College Conspiracy is the most comprehensive documentary ever produced about higher education in the U.S. The film exposes the facts and truth about America's college education system. 'College Conspiracy' was produced over a six-month period by NIA's team of expert Austrian economists with the help of thousands of NIA members who contributed their ideas and personal stories for the film. NIA believes the U.S. college education system is a scam that turns vulnerable young Americans into debt slaves for life
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00:00:00From the time an American child reaches the 6th grade, they are taught that the key to
00:00:10success in life is to do well in high school so that they can get accepted to the best
00:00:15possible college.
00:00:17The better grades they get in high school, the better college they will have an opportunity
00:00:20to get into.
00:00:21They are taught that if they get into a great college and get their college degree, any
00:00:26type of job they desire in the field of their choice will be there waiting for them.
00:00:31After getting their dream job, they will be able to buy any car and house they desire,
00:00:36start their own family, and live the American Dream.
00:00:40Most Americans today have an expectation of future economic success simply by obtaining
00:00:46a college degree.
00:00:47The entire purpose of elementary school is to prepare students for high school, and the
00:00:52entire purpose of high school is to prepare students for college.
00:00:56In fact, the U.S. now has hundreds of private college preparatory high schools that, at
00:01:01a cost of $25,000 per year, are supposed to increase students' chances of getting into
00:01:07a top-tier college.
00:01:09Students are taught to believe that if they don't go to college, they will be on a path
00:01:13to nowhere and will have no chance of ever building a successful career.
00:01:18Government regulations like No Child Left Behind have left grade and high schools in
00:01:24shambles.
00:01:25Instead of teachers having the freedom to think outside the box and use creative techniques
00:01:30to prepare their students for the real world, they are forced to be narrow-minded and teach
00:01:35with worthless information that will never help their students have successful careers.
00:01:40Today, there are no high schools left in America that teach students the knowledge necessary
00:01:45to start their own business, invent their own product, or even how to use the Internet
00:01:50and other free resources to become educated about things without attending college.
00:01:56The annual cost to attend the average private four-year college in America today is $27,293,
00:02:03up 29 percent from five years ago during the 2005-2006 school year when the annual tuition
00:02:12cost $21,235.
00:02:15This does not include the cost of textbooks, which have tripled over the past decade.
00:02:22Colleges are now charging $200 for each single textbook that has no resale value because
00:02:28they put out new, slightly revised versions with a new name each year.
00:02:33The textbook publishers are even colluding with college bookstores to make custom textbooks
00:02:38so that students can't save money by buying them online.
00:02:43Colleges are getting kickbacks from publishers in order to destroy the used textbook market,
00:02:47which by itself is proof enough that college administrators are only interested in lining
00:02:53their own pockets and have no interest in helping their students.
00:03:09You have to have a certain kind of brain to understand the dead language that they write
00:03:21in textbooks, but they brainwash it from a little kid up so that you buy into the system
00:03:28and you get good grades and you study hard and then you become a member of the total
00:03:36system. No freedom. You don't know how to think because they told you how to think their
00:03:43way.
00:03:46College tuition has seen 5.15% annual price inflation over the past five years. This is
00:03:52despite the fact that U.S. real estate prices are down 26% from their peak in July of 2006
00:04:00and the Dow Jones is down 18% from its peak in October of 2007. Even oil is down 38% from
00:04:08its peak in July of 2008. During the financial crisis of 2008, Americans lost $10.2 trillion
00:04:17in paper wealth and college is the only thing in America, besides the cost of health care,
00:04:22that did not at least temporarily decline in price.
00:04:27Education has made it impossible. Again, when I was a kid, it wasn't, you never heard
00:04:35parents say, we're planning and putting money away for your education because it's going
00:04:42to cost us $100,000 and we have to keep putting that money away so that when you graduate,
00:04:50not only will you not pay us back, you're not even going to get a job.
