Cutting College Costs with $Pro Cody Berman #070

my friend. But before we get to that, I wanted to mention a quick listener email that we got recently from James. And James said, hey, guys, recently after listening to your podcast where you talked about how Wells Fargo sucks, which we've done a couple of times, I think I switched banks for my savings. At Wells Fargo, my money wasn't doing anything for me except an interest rate of point oh one percent. Now I'm at Ally Bank, where I get two point two percent interest in one month.

At Ally, I received more an interest than I could at Wells Fargo in almost ten years. I just love the comparison. I love I love the James let us know that he took action, and also just love that. I mean ten years think about that. That that's like such a distinct market difference. And if you will just change your banks to a little bit of a better bank, you're with Ally. I'm with a few different banks, as I mentioned in our Facebook group and just mentioned on

the show. I'm with Capital One, I'm with Discover, and I'm with c I T. There's so many better banks, not only customer service wise, but rate wise as well. Nice. Yeah, man, I love that James is with Ally like that. Yeah, that is one of my favorites. I've been with him for quite a while now. And you mentioned C I T. You know, you wrote an article about how you switched over to c I T. They've got awesome rates right now.

If ils want to find that article, just go to how the money dot com slash c I T and there you highlighted scymically the difference in the rate, Like right now we're at two point four five, and that's just massive. That's just a ton of money plus all the other awesome reasons that you want to switch away from one of the big banks to an awesome competitive service oriented online bank, no doubt, my friend are let's talking about the beer that we're drinking on the show today,

Brain Dead Brewing Company presents Power Shark. Is what our label says on the Crowler. From a listener Jared out in Texas, this is a triple dry hawked beer and dude, I'm really excited to dig in and just get a face full of hops. Yeah. Huge, thanks to Jared for sending this beer in. And he specifically reached out on Instagram. He yeah, slid into those d m s and send me a message. So yeah, if you aren't following how to Money pod on Instagram, be sure to check that

out as well. You can see some of those behind the scenes. And we always do that time laps. I think people like that the time laps on the stories. It's kind of like an inside window into your dining room where we do the show. Right. So onto the subject at hand. Matthew, my friend cutting college costs with our money pro Cody Burman. And let's talk about Cody real quick. So he is only twenty two years old.

Cody is such an interesting dude. He has already started a company that makes disc golf disc I was gonna say, not just any company, but a company that's close to your heart. Man, Oh my gosh. We recently celebrated your birthday. We went out and through some some disc golfs at a local course, and yeah, that's what Cody does. He makes disks for people that play disc golf. So I'm still honestly waiting for him to send me a couple of second trimemout, like really want to see how his

discs fly. But he started, he started his own company. He feels like there's a place in the market for a new, upstart disc company, and so I think that's really cool. He's been doing that for over a year now. He just quit his corporate banking job at the age of twenty two to pursue entrepreneurship full time. He's got a website where he writes about finance, he's got a podcast where he talks about finance, and he's so involved in the financial independence community. I mean, he's he's become

a staple there quickly, already at his young age. So he felt like we had to have him on the show, and specifically since he is so young and recently out of college, to kind of talk about how he was able to go to college and pay less money doing it edule And that's one of the things I love about Cody is that he has actual experience. He's been there in college not that long ago. He has found

ways to reduce the expenses associated with college. And you know, that's a huge problem that people are paying so much for college. High school grads these days are choosing a school based on, you know, lots of different factors, but money, honestly, is just usually a low end consideration. And that's just because you can just borrow to go wherever you want to go, but be aware of borrowing from your future self. These payments associated with student loans can be as large

as a mortgage payment on a house. So if you are in school, or maybe you're considering going back to school, or you have kids that might be going to college soon, we are gonna discuss some things to consider when it comes to cutting your college costs. Yeah, so our money Pro episodes. Here's how they work. The last two weeks we've had someone actually on in an interview style format that's not typically how Matt and I do these do

these episodes. We like to invite our friends to give us five minutes of distilled wisdom on a particular topic. And so that's what we've done here. Cody has given us five minutes of awesome wisdom when it comes to cutting college costs. Matt and I have a lot of fun kind of unpacking after we bring on our money pro but let's hear Cody's five minutes first, right now. Yeah, what's up guys, and thanks for having me on. So today I'm drinking some of massachusetts finest called Mr. Boston's vodka.

