The College Cult
Should Kids Pay for it Themselves?

PayPal cofounder, early investor in Facebook, and all-around Silicon Valley superstar Peter Thiel famously sponsors a scholarship to encourage gifted young people not to attend college. Instead, he and his committee award money, support, and advice toward the starting of a business.
Another “Thiel-ism” is a question he asks people:
“What do you believe to be absolutely true that almost nobody else does?”
I appreciate this kind of contrarian thinking, and questions like this are good to ask in order to make sure one isn’t blindly following the herd. As people, we too easily can get swept up in the cultural currents of our time and place and become head-nodding agreeing machines, each parroting the same platitudes, subscribing to the same outlooks, and buying into the same theories. It is important for us to learn to think for ourselves. Otherwise people in Michigan, for instance, might all become Detroit Lions fans. Imagine such a scenario in which depression, frustration, and ongoing hopelessness spreads across an entire state!
When I first read Thiele’s question above, I was able to come up with at least six things I believe to be absolutely true that many folks might think qualify me for the loony bin. But I am only willing to share one here, and even now I tremble at the thought of how it might offend my three readers, and perhaps (cue the horror music), cause one or even two of them to stop reading my articles entirely (at which point I would be writing only for my mother). But I press on boldly with my heresy, proudly clinging to the horn of the altar of truth, as Adonijah and Joab each did when running from the wrath of Solomon. (Don’t get distracted by the fact that they both were still killed in the end).
Here is the heresy of which I speak:
Kids should pay for their own college.
(Can I come out from behind my shield yet? Have you forgiven my blasphemy enough to at least let me finish? I beg of the court here assembled to at least permit the prisoner a chance to defend himself.)
Somewhere along the line the idea of a university education went from being something reserved for the offspring of the wealthy, to nowadays being a kind of dividing line between “everyone” and “everyone else.” It appears close to universal acceptance that everyone should go to college, and, if they don’t, they must be some kind of loser.
This has naturally led to the market conditions that any economist from the Austrian school would predict: an increasing supply and even higher rising prices.
Indeed, if everyone is going to go to college, then the market becomes huge. One would expect to see colleges and universities popping up everywhere, and in fact, that’s exactly what we have. I just looked it up recently (not really), and the state of North Carolina alone (where I live) has approximately 3,417.5 colleges and universities (this man is lying). Ok, maybe not that many, but they’ve got a wagon full, I tell you! They’re more common here than miniskirts at a rock concert.
Fun fact: Wyoming only has one (major university, that is. They likely have more miniskirts).
But back to the flow: beyond the birthing of multitudes of facilities of “higher” learning, one would next expect an accelerated price for partaking in such privileges, as we have also seen. I could easily look up a bunch of statistics to help me make my point, but that would be boring. We all know that average wages in the United States have barely moved in 50 years, but the cost of a college education now approximates that of a rocket ride to the moon.
So where does one get this money?
THE PARENTS
Somewhere along the same line of college expansion from the few to the all, also came the idea that a college aged person is not an adult (although we allow them all the privileges of adulthood during this time even if we do not yet impose the responsibilities: drinking without being old enough to legally qualify, sex without the obligation of marriage, tattoos without any fashion consultation — you get the idea) and therefore it is not his or her burden to pay for it, but rather his or her mommy’s and daddy’s instead.
Of course! Brilliant!
- Convince all of society that everyone should go to college, and then
- Convince the parents that it is their duty to pay for it.
How could such a viewpoint be spread effectively across an entire society?
Pride. Prestige. Status. Make it a competition among the parents for whose child is attending such-and-such a school and introduce the idea of competition for whose child is the brightest, the smartest, the most bound-to-be-great. Next, use the parents’ ability to pay to determine financial aid availability, thereby enshrining the concept. And finally, use social proof. If everybody else is doing it as a matter of course, who wouldn’t feel guilty (and a little bit cold-hearted) for going against the grain?
But enough of how we got here. The question this article is supposed to be exploring is this: is it right that parents are automatically expected to foot the bill?
Where do I get this question? What made me think this way?
Both my wife and I paid for our own educations. We were each able to earn scholarships (for which we are grateful, despite the irreverent tone of this article), we worked (me as a co-op student and Terri in summer jobs) and we also took out some loans. Between us we have several framed certificates signifying our successful attendance at some of the nation’s most prestigious engineering institutions in which students are repeatedly pummeled with math and science problems until they become devoid of almost all personality. And we had the advantage of paying for it ourselves. Which leads me to my contrarian theory stated above.
If a young person shoulders the responsibility for paying for his/her education him/herself, could it at least possibly engender the following?
- Greater respect for the process
- A hungrier attitude toward getting one’s money’s worth
- More diligent study habits
- More relevant courses and not just education-for-education-sake
- A sense of ownership and pride that comes from accomplishment
- A more advanced maturing into actual adulthood
- A commitment to not only finish, but to do well in the process.
There are more reasons. But here is the main one: Terri and I both paying for our own educations was one of the best things that ever happened to us. We experienced the entire list above and more.
Hunger is the Key
As my co-author Orrin Woodward and I wrote in our bestseller Launching a Leadership Revolution, hunger is the key starting ingredient for a leader (and for outbound success in general). All other attributes can be obtained along the way, as long as a person is hungry enough.
I was never the smartest (especially if you ask my in-laws). I was never the best looking. I was never the tallest, the fastest, the most connected, or the most athletic. But I can look back at different periods of my life and can say with some confidence that at several points in the competition of life, I was among the hungriest, the most determined (and still am). And that made all the difference.
I do not want to deprive my children of the very thing that turned out to be my biggest blessing: hunger; a burning desire to achieve and to take God’s gifts and turn them to good purpose, to make it.
So far this principle appears to be working well in our own children. Our oldest son is at college and taking responsibilty to pay for it himself (largely through scholarships), and our next son is using the economics of this Brady family policy to inform his decision about what step to take next in his life, asking much deeper questions than merely “which school?” But I must admit, when it comes to our little girl (our third born out of four), I may cave in on all this tough talk (just don’t tell her!).
Maybe we should measure the results of three categories of people instead of two:
- Those who didn’t go to college
- Those who did
- Those who did, but paid for it themselves.
Here’s the other thing:
I could be totally wrong. *
But at least my contrarian thinking protected me from becoming a Lions fan!

* It wouldn’t be the first time.
(You can follow Chris on his Facebook fan page at Rascal Nation and on Instagram at cbrascal).