00:05:00Over just a two-year period from December of 2007 through December of 2009, 8,363,000
00:05:08jobs in America were lost, or 6.1% of total jobs. One year later, in December of 2010,
00:05:16thanks to the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government spending $4.6 trillion on bailouts,
00:05:24stimulus programs and other government spending, 1.124 million jobs in America, or 0.9% of
00:05:30total jobs, had been recovered. That is over $4 million spent for each job created.
00:05:38As we move deeper into this great recession that we believe, as inflation continues to
00:05:44skyrocket, the reality of a great depression will come in, because people will realize
00:05:50that all that worthless money you have can't buy you much of anything. You're going to
00:05:57see more and more people, as they're already doing it, believing that by going to college,
00:06:04that's going to be their passport to the future. It's not what it used to be. A degree, a college
00:06:12degree, a B.S., what does that buy you? And I love the mentality. The mentality is this,
00:06:22that corporations and businesses won't hire a person unless they get a degree. Not me.
00:06:29I don't care if you have a degree. It makes absolutely no difference. I want you to have
00:06:36a mind, be able to think for yourself and think on your feet. Be energetic and love
00:06:43what you're doing and have a passion in so many different other ways. Not to be able
00:06:48to just regurgitate what you're being told. And that's all it's come to, it's regurgitation.
00:06:59During an economic downturn when Americans are losing their jobs, their primary instinct
00:07:04is to seek higher education in order to make themselves more attractive to potential employers
00:07:10and better position themselves to receive a job. However, how are Americans supposed
00:07:15to spend $27,293 per year for college when they have no savings or income to pay for
00:07:23it? The U.S. government, with the backing of the Federal Reserve, in the same way they
00:07:28created the real estate bubble, by providing mortgages to all Americans through Fannie
00:07:32Mae and Freddie Mac, regardless of whether or not they had any capacity to pay the loans
00:07:37back, has been using the exact same easy lending practices to create one of the largest bubbles
00:07:44in U.S. history, the college bubble. College students borrowed $106 billion in total student
00:07:53loans for the 2009-2010 school year, up from $96 billion in 2008-2009, $94 billion in 2007-2008,
00:08:03$87 billion in 2006-2007, and $83 billion in 2005-2006. Total student loan debt in
00:08:13the U.S. currently stands at $830 billion, and now exceeds credit card debt.
00:08:20I was so pro-education. That's all I wanted in my life was an education. And I'd like
00:08:37to still be pro-education, but to put anybody through what I've been through? No. Really,
00:08:42in my case, the education, I think, really ruined my life. So, I mean, I would have been
00:08:48better off if I just would have gone to work at, you know, McDonald's or something, actually.
00:08:53That is unbelievable. Yeah, because this is a debt I can never get over.
00:09:07The U.S. government created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order to make housing more
00:09:11affordable, but instead, their actions drove housing prices through the roof and made buying
00:09:16a house impossible for most Americans, unless they took out no-money-down-teaser loans with
00:09:21interest rates that substantially increased after a year or two. The U.S. government has
00:09:27been trying for decades to make college more affordable, but its actions have accomplished
00:09:32the complete opposite effect. College is now impossible for most students to afford without
00:09:38getting deeply into debt to do so. All across the country, Americans are graduating college
00:09:45with mortgages before they even buy a house.
00:09:50When I graduated from my undergraduate degree, I had $300 in student loans that I owed. $300.
00:09:59You know, you can hardly buy two cups of coffee and a meal at the student union these days
00:10:05for $300. So, when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, what you got in exchange for your
00:10:13education was lifetime indenture and a new house. So, you got to buy the mortgage. That's
00:10:20what you got. You got your degree. You got out of school. You got a job, and therefore
00:10:25you bought a house because culture drives you to buy a house. So, now you're in debt.
00:10:29You have to work. Now you have to be part of the wage-slave economy for the next 20
00:10:34or 30 years until the house is paid off. These days, college is the new house, and you don't
00:10:39even get the house. As soon as you get out of school, you're indentured for life.
00:10:46When you started taking out loans, what kind of debt did you end up getting into, and how
00:10:51much have you been able to pay off, and how much do you still have?
