Is College Necessary When you Have YouTube?

College serves many purposes for students. Learning to balance a social life, a job, and school can make or break some. The life-skills most Universities give us are so valuable, but are they actually worth the thousands of dollars of debt they cost us?

Did you know that college isn’t the only option for further education? Until recently, students have had to fork over thousands of dollars to learn a new trade or industry at a University. In recent years, YouTube has changed the game and become a medium for a vast array of free and quality information. 

Finance expert and founder and CEO of The Minority Mindset, Jaspreet Singh has long believed that if you play your cards right and find credible sources, you can learn about anything under the sun on YouTube, all for free. According to Jaspreet, YouTube is decentralizing the education system. 

The School System

Let’s back up a bit and explore what caused YouTube to provide these awesome resources in the first place. 

To understand this, we have to check out the original source of our society’s educational resources – the school system. In America, public education is available free of cost – up until college.

When the “college age” dawns, students decide if they want to continue on with school, or find a job without further education. It’s definitely a social norm to fill out the college applications, pray you get in, and feel thankful when you piece together enough scholarships, grants, and loans to fund your college experience. 

However, these days many entrepreneurs are realizing that they can have innovative careers without this step! Their experience, charisma, and work ethics are beginning to mean far more to companies and clients than any number of years of extra education could. 

How did this shift begin? Why is college no longer as appealing? Jaspreet Singh has noticed that there are two major factors that affected this shift: the accessibility of college, and the normalization of debt.

From Exclusive to Inclusive

First off, further education used to be more exclusive. It was difficult to get into a college, and even more difficult to secure a private loan to pay for your education. Therefore, the rich or the very smart were certainly favored.

Not everyone could afford, or intellectually handle, the possibility of college. If this were the case nowadays, many who are currently enrolled in college would not have had the chance to be accepted. 

As years went by, the government began to pose a plan to make college more accessible to all! Exciting, right? Not exactly. When everyone’s special, no one is. Now, the government offers loans to any and all students who need them. Anyone can take on debt; anyone can go to college. 

In response, Universities have made tuition prices astronomical, because hey, they’re funded by the government! And admissions processes have become significantly easier, because the more money from students, the better for the University. 

The more time has gone on, the more money students have had to fork over for tuition. And, the less exclusive college has become. When an asset like a college degree becomes commonplace, it no longer holds the rare value it once had. Now, college degrees are worth less and less. And they cost more and more to secure.

Is Debt Now Inevitable?

In 2020, the average amount of student loan debt held by a student was around $30,000. Within the past 10 years, we’ve seen a 20% increase in the average amount of student debt held by students. This has continued to normalize the taking on of student loans, and increase the value of loans which are considered “normal.”

Students now generally consider themselves lucky to get out of a 4-year degree with less than $30,000. It seems “feasible” to take on this “small” amount of debt in return for a degree. But how long does it take for former students to pay this back? Recent statistics show that it takes, on average, 20 years for borrowers to pay back this student loan debt. Does the loan still seem “feasible” and “small” now?

Because of this societal norm of debt, students have been conditioned to think that this is just a way of life; that it’s the only way they can become a successful professional. Most borrowers are hit with the reality of their debt, their interest rates, and their increasingly meaningless degrees after they graduate, and it’s not a pretty reality.

In our society today, debt has become almost inevitable. It’s understood as a necessary evil to obtain a degree, a home, or a car. However, Jaspreet has discovered that there are so many alternatives to this burden of educational debt in the online world! The main alternative to formal education today is YouTube (and spoiler alert: it’s completely free).

The Power of YouTube

YouTube entered the internet scene in 2005, as the first real accessible platform for users to make and watch any videos they liked. It met the current need for video entertainment, and continues to do so today, among other video platforms like TikTok and Instagram. 

YouTube rose to fame quickly, as a medium for video advertisements, home videos, presidential debates, and later, informational videos. Content creators began seeing the need for accessible content that was informational and helpful to consumers. 

15+ years later, there’s a YouTube corner for everyone. Need help with your biology homework? There’s a channel for that. Have a love for weird cat videos? Watch away. Need to figure out how to replace your kitchen backsplash? There’s a YouTuber who can walk you through it. 

Essentially, YouTube has created a platform for “experts” to share their knowledge, and “novices” to learn about any topic they like. You can pick and choose the experts that cater to your learning styles, and find the corner of the internet that best meets your needs. Jaspreet has created a valuable channel to share his expertise on financial truths with The Minority Mindset YouTube channel. 

YouTube has drastically changed professional’s abilities to problem solve, meaning they can troubleshoot any program, topic, or industrial questions they have in real time, on the job, from their phones. 

Are you a professional who wants to build wealth? Stay up on financial terms and news by scouring YouTube. Most of us can’t justify dropping another $30,000 on a finance degree. Enter: YouTube.

For Jaspreet & The Minority Mindset – YouTube started off as a hobby. But after a few years of making videos, Jaspreet realized that YouTube was more than just a place to make entertaining videos. It is a place to provide accessible financial education.

If you hear words like crypto, ETF, investing, stock market and wealth and aren’t sure what those things mean, Jaspreet breaks these concepts down so you can have confidence in your financial journey.

Jaspreet used The Minority Mindset to leverage his YouTube channel into something much more – a full financial media company. Jaspreet leveraged his viral YouTube Channel’s success back into his business to build a brand bigger than just YouTube. 

For example, if you are looking for a step-by-step guide on how to get started in the stock market, Jaspreet’s team put together a free guide that you can read, they have a daily financial newsletter, and a blog. 

So YouTube provides a way for you to learn anything you want, from teachers that do what they teach. And they provide entrepreneurs the opportunity to educate and speak directly to their audience. 

Staying Innovative

You can gain all the information you want on YouTube, but it’s up to you to keep challenging yourself to be creative and innovative. The world doesn’t need more college degrees, it needs more people with entrepreneurial spirits and the power to problem-solve and find creative solutions.

Employers are no longer looking to see “if” you completed a degree. They’re looking to see if you can learn a new system and find solutions to their daily problems. College might not have taught you that, but YouTube can.

Although college might have served many purposes for most of us, is it worth the debt it came with? When there are arguably better sources of teaching online (for free), how can we continue justifying the debt that comes with each degree?

With YouTube’s educational content and your unique personality, you have the tools you need to have a thriving career and a healthy financial life, without the burden of college debt.