Name: Why a College Degree Doesn't Mean What It Used To (with Mike Rowe)
Uploaded: 2025-09-23T14:45:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why a College Degree Doesn't Mean What It Used To (with Mike Rowe)' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why a College Degree Doesn't Mean What It Used To (with Mike Rowe)' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-23. Transcript available.

Do you think that the college, one of the reasons it went up was because most
of that
money was loans, and then that was almost a, not a scam, but a scheme to...
Scam's good.
Yeah.
Wow.
Look, it's a product, man.
What you're selling...
Right, but how does that money, just so I know, so I'm clear, so that money
works because
then the college loans it to you, they put interest on it, and then you have to
pay it
back.
Well, the college doesn't loan it.
Sometimes you might get a scholarship from the college, that's not a loan.
But financial aid packages can involve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which sounds
like your
awesome aunt and uncle somewhere.
Yeah, it also sounds like you borrowed some money from a guy in Memphis.
Well, actually, what it is, is some faceless bureaucrat in a tall, soulless
building in
Kansas City that's just crunching the numbers, right?
So the more people that they can get to go to college, the more interest that
they can
get off of these big loans, right?
So sure, the people loaning the money are getting interest on the loans, but it's
the colleges
themselves that...
Like right now, literally as we speak, there's a screaming headline.
Trump just put a hold on $2 billion of federal money that was going to go
straight to Harvard.
To Harvard, right?
To Harvard, that's right.
Now, why would he do that?
You know, people are screaming, oh my God, it's something about free speech.
You know, $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard has been paused due to activism on
campus.
Where in the headline does it tell you that Harvard has a $52 billion endowment?
Nowhere.
But they do.
They've got over $50 billion in an endowment.
That might not even have an effect.
Well, I mean, look, colleges, especially the top tier colleges, have an awful
lot of money.
And they have a steady stream of customers because in our society, we have
completely bought into
the notion that what you're purchasing in these schools is an education, which
you're actually
purchasing as a credential.
Whether or not you're educated or not, your experience may vary.
Look, dude, I'm looking at my iPhone right here.
If you've got an internet connection, well, you have access to 98% of all the
known information
in the world.
How you process it and how you utilize it, that's up to you.
That's you.
So it's not fair to say that you can get a liberal arts degree on your iPhone,
but you
can.
It's not fair to really compare lying in your bed like I did two weeks ago,
watching a
free lecture at MIT and saying, you know, it would be the same experience if I
were there
in the classroom.
But it's close enough to say, well, wait a minute.
If the first one cost me $0.0 and the second one is going to keep me in debt
for over 20
years, what am I doing?
So I don't know, man.
I feel badly about painting with too broad a brush.
My liberal arts degree served me really well.
I graduated four years after you were born, I'm guessing.
1984, I graduated.
Beautiful year.
All right.
It was a great year.
I went to two years in a community college.
A lot of hot chicks then too, huh?
Couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a prospect.
God.
You know those collectible dolls on QVC?
Mm-hmm.
It was very, very similar.
Yeah.
It was a good time to be alive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.
It was a good time to be alive.