It is a handle and it is absolutely spectacular. So my word to describe it is polish. But what I really want to talk to you about today is how to hack college? So how can you go to college for the cheapest price possible? Now, just for some context, I'm twenty two years old, so I am fresh out of this arena. I know all the latest tips, tricks, just ways to cut money on college. And although I did pretty good at cutting my costs, I could have done a lot better if I knew all the things

I knew now. So I want to start with back in high school. If you have a son, a daughter, or maybe you're someone really young listening into this podcast, good for you. If you're that person, you need to be taking advantage of AP and CLIP exams. And basically

what these exams are, they're subjects specific exams. So for example, you could take AP calculus, or you could take a CLUP exam in biology, and it's all these subjects specific courses that if you pass the test with a high enough score, you can just completely opt out of that course for college. So let's just assume you go to the average college. I mean, even if you're going to a community college, you're still saving a couple grand a class by passing out of these AP and CLUP exams.

So that's my number one tip. Search and find out does the school offer these AP and CLIP exams, and go take as many as you possibly can. Some of them are self study and other ones you'll be taught in class with a teacher. So the next thing I want to touch on is dual enrollment. And this is while you're either a junior or a senior in high school, you can actually enroll in college courses just with the rest of the other college students and get credit for that.

So instead of taking these high school credits, instead of taking JIM for the fourth time, you can go take a college level of course and get credit for it. And this can seriously reduce your costs and just eliminate the need for all these general education courses that you might not even be that interested in. And so those are some awesome ways to get credit. But now I want to talk a little bit more about how to save money. So what was huge for me was applying

to tons and tons of scholarships and grants. Now I literally applied to probably between a hundred and a hundred and twenties scholarships. You think I wrote d twenty essays, Absolutely not. Ain't nobody got time for that. So what I did was I built out a few templates, like six to eight templates. Most of these scholarship essays are going to have the same prompts or at least like along the same lines like what are your career goals? Or why are you studying this? Or you get the point.

So if you can build out these templates and then make tweaks every time you have a new scholarship application, you can drastically reduce the time it takes you to apply to the scholarship, and you can apply to so many more and just by the law of large numbers, you're bound to get a scholarship or two, which could add up to thousands of dollars. And some of these scholarship so are recurring, and these scholarships don't just have to be obtained in high school. You can actually keep

applying to scholarships every year while you're in college. And on that same thread, while you're in college. Some other great ways to save on costs is to work for the university, get an on campus job, become a resident assistant. If you're able to drastically reduce your cost of living, this can pay huge dividends down the road. At my school, it was nearly ten grand a year just for on campus housing costs. As an r A, you pay nothing

and you actually get paid on top of that. And additionally, there's all these other sorts of on campus work study jobs, Like I was a t A for six semesters that earned me a huge amount of money that I could put towards living expenses, that I could put towards tuition, that I could put towards other school related things. And another crazy thing that you could consider is to do a co op. So basically a company will pay you to work there for say six months or a year

instead of doing a semester or two. You get paid, and you also get awesome on the job experience. So definitely go check with your rear office and see if there are any of these on campus or co op type positions available. And although I didn't take this throughout myself, I think I'd be doing you guys a disservice if I didn't mention the military, because I had friends who went to school for absolutely free by signing a contract

and joining the Armed forces. So although it's no joke, it's not to be taken lightly, and you are signing a way a few years your life. You can go to college for completely free, zero dollars. And what I really want to end on here is that college doesn't have to be for everyone. There are so many other ways to make money and so many other options in You don't need to get this traditional four year bachelor degree. You can get a certification in coding, you can become

an apprentice in the trade. College is not the only path to a six figure income, And if you're listening to a podcast like this, you probably have some financial wherewithal So all I'm trying to say is just weigh out your choices, see the options that are in front of you, and make sure it's worth it before you go to college. But if it is worth it, make

sure to use all these money saving tips. Alright, So the word I used at the beginning of the episode was polish and polish because this literally tastes like shoe polish. I'll definitely have to send you guys out a bottle of good old Mr Boston's. Thanks again, all right, Joel, Mr Boston's frugal or cheap? What do you think? Man, Cody?

