government that train's public school kids. And so today my recommendation in the book, it's a bit of a call to action to corporations to see the need for
investing and how do we do that through technology? You know, we've got such an opportunity to transform education with things like AI.
How we do it?
Yeah, digital learning, there's so much opportunity, But that's not going to happen at a state and local government level.
So who needs to do it? The companies?
I think corporation should, and ultimately I think they will once they've realized that this supply and demand problem is a problem.
Are you surprised it hasn't moved along post pandemic where I really thought everybody like, Okay, we got it, this technology, we can do it. Look at how we all worked from home. I feel like the educational space has lagged in terms of embracing technology more effectively.
It hasn't. But you know what, it's a bit misleading because I think COVID actually helped accelerate by maybe ten or twenty years, right, because if you think about the lack of just fundamental Wi Fi hotspots, lack of access to laptops with kids, companies like AT and t IBM, Dell, all Apple all stepped up and now there's a massive improvement in at least availability.
All right, let's get back to our guest with us as Jim Keys. He is the former CEO Blockbuster in seven eleven. He's also the founder of the nonprofit Education Is Freedom Foundation. His new book is Education Is Freedom The Future is in Your Hands. And he's still with us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. I'm going to kind of go back to some of the stuff you and I were just talking about on air. Peter Thiel, who has said, yeah, you don't have to go to college,
you're wrong. If Peter was here right now, what would you say to him?
I would say, please stop. And here's why. If you give a young person an excuse and say you don't need to go to college. They're gonna take it. They're gonna take it. So just step back from this and think about global competitiveness. The United States since about twenty twelve, fIF has gone from high fifties and graduates post secondary graduation rates down to forty. Now COVID contributed to that decline, but we're going in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, China has
gone exactly opposite. They have gone from the forty percent range up to nearly sixty and climbing. They're doubling down on the importance of an educated populist and an educated workforce. And this issue is critically important to corporate America if we dial forward and our ability to sustain competitiveness will depend on an educated workforce demand for the supply that is lagging right now.
What's the answer? And I think about I mean, I'm one of seven kids and my parents it was all about getting a college education. That was so important. My dad came out of World War two a GI GI bill went to like this was from the get go, you can do whatever you want after you go to college was kind of the mission here. How have we gotten away from it in your view? And how is it when there is so much education, but we see our public education it feels like failing us NonStop.
Here. Yeah, we're in this weird bubble of the availability of technology but not the application of technology. And some of it comes down to how are we funded, state in the local governments the challenges of that.
So we spend a lot of money, and we.
Are spending a lot of money, but we can spend it far more efficiently. I don't think the solution will happen leaving it up to state and local governments. I hope that corporations will see that they are ultimately the demand and want to step up because the technology is available today to completely transform the way we teach and the way we learn. We saw a little you know
and I were talking about, you know, during cold pandemic. Yeah, yeah, during the pandemic wasn't so great for some, It wasn't so great for some. But here's what happened. It was a massive improvement in the availability and access that wasn't there, particularly for the underprivileged. It's there now. What we haven't done is integrated those platforms, upgraded the user content to make it eye popping. So those kids that were hating their online class with them play video games for four
or five hours. Right, So you can make school just as engaging. That's the challenge and that will come. That's our next step.
But do we have to be careful about technology? Yay, great, right, Jim. But I mean I also think about the importance of part of school is social skills, learn to communicate, like.
Exactly what's the balance here? Well, and that's too. You just made my point. That's why a formal education still is and will be important for quite some time because it's more than just learning. You can learn online virtually anything, right, But it's those meta rights. Yeah, yeah, but it's those meta skills, it's those soft skills that I've outlined in
the book, things like curiosity, creative, creativity, critical thinking. Those skills are things that you hone a in a classroom working with others.
If there's one thing, one thing you could change, or one step that you think and I'm assuming it sounds like what you're saying is it's on the side of corporations to really step up here. What would be the step that the world needs to take to improve this?
Well, the first step I think is we've got to get beyond fear, because I think fear is the big culprit here right about that in the book, right about a whole chapter on fear and a chapter on confidence, because confidence is so important for learning and preparation. But fear is the killer because we're afraid of so much. We're afraid of some of us are afraid of teachers, unions.