00:10:55When I walked out of dental school, I was $136,000 in debt, and I have paid in close
00:11:02to $100,000 right now. They say I owe $300,000, so I still have quite a bit, obviously, that
00:11:09I can't manage anymore, and I've done everything I can to try to manage it, but it becomes
00:11:15unmanageable at a certain point. One of the loans, the HEAL loan, was a health
00:11:21occupation loan, and when that defaulted, then I can no longer see Medicare or Medicaid
00:11:31patients, so I'm very selective of where I can even work anymore, because it ties my
00:11:36hands. If I wanted to go into indigent care, or one of the free clinics, or something,
00:11:41I couldn't. When I was first told this, I was told by
00:11:44my attorney that I would not get Medicare or Medicaid. I said, well, okay, there's not
00:11:50much I can do, and for many years, that's what I believed, because that's what he thought
00:11:54they meant. Well, comes to find out, that's not what it was at all. It was that I was
00:11:58not able to work on patients in Medicare or Medicaid, and so when I went to work for this
00:12:05place that I'm working, I thought we were fine, because we don't take them. Well, there
00:12:11happens to be some federal employees that now I can't see. I didn't even realize that,
00:12:16and so when the office manager, when we realized it, the office manager sent a note to him
00:12:20and said, what's the deal, and they said, well, she knows all about this. No, I don't
00:12:25know about it, and neither do the attorneys, and neither does anybody else. I mean, these
00:12:29laws are so vague, it's just amazing. So now I have to watch who I see, and fortunately
00:12:36my employer has worked with me, or I would be out of a job, basically, but they're very
00:12:43vague, and they keep you in the dark. They don't really try to help you or figure any
00:12:50of this out. They don't work with you. I know there's the new income-based repayment, but
00:12:54I don't fall into any of that. So, I don't know. I just don't want to see it happen to
00:13:01anybody else. That's my problem. There's no compassion. There's no help. No help, no compassion,
00:13:06nothing. They're just vultures.
00:13:15Back in the 1970s, the average college student was able to afford their college tuition without
00:13:20any student loans or help from their parents. They were able to pay for college by working
00:13:25a part-time job year-round or by simply working full-time during the summer when they were
00:13:30off from school. Not only that, but they were also able to afford their own car payments
00:13:35and possibly a small apartment. The U.S. government destroyed this by providing easy student loans
00:13:41to anybody who applied for them without any credit requirements. Over the past decade,
00:13:47any 18-year-old has had the ability to take out large student loans without even being
00:13:52asked if they have a job, what their high school grades were, what they intend to major
00:13:56in, or any other information that would help determine their future ability to pay back
00:14:01the loan.
00:14:03These are, this is a paper, and this is of course a copy, I have the original, of what
00:14:09they gave me the day I graduated from dental school, what amount, income level I would
00:14:14have to make, and how much of that would go to school loans, and what percentage. First
00:14:22off, I never even made enough in a month to pay the monthly school loan amount, so that's
00:14:31why it went into default.
00:14:32Right, and they basically made just completely unrealistic projections of what you were going
00:14:38to make, correct?
00:14:39Unrealistic, totally unrealistic, yes. I've not even managed to make any of them at all,
00:14:44so this year, of course, they're projecting I would clear about $260,000, and I'm making
00:14:54about $80,000.
00:14:55Where did they come up with these numbers?
00:14:58Well, I'm not sure, and I think that was the whole point, in 2015, which will not ever
00:15:05happen. The problem is, it also is your percentage of what they're taking. I know it's been proposed
00:15:13at 10%, and I think that is the fair amount, but at some points, I pay as much as 34% of
00:15:19my wage, 32% of my wage. Right now, I'm paying 25% of my wage to school loans, and that's
00:15:27a huge amount when you have other debts and other bills as well.
00:15:30Thank you so much.
00:15:32No, thank you very, very much for what you're doing. I appreciate it.
00:15:36I really appreciate the help.