I love you, but that's a terrible life choice right there. Okay, I think you've made good choices when it comes to saving money on college, but bad choices when it comes to what you put in your body, and especially when he lives in Massachusetts, which has just some phenomenal beer choices. But we're gonna get to all the rest that Cody

had to say right after this break. All right, Matt, we're back, and socimically, for high schoolers in parents of high schoolers, it's important to consider taking a p classes

and then taking clip exams. That's not necessarily a tip, that's under a rock, right, that's hiding that's not in plain type to a certain extent for for parents, but just to prioritize that because at the end of taking an AP class in high school, you can take an a P exam, which is incredibly inexpensive, and for each exam that you get a passing grade on most colleges except that passing grade as having passed that class in in college, and so you don't have to waste your time,

much less your money in paying to take that class when you move on to your school of choice. And I think that's really cool. I think it's a great point, and I think that students and parents alike should think about taking more AP classes, not just because it reflects better on your g p A or you feel like maybe you even learn more, which which I think is true typically in AP classes, but also because of the

way it helps you in cutting college costs. Yeah, Cody, he mentioned that with AP exams, like you're looking at close to like two thousand dollars per course if you were to pass that exam. Joel, did you take any AP exams leading up to college? Yeah, I sure did. I took a I took a couple and I did. I only did well on one and I'm pretty sure that was AP Spanish if I remember correctly, but I forget, but see Yolo Espanol Lloyd Bueno. Wait not not really,

I'm not very good anymore. But yeah, that was that was helpful, and and those were actually really fun courses. I felt like, well, they're they're fun, but they're really hard, right completely. The other thing worth mentioning here is Cody's a really smart guy. I feel like we're fairly smart. But however, like you can't just show up and take these like you need to make sure that you're fairly proficient.

The same thing with the clip exams. He mentioned those, and you know, and if you can clip fifteen hours on average, you can save about five thousand dollars per public college that you attend, and you're looking at about seventeen tho dollars and savings if you go to a private school. Pretty much what those numbers equate to is a full semester right at a college, because fifteen hours is essentially one full time semester. And so yeah, you

can save a lot of money. A clip exam is something that you don't need to take a class for but like Matt just said, you need to be super prepared. But if you feel like you know biology really really well, well, it's worth looking into taking a clip exam for that.

If you study really hard take that test, you can avoid having to take that class in college and not just having to spend the time to do it, like we said, And each class that you can avoid taking in college equates to real dollars that you're saving schedule,

and these are all tips. Right if you're still in high school, or if you have a student, a child who is still in high school, and you know, it's worth mentioning that you need to have conversations about money and how much you know, if your parents, how much you're willing to spend towards your child's education in the future, or you know, if you're a student, if your future college attendee, how much you're going to be responsible for because a lot of that is going to be your motivation,

That is your why behind why you take these exams

and why you take these ap courses. If you know that, man, a lot of this is going to fall on you as a student when it comes to fund your college career, then I think that might light a fire under someone if they know that they're gonna be responsible for it, right, versus if they know that, Okay, I've got a certain amount of money set aside, and who knows, maybe that's even more motivation for them because perhaps if they get these college credits out of the way, that's money that

that will end up in their pocket. Yeah, that's a good point, Matt. I feel like too, as parents, you can really incentivize your good student to to take some of these tests that they might otherwise not be interested in.

