It’s college. Yes, I just said that out loud and I absolutely mean it. When I was in my teens, to say something like that would be akin to being a traitor to God, Country and the Boy Scouts of America (which is another scam that I’ve talked about previously). To be fair, college works for a few people in very specific instances, like Doctor’s, Lairs, uh Lawyers, and Engineers. For some people who are the first in their families to go to college, I applaud you, and hope that you actually got something out of college. For the rest of us that were taught that if you don’t go to college you will fail, we are here to tell you that the piece of paper that your diploma was printed on is only worth about 10 seconds of kindling that you will use for the fire when you burn it.

I hate to tell people that, because it might discourage one young person that may need it not to go. However, I think of it as saving thousand of students from drowning, mostly in debt. Before I bore you with the details of my college experience, let me first bore you with a story of a you lad I know.

He’s a senior in high school, an excellent football player, but a fairly average student. Since he was young, he dreamt of playing in the NFL. After excelling in football for four years in high school, his dream was to “get an offer” to play at a Division 1 college. If he did, untold wealth could be obtained. Free college education, and on top of that, an almost guaranteed amount of addition NIL (Name, Image, Liscensing) money, that could be in the millions. Many of his teammates were given offers to D1 schools and given NIL offers of up to $500K a year.

That would, of course, be lifechanging money for this young man. While a few D1 coaches flirted with him, none gave him an offer. Luckily, last year, in one of the few times he hustled, he attended a football camp in Colorado, then did an informal visit with a small Division 2 college in Colorado. This year, when he sent out his film, that small Colorado college scheduled a formal visit. He got a free wining and dining, where they showed off their facility, gave him a tour of the college, and did a meet and greet with current players. He liked what he saw, so he was excited to finally get “his offer”.

The coach pulled him in, told him he was impressed with him, and pulled out on page with numbers on it. The boy was excited, but his dad’s stomach sank into a pit of despair as soon as he saw the page. It was organized first by the expenses. 24K for tuition, 20K for housing and food, and a host of other random fees. The dad was hoping for much better news when he saw what might cover those expenses. There was FAFSA (about 7K), an itty bitty academic scholarship for his GPA (about 3K), and then the real reason they went there, the amount that the football program would cover (a whopping 2K). Less than everything else.

With all the hard work he would have to do, including getting up at 5:30 am and practicing until 10 am, the academics between 10 and 4 pm, then coming back at 4 pm to look at film for 2 hours, they offered him a measly $2000. But don’t worry, for the privilege of being a full time player and a full time student, he only had to pay the low, low price of $12,000 a year. But wait, there’s more. He could now also be a part-time employee to work off all his wages. By adding just 20 more hours on top of his already maxed out 168 hours of the week, they generously offered to knock $4,000 off his tuition. All this for the privilege of getting his head beat in, risking permanent injuries, and potential lifelong rehab opportunities.

It gets better though. This was a only a Division 2 school. If you want to spend way more money, and rack up way more impressive amounts of debt, you can apply to prestigious Division 1, Ivy League or Engineering Schools for the low, low application fee of $400+. In an even better offer they add MORE crippling debt, HIGHER pressure anxiety inducing midterms, and EVEN MORE pressure to succeed just so you can pay back 90% of your salary for many decades to come.

I loved that idea so much that I went to college three times. This isn’t to say that those colleges loved me back, because all three of them changed their names, just to be able to disassociate themselves from me. In fact, I want to get into MIT, just to see what they change their name to after I leave.

If the purpose of college was to get me the heck away from my parents and to learn how to nap in the morning, and stay up all night eating pizza and chasing girls, then mission accomplished. But most institutions have some really well written but somewhat untruthful mission statement like: Provide a high-quality education that fosters students success or Promote academic excellence through innovative teaching and learning.

If they were honest, most college mission statements would be: To extract as much money from parents, students, governments, and football programs, in order to line the pockets of a few corrupt university higher ups, while providing students the ability to finally be free from their oppressive parents, so they can drink, party, do all kinds of drugs and explore their sexuality, while claiming we claim that we had nothing to do with that, because we aren’t their babysitters, they are adults and need to make their own decisions.

In addition, we foster financial illiteracy, by teaching students how to take out the maximum amount of student loans, and spend as much of that money on the university while they are here, as we push the responsibility of the crippling debt on the student, in addition to teaching them through horrible life lessons how interest on loans work. In other words, we want to create students that are anxious, ill-prepared and unready for any life situation that they may be placed in.

As a three time college attendee, those are the mission statements that were fulfilled by the colleges I attended. I left each of them unprepared for life, unready for a job, or any sort of roadmap about where my life was supposed to go.

Besides taxes, Amway and perhaps Cutco knives, college was indeed the world’s biggest scam. If my parents didn’t pay for 2 of the three schools that I attended, I might still be paying off my student loans. Not because I wouldn’t pay as much as I could toward them, but because college costs way more than it should. Everything I ever learned for my jobs, finances, or being a citizen of the world, I learned either way before college, or way after. In no way did college ever help me find a job. In no way did college help me learn how to be a good person. In no way did college help me become the world’s most famous bitter blogger, or the worst parent and husband. Those all came with life experience.

As a professional ads manager, I’m paid to sell as much of our product by using online ads as efficiently as possible. I’m ultimately in charge of getting as high an ROI (return on investment) or ROAS (return on Ad Spend) as possible. It’s pretty easy to see that if I spend $1 worth of ads, and I bring in two or three times that amount, I’m making the company money. If on the other hand, I’m spending a $1 and making only $.25 then I’m losing money.

College’s ROI to me wasn’t .25. It was exactly zero. None of the skills I learned in college are making me money right now. In fact, it wasn’t even possible to learn what I’m doing right now, because the internet was an intro class my last semester of school. But even if I went to college right now, I still wouldn’t learn any skills that would be relevant in my career or even family life. In that sense, college was not only a bad investment, it was a scam. Each of my colleges promised me that they would help me find a job, and have a better life.

That is as bad as telling me that if I have three parties and sell three of my friends on Amway, that I’ll be able to benefit from my downline and make passive income for the rest of my life. Except investing in Amway is way less than $60,000+. And they don’t require that you take anxiety inducing midterms and study everything except what is on the test in order to sell Amway.

Actually I did learn something in college. That it was a scam.

If you are realizing that everything in life can make you bitter, follow my blog, send me money, or tell your friends. While you are doing your best to deal with the bitter fact that you got scammed, use these Bitter Friday Giftures to make you feel a little bitter….

I’ve been scammed a few times in my life…

Back in my day…

But luckily…

A boy I know recently had an experience…

Recruited to play football as a student-athlete…

For the low, low price of…

Plus all of your money for many years in the future…

Just so you have the privilege…

To which I say…

The nice thing about higher learning institutions…

They absolutely only care about the well-being…

That is why I have such high regard…

ARRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Greatest Scam on Earth Ben