We're afraid that kids are being indoctrinated. We're afraid of you know, this and that and this and that, all these horrible things that are buzzing around, and it's contributing to this narrative that maybe you don't even need school. Well, if we can reverse that fear, and you think about
the antecdote to fear its knowledge. So if we can, ironically, if we can reverse the fear replace it with not knowledge and understanding and confidence, then I believe that will help us recognize the opportunity because we are there right on the cusp of being able to completely transform the way we teach and learn.
If we don't do this, what do you think is the outcome or the impact in our country?
I am concerned both for our corporations and global competitiveness of America, but also for the country itself all the way back to Jefferson. Alexis Dtopville came from France and said with Jefferson that the sustainability of a democracy depends on an educated populace.
And you get into this, this whole idea of the polarization that we see. You believe that this is going to be the way that we get rid of some of that.
Right, I do. I believe it's ultimately the solution because so much of this polarization is fear and going back to FDRs and doctrination speech all we have nothing to fear of but fear itself, right, and we are in the grips of fear, and it's just taking us down. It's just distracting us from so much potential to move forward as a people.
I'd be remissed. And we have about three and a half minutes left to not talk about your background. It's an incredible background. As we said, as at Blockbuster former CEO of Blockbuster and seven eleven. You came into both of those at difficult times. Blockbuster that was in July two thousand and seven, I believe you took over, yes, and then seven eleven, I think it was just before was it the great financial.
Cris Yes, just before I arrived there in eighty five, and then the world fell apart in eighty seven.
To the market, the market qrush in eighty seven. Forgive me, well, your timing is impeccable.
Oh yeah, really really tough times.
What did both of those times teach you? How did education help you through it?
There's an important message I have in the book, and it's a whole chapter un change, And I've coined the expression change equals opportunity, which is ironically the acronym for CEO.
Right right, And it's funny.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the role of a CEO is to not shrink from change, because change is inevitable. And you're right. I lived through two major financial disasters and one we came out the other side at seven eleven and ended up with a great result, and at Blockbuster. Unfortunately, perhaps I got there too late,
but we couldn't turn it around in time. We did, though, successfully take the company through our restructure and sold the Tudish networks, which was far better than the alternative of a total liquidation, which could have happened during those times. We had a billion dollars on the balance sheet. But there's so many lessons in that change can be opportunity. It's not the change itself, it's how you responded.
Did you feel like that though when you were in the midst of.
It, Oh, I'm normal.
I thought, why me? Why am I?
Why do I have to deal with this?
I mean really really difficult? And I think about something like Blockbuster. I mean we talk about there's generations that don't even know, right, But how important that was kind of to all of us. I don't know. When you look at your time at both of those mpanies and you look at kind of where the world is today, are there trends today that you just find totally fascinating. Like I'm thinking about content and how we stream content and how much that has come along.
Oh, absolutely, right now we're in one of those almost similar periods. There are people trying to run a company that borrowed money at three percent and now they're having to pay seven eight nine percent, right, And it's it's all about learning. And that's that's really my motive in the book, to be able to share many, many years of learning through experience and share it with others, to not be afraid of change, because change ultimately is going
to happen. It's at the it's at the core of all commerce.
You're right, right, it's constantly coming ask we know it. It happened in our you know, it happens daily in a program that we do where just something happens and we've got to kind of adapt. How do you hope people use this? Just got about thirty seconds left here your book?
Well, my first objective is to have people read it, and I think it's applicable. If you're young, it'll help you in school. If you're older, it'll help you just with life to be able to have a fuller life. It's common sense stuff, just a reminder of the basics of how to learn, why to learn those kinds of things. But what I really hope people will do is see this as an opportunity to give this book to someone who needs it, because we all know those people that
are kind of lost. They don't know what to do. Should I go to school, should I not?
Yeah?
Should I change careers? I think it's a great gift book for those who need a little bit of encouragement to realize the opportunity is in their hands.
Literally love it, love it, and I like you and I were talking off air. I feel like education is one of those things that needs to continue to be disrupted and make it more accessible to a lot more people. Jim Keis, thank you so much, great stuff. A new book is Education is Freedom. The future is in your hands, of course, the former CEO Blockbuster in seven to eleven