Maybe you have a smart kid that just doesn't want to do the extra work to take an AP class, doesn't want to study and take a clip exam on a Saturday, you know, whatever it is, but apparent knowing how much money they can, say paying for their kids college or how much less in student loans their kid is gonna have to take out, I feel like they're little incentives you can put in place to encourage your kid to take the AP class, to consider taking a

clip exam. And that's just a good thing to think about, Like, how can I get my kid interested in doing this for my sake and for for their sake? Right? Yeah, And I think a lot of it does fall under the parent. Like I mentioned that maybe it's up to the student to kind of figure some of this out,

but fact isn't. I think there's very few students who are going to be self motivated enough and to make that connection with Okay, sure, like I can take the AP class now and that equals credit down the road, but like, what does that actually mean to that student? Like, not very much. With meant for me when I was taking a P classes in high school was that that was just less time I could hang out, and so

it kind of sucked. There wasn't a ton of connection between taking this class now means more money in your pocket down the road. I think making that connection truly does fall on the parent. Yeah, we're talking about sixteen seventeen year old kids who don't have fully developed frontal cortexics, right, and so it really is so much of it is going to be on the parents. You might have a kid that is just incredible, a genius, and not just a genius, but a self starter, and and that's really cool,

that's rare. Yeah, even a smart kid oftentimes needs a little bit of push and they have a hard time understanding the concept of a little bit of work now saving a lot of heartache down the road, And so I think apparent the little incentives they can provide along the way can make a big difference in kind of crushing some of these college costs, you know, before they even get accrued and once you get to college. Another

note is taking more hours each semester. Cody didn't get to this, but I wanted to mention that that the more hours you're take in a semester, you can cut a lot of costs that way. To most colleges consider a full time student as having a twelve hour course load, but you can take like twenty one hours if you want in many colleges where they charged by the term and not the credit hour. Matt, I don't know that you. I remember being in college and I thought, oh, I'm

super busy taking a sixteen hour courseload. Now that I live real life, I know that that wasn't really that busy at all. And at one point I took nineteen hours in a semester and I was able to handle it with other obligations on the side. And so as a parent, as someone who's getting their undergrad or even attempting to get a graduate degree. Taking a larger course

load over a semester. Sure it can make things harder when it comes to studying and and getting great grades, but I feel like it is manageable for a lot of kids to take more hours and still pay the same rate because you're paying by the term and not the credit hours. That's definitely something to look into. How does your college bill and if they build by the term and not the hour. Consider taking a heavier course load.

Maybe not every semester, maybe every other semester, but whatever your specific approaches, taking a fuller course load and a given semester can mean big savings. Man, Joel, that actually reminds me of a semester where I did take a twenty one hour course load. Yeah, made it happen. I did, But I had to because I had a scholarship and I had dropped a couple of courses at that point in order to maintain my g p A, which was the requirement. But then I had to make those courses

up before the end of the year. Kind of painted myself into a corner. But yeah, I just buckled down and made it happen. It's possible. It was not easy, but that kind of leads to our next point. You know, it was a public school and I got a great scholarship that allowed me to go to school for free, which was amazing. And there's a lot of options like that out there for public and state schools. Keep that in mind when you're considering colleges to attend. Private schools

are going to be much much more expensive. And Juelie, you've got personal experience with this as well. Right, Yeah, I went to a private school. I racked up some student loans the first two years, and I think we talked about this in the recent student loan episode. I transferred back to a public cool in my home state where I was able to qualify for free college because of a state funded scholarship program, and I was glad to do it. Man. That was that was that was

totally worth it. A lot of people, to Matt, would be well served by going to a community college for the first two years. If you have your heart set ongoing and getting a degree from a specific educational institution, whether it's public or private, going to a community college first can help you get all those undergraduate credit hours fulfilled and then you move on, right and you pay the bigger bucks only the last two years of your

college experience as opposed to all four. And that's something a lot of people just don't consider. They want the full college experience all four years. But when it comes to potentially saving ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty thousand dollars, it might be worth it to go to community college for the first two and then moving on. And you know what, the degree looks the same in the end for for both kids, no matter which way. Use likes it. Yeah, Joe,

I love that. And also Cody mentioned to apply to, you know, for tons of different scholarships and grants. This comes as no surprise, like this is obviously a way that you're gonna be able to save money. But what's key and what's different about what Cody mentioned is how he created different templates. And I think a lot of folks might frown on that and think that seems kind of cheap. But the way he's approaching applying for these scholarships is like the way you would run a business.

