Philosophical-the future of B&M universities

[cookderosa]

This is just to have a fun discussion about the future of brick and mortar universities. This week's story at homeschoolmom1's house: so I am reading the book "Why A students work for C students" by Koyosaki (or a similar name), the same guy that wrote "Rich Dad Poor Dad". He keeps on writing that the key to financial independence and early retirement is to generate passive income. He is a big propnent of doing so by buying rental property. So my husband mentions this week that we could consider buying an apartment in a university town and rent it to faculty or students. He proposed Ft. Collins, CO. But then I came across an article that suggested that by 2030 on the order of half of all Colleges in the US will be gone. I really do think that the next big bubble to pop will be student loans. Who knows what kind of change in higher education that will lead to? In all honesty, knowing what we do here, it is hard for me to fathom how anybody would NOT want to do it this way and rather spend some insane amount of money for 4 years. Trust me, if partying for a few years is the goal, that can be had far cheaper by working at Disney or on a cruise ship. Over brunch last weekend, a colleague of my husband's was complaining about the checks he writes for his kids every semester: 1 kid at Tufts, 2 at Yale and 1 in Med School at UPenn. Now, those are prestigious places for sure and attending will almost certainly set the kids up for both feet in all sorts of doors, but is it really worth it? He was calculating 35K per child per semester in undergrad and a total of 250K for Med school. Now, they are rather wealthy (unlike us...), so I have limited pity for them., but, seriously? I said to my husband that buying a little studio shack in Ft. Collins simply because of proximity to a university might backfire and make it a really poor investment if in 20 years from now nobody actually"goes" (physically) to a university any more. Why do not more people do what we do? I suppose many don't know about this option? The question is, if they knew about it, would they do it this way?

On an aside, my homeschool book club just spent February discussing The Vanishing American Adult by Ben Sasse (he's a homeschooling dad AND a senator.... was really good if you're looking for something to read

IMO, traditional education is changing, but kids go to traditional colleges because they have parents pushing them to do it. Our kid's kids (my grandkids) will potentially be much more non-traditional simply because there is no stopping technology at this point- students ARE customers and being place-bound is just so 1980's. Over-paying for education is just so 2018. But, parents my age (I'm 48) did go to college *in a building* and that's the expectation because even though 50% of them didn't finish their OWN degree, they sill believe that it is the path to wealth. The author you read also does a great job in .... which one was it..... I listened to his audio book 2 years ago tracing the history of the Industrial Revolution and how it's perpetuated the college myth forward.... anyway, I'll think of it. I love progressive change, I can't wait to see what this crazy educational landscape looks like when I'm 90

Found it: Rich Dad's Rich Kid, Smart Kid Give Your Child A Financial Head Start (excellent assessment and overview of the college myths we believe)