You're trying to maximize the output by minimizing like the amount of input, the amount of time that you're putting into these different essays and just all the different things these different scholarships require. And and what I'm saying though, is is not that you send out the exact same letter to to just all the different programs, but that you try to find ways to be as efficient as possible.

You know, businesses do this, And from a financial standpoint, I think it's really wise to consider your college career

just like you would a business. Yeah, Matt, And that's because high school students their time is worth a little bit less because of their lack of education and credentials, and so it might be worth it to take one less shift a week at your part time job and focus a little bit more on kind of crushing the scholarship game, because a little bit of time spent upfront applying for these scholarships can have just a massive impact on what you end up paying to go to school,

massively reducing the amount of student loans that you need to take out. And one of the coolest things about this too, like Cody said, is that some of these scholarships that you can find are actually recurring as well, So you can find a scholarship that not only pays you a thousand or two thousand dollars a year to go to school, but it might be a recurring one that last freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year only magnifying

the effect of that initial application. Man. And not only are some of those scholarships recurring, right, but you can apply for new scholarships even while you're in school, Like when you're a senior in high school, that is not the only time for you to apply for scholarships. Apply also when you're a freshman, a sophomore, junior. What else are you doing in the summer? Yeah, continual working, but hopefully but continue to find ways, like like we said,

to optimize your time. If you know that you can put in a few hours and find some awesome scholarships, apply and potentially make thousands, I mean, that's gonna be

well with your time. And you can find these different scholarships on different websites maybe that you've heard of like fast Uh they're one of the biggest ones with you know, over a million and a half different scholarships available and college board dot org but also other ones as well at Capex scholar cheg and you can check out the Department of Labor. They've got a scholarship search tool as well for you to find some of the great scholarships for you. And I know we just kind of ran

through those super quick. Well, we'll have links in our show notes on how to money dot Com with with all of those there. Yeah, fast web has over three point four billion dollars in funding available to students inside of those one point five million scholarships, so that's cool. Yeah, definitely don't forsake searching for scholarships. Another thing, as Cody mentioned, don't forget to look for local scholarships. To make sure,

in particular that you ask your school counselor. They're going to have access and knowledge about local scholarships that you can't find on some of these national scholarship websites. It's worth asking the question. Most kids aren't going to ask, so ask the question and you might be surprised what you find. Also, if you do have a part time job Matt in high school, ask your employer if they

offer some of college scholarship. Where I worked in high school, actually ended up getting a thousand dollars scholarship because I've worked there for a few years and that was just a nice little added bonus. As I was saying goodbye and headed on my way to like learn a lot of important stuff. That's what you do in college, and also consider some needs based grants. There's more money out

there available for those of lesser financial means. You'll need to fill out the FAFTSA form to know which ones you actually qualify for. There's a great write up over at nerd Wallet, and so in our show notes will also put a link to that article as well. Yeah, the FAFTSA essentially, no matter what you make, you need to fill out the FAFTA. You have no idea what

you qualify for until you fill out that form. So filling out the FACTSA, which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is essentially one of the most important steps that a student or family can take in order to find ways to pay for college, and in particular those grants. Right those grants. You have no idea which grants are available to you until you fill out that form. So if you want access to the tens of billions of dollars in student grants and loans, the FATSA is

your first step. And I just can't overstate how important that is in the process. And again that's billions. Still didn't misspeak there, And I'm not like Dr Evil right, like millions. There's I mean literally a hundred and twenty billion dollars out there for grants and loans for for

student aid. There's money out there for higher education, and so just please make sure that you're taking the steps to see what you can qualify for Matt, I feel like to use a sports reference, it's like taking the slam dunk or the layoup when most people are are shooting a half court shot or a three pointer, right, and those are just much more difficult. You're gonna make a far fewer percentage of shots from half court or three point land than you are when you take a

layup or or attempt to slam dunk. Well, maybe the slam dunk doesn't hard though for most people, slam dunks are really hard. Okay I'm talking about NBA players. Okay, most NBA players can make a slam dunk no problem, take a layoup, no problem, right, But when it comes to those other shots that are further away from the hoop, it's just harder. And if you're not taking these layups, if you're not taking the easy access by filling out the FAFTSA and then applying to as many scholarships as

you can on these websites. You're not taking the layups. There are easy options open to you when it comes to getting money to help pay for college costs. And and I just don't want people to miss the lay up. Yeah, Joe, you don't want to miss that low hanging fruit. And so right after the break, we're going to cover some different ways and some simple ways to reduce the cost

of college. All right, Matt, let's get to one of my favorite points that Cody made, and that is that you should be working while you're in school, and let's talk about how to do this most effectively. It might not be best for you to get an off campus job waiting tables. There are ways to get paid while working on campus and getting paid better than you would at an off campus job, and so are as Cody mentioned often get free housing as well as they get

paid on the side a stipend. Right. I personally was an r A in college as well. Cody said he saved ten thousand dollars by being in r A, and I'm not sure whether he saved that per year or total, but I remember saving a bundle being in r A because I was getting free on campus housing and at the same time getting paid a stipend in order to be in r A. Yeah, you're a double dipend man, no doubt. And it was it was well worth my time.

Definitely kind of had some awkward and fun r A experiences, but I feel like, not only did it save me money, it was a really good thing to put on my resume as I was applying for jobs. Employers want to see that you took a little bit of responsibility, that you had something on your plate besides just college courses. Being in r A kind of hit that trifecta for me. And so another option of working while you're in school

is to consider either co opting or an internship. Why not get a company to pay you while you work there while you're getting course credits. That's pretty amazing. So like, this is a great experience for your resume while at the same time saving money on your actual college costs.

I had friends who were in you know, technical schools like Georgia Tech or a Clemson, and they're working and actually getting paid, like getting paid real money versus like the kind of crappy summer jobs that I was working that we're paying very little, and at the same time, man like you get a huge jump start on your career. I remember thinking how towards like my later years in college at the time, I sort of regretted not having that that opportunity. I didn't pursue something that was more

sort of career focused. But with a co op, you have that opportunity. You've gotten your foot in the door at a company, and a lot of times after you've graduated, assuming you've done a great job in previous summers or semesters, you've got a full time job waiting on you right after graduation. Yeah. I feel like that's just an awesome tip and something that students should consider if you're in school.

Either a co op or an internship is a great idea, and often you're able to get course credit for doing it. At the same time, you might get up to six hours of course credit, depending on how much your school allows. And that is not only cutting the cost of college, but building the resume experience. I did an internship while I was in my senior year of college, and guess what, the place where I did my internship, that's where I'm working right now, And I did an unpaid internship that's

actually a rarity nowadays. Most internships are paid, so I didn't get paid anything while doing it. But I've had a job for twelve years because of it, and so I can't understate the importance of of an internship. It can be life changing for your resume, for the connections you make, for for your networking in general, and on top of that, it can reduce the overall costs that you pay for college. So yeah, that these are definitely things to take advantage of and real quick. Cody mentioned

working on campus. I did that as well. My work was pretty chill, it was easy to get to, no car required, And so finding an on campus job oftentimes can pay better than an off campus job and it's a lot easier for students to make happen. Man, that reminds me of like one of the best on campus jobs that you g a was you and I guess

food services now it was the bus drivers. EJ has these massive, huge buses that drive all around campus, and I specifically remember thinking, Man, I want to apply for that job because I think they got paid like nineteen dollars an hour, which at the time yeah, which at the time was a huge amount of money. That's still big money. Yeah, my goodness. But you had to have a pretty clean driving record and yeah, I had recently gotten a speeding ticket driving home one night over like

Christmas break, So it didn't work out. Cody also quickly mentioned Matt the military option, and it's a worthwhile thing for people to consider. Don't take it lightly because signing up for military service is a long term consideration. And you're giving part of your life to serve our country, right and you and I, man, we are so thankful to the people that listen that serve our country. It is a huge commitment. It is a sacrifice not only

for the individual but for their family as well. And there is an awesome benefit associated for for folks that do serve, and that is the g I Bill, And it is very helpful for folks that are in the service to get their education paid for. And so, yeah, I think it is worth mentioning. Then it's an option out there. Yeah, And you know, don't forget two different employers have different programs that will pay for your higher education.

Think of like Starbucks, like they have that program with Arizona State University, go sound devils that that pays for your undergrad and they see it through all the way into graduations. So so check with your employer. There might be programs already in place. Just like with these grants and scholarships, there's free money, there's opportunity. They're waiting for you to cover the cost of school. Yeah, my employer

offers some really cool benefits. My employer will chip in just a small amount if I get solar panels on my home, they will help cover the costs of adoption. They offer a small extra discount on myself phone bill every month. I'm not sure if we have any sort of benefits for going back to school because I'm just not interested in it right now. I haven't taken a look, but considering the benefits that are currently available, but I

know about I bet there is something. And so if you're at an employer right now, you should take a look, ask some questions and see what's available. And if you're thinking about changing jobs or getting a new job and you want to go back to schoo cool at the same time, consider seeking employment with a company that offers tuition reimbursement or has a program like Starbucks offers that's just kind of an easy way to help cut the cost of college that a lot of people don't think

about very often. And keep in mind to that college doesn't have to be for everyone. You know, you can consider apprenticing or if you're a parent, at least allowing your kid to work summers at a skilled trade even if they still decided to go to school, if they wanted to go to college, in the end, it's still

a great sort of hard skill that they learned. And even then there's soft skills that they learned, having already been in the workplace, that they can take back with them to college that you can't actually learn while you're in school. Yeah, Matt, And there's something that exists in our country right now that people have called the skills gap. And even with our incredibly low unemployment rate, there are a lot of unfilled jobs in the skilled workforce where

people don't need a college degree. They just need to apprentice in a specific skill. And if you do that, you don't accrue debt in the same way that a college student taking on loans us. And on top of that, some of those jobs that use skilled labor actually pay a lot more than a lot of college educated positions do. Yeah, you know, I've heard the plumbers rule the world. They

make some good money, right. I think we talked about on on an episode a while back that our friend Rob, who's a lawyer, doesn't get paid quite as much as his plumber And that's just that's kind of funny but also kind of becoming eerily true. And to consider how much time and cost for Rob to become a lawyer, it's a lot easier of a track to become a plumber. Not that it's not hard work, right, grueling work, but

it's at least an easier track to get there. Yeah, Joe, you know, like talking about trades versus like college makes me think about how like, shortly after starting the photography business, I remember thinking and saying out loud and having discussions with friends that my kids are never going to go to college. What I do now are not skills that I learned while in undergrad And I think I felt pretty arrogant and in my approach and how I viewed business and maybe how i'd sort of pulled myself up

by my own bootstraps. However, what I think I've realized though in the past several years is that there are just tons of different, like softer skills that you learn while in college. This is funny to say, but like you learn how to learn, you learn how to ask questions,

you learn how to figure things out. There's all these different things that you learn by going to classes and by having those sort of requirements and those tests set before you that you may not have learned otherwise, And not to mention to just the different connections that you make right when you go to college, Like you get to meet a lot of different people, and I know that I'm certainly a product of a lot of the relationships and the people I've met and the connections I've

made because of going to college. Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like when I initially graduated, I felt a sore lack of like hard skills that I wanted to bring into the workforce, and I felt like a lot of those things I had to learn on the fly, like on the job training almost right completely, and I was like, what was college for? But really it was for, like you said, a lot of those soft skills, and they they served me to this day, I feel like I'm building on top of them as opposed to having

to learn them from scratch. And also the yeah, those connections too that you make in college, the friendships and the connections, just the networking, right, Like we talked about that in the Jordan Harvaer episode. There's just so much opportunity that comes with maintaining relationships and being in touch with folks and finding ways to help other people. There's a lot there that's hard to quantify, and a lot of relationships that wouldn't have been made had had we

knock on to college. And plus, how would you know how to manage a house if you weren't an r a taking care of a whole floor of undergrad students, right, a bunch of unruly dudes just making a mess of my whole life and the dorm at the same time. I learned a lot doing that. That's all right, Matt. Let's get back to the beer though. Today on the show we drank Brain Diad brewing Power Shark and this was sent to us by listener Jared. This is a triple dry hopped beer. Just a massive amount of hoppy

goodness in this one. Anybody who's listening to the show for a while knows we love a good I p A. You know, what This one didn't disappoint. It was really good. Man. I'm a huge fan of this beer as well. Uh you know, it's triple dry hot opps and that means it's just got so much of that hop flavor in it. It's hard to describe sometimes, like what does hops like? What does hops taste like? It's almost this green herbally flavor and traditionally, like the hops are what gives I

p A is like that bitterness. But man, these newer I p A is like, in particular, the ones that are dry hot like this, just they convey this herbal flavor that it's almost like you're eating delicious vegetables while you're drinking beer, but specifically green vegetables right while you're drinking a really delicious beer. And this one, Yeah, it's just so well balanced that I just want to drink

my vegetables just all day long. So, dude, if we were getting our vegetable servings while drinking beer, when when we would be like the most healthy people on the planet. Sadly that's not the case. And this beer in particular had like a hop wallop. It almost like punched you in the mouth with how prominent the happiness was and I, yeah, I feel like you phrased it. Well, it's a difficult thing to put into words, but this beer in particular

gave you just a ton of that hop essence. Whereas some beers you can smell it a little bit, some beers you can taste it, this beer was kind of all encompassing Hops, and I'm totally cool with that because I freaking love Hops. So huge things to Jared for for sending this beer along to us. Again, this is

brain dead brewing power shark. All right, Matt, let's get to our final thoughts on cutting college costs, and Cody did a great job kind of helping us think through the difficulties of borrowing from our future selves and how we can think through cutting the cost of college to avoid doing that. Yeah, the first way that you can do that is by taking a p and clip exams

before you get to undergrad. There's no sense in taking an actual semester of a course if you're able to test out of it, So make sure you consider that. And also you want to make sure that you're applying to lots and lots of scholarships and grants. Basically, you want to make this your part time job, because chances are the time that you can dedicate to applying for these different scholarships and these different grants, you can make

more by doing that than you could waiting tables. Yeah, just remember that filling out the factive form is crucial in order to finding out what scholarships and grants are available to you. Also consider working while you're in school. Are as often get free housing as well as getting paid on the side. Working on campus as an option. Co ops and internships are great as well, and those things not only helped cut the cost of college, but they also boost your resume to help your potential earnings

post college chedule. What I specifically love about RAS and t a s as well, as Cody had mentioned that he did that is that they're the most optimized jobs for students living on campus because you're doing things that you pretty much would already do anyway, and I love that.

I love how these different jobs sort of align with the sort of natural life that you would live anyway, whether that's living on a dorm floor and providing some you know, leadership, Joel like you did, or maybe being a t A in a lab where you're learning at the same time you're you're making money. I love that. I don't know how much leadership I've provided, Mat, but I appreciate your vote of confidence. I'm sure it was awesome and tons of fun. Unlikely, but uh, thanks to

Cody for coming on the show. We really appreciate your wisdom and your inside Cody. And if you want to learn more about what Cody's up to, you can go to fly to five dot com. That's his blog where he writes about everything financial independence. You can check out his podcast five show and you can find that wherever you're listening to to this podcast. Considering Cody's only twenty two years old, I guarantee that you're going to hear more from him in the future. Chedjuel will have those

links up on our website. On our show notes for this episode, just go to House and Money dot com. And if you like the show, if you found it helpful, we would love your feedback. Feel free to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We greatly appreciate it. And if you think that Matt and I could improve, we would love to hear your feedback as well. Go to how to money dot com slash do Better. You can send an email there, Matt and I will read it. We

appreciate any constructive criticism you can offer. That's right, Joel, So until next time, best friends out, Best friends out, m