00:15:41Today, two-thirds of students are graduating college with an average student loan debt
00:15:46of $24,000, and the government is now making the situation many times worse by completely
00:15:52taking over the student loan business. Hidden inside of the recently passed health care
00:15:57bill, the government passed a complete student loan overhaul, where they removed commercial
00:16:02banks from providing loans to students. Now, all students will receive their loans directly
00:16:08from the government at artificially low interest rates.
00:16:14There's absolutely no reason why we, the taxpayers, should be funding college education, and that's
00:16:21what we're doing when they're giving government aid. You know what my college debt was when
00:16:26I got out of school? $1,500. $1,500. You talk about inflation, you talk about inflation.
00:16:35You know what it used to cost me a whole year to go to school? $2,000, and that included
00:16:40room and board. You want to talk about inflation? You're never going to be able to get out from
00:16:46that debt. You're an indentured servant. That's right. That $120,000 you owe, the $80,000,
00:16:54the $40,000, the $250,000 if you're a good student that went to law school and you're
00:17:00that much in debt without a job, you have to pay it back. There is no way out. That's the system.
00:17:22One of the unintended consequences of the Wall Street bailouts of 2008 is that now most
00:17:27American students believe that if they take out loans to attend college but can't find
00:17:32a job to pay them back, they will be bailed out by the government and have the loans forgiven.
00:17:37NIA believes this is indeed what will ultimately happen, and therefore it will be U.S. taxpayers
00:17:43who end up paying for the artificially inflated, sky-high tuitions for all college students
00:17:49who can't or choose not to repay their loans. It won't only be taxpayers who suffer. All
00:17:55holders of U.S. dollars worldwide will ultimately pay for everybody's student loans, as the
00:18:01Federal Reserve is likely to print the money to make up for these bad debts, which will
00:18:06lead to hyperinflation and a worthless U.S. dollar.
00:18:12Many students are outright abusing the system. Although government student loans get sent
00:18:17directly to the college or university to pay for a student's tuition, private student loans
00:18:23that are guaranteed by the government usually get sent directly to the student in the form
00:18:28of a check. NIA has been hearing countless reports of students using this free student
00:18:33loan money to buy food, electronics, clothing, jewelry, even cars. The friend of one NIA
00:18:40member used his student loan money to rent and furnish a fancy apartment in Manhattan
00:18:45and didn't even go to college. Even when the loan comes directly from the government
00:18:51and goes straight to the college, there is often thousands of dollars left over each
00:18:55semester after tuition is paid for. This extra money then gets dispersed directly to the
00:19:01student in the form of a check.
00:19:03There is an epidemic in America of students using their student loan money for non-educational
00:19:09purposes, and absolutely nothing is being done to stop this from happening. This is
00:19:14complete insanity, and all Americans will pay for the madness in the very near future.
00:19:21One NIA member from Kansas City, Missouri, has a wife who was one semester short of obtaining
00:19:27her teacher's degree. Instead of borrowing the $8,000 required for tuition at Northwest
00:19:32Missouri State University, she took out a government student loan for $13,000 and used
00:19:38the extra $5,000 to buy a used car. Unfortunately, shortly before graduating, Kansas City closed
00:19:45several schools and laid off 300 teachers. She is now working at a school cafeteria for
00:19:51$8.50 an hour. Although she was required to make monthly payments of $146 for 10 years,
00:19:59after calling the government student loan office and inquiring about their income-based
00:20:03payment plan, they agreed to reduce her monthly payments to zero.
00:20:11With all the modern technological advances the world has been experiencing in recent
00:20:15years, the cost of a quality college education in America should be getting cheaper. It is
00:20:21now cheaper to purchase a plasma television or laptop computer than years ago because
00:20:26the government doesn't subsidize purchases of these products. If there was a true free
00:20:31market in college education, colleges would be figuring out more cost-efficient ways to
00:20:37educate students using modern technology in order to bring tuitions down and compete against
00:20:43each other for the enrollment of students. By guaranteeing student loans and providing
00:20:48too much financial aid to students, the U.S. government destroyed the free market in college
00:20:53education. One NIA member who is 50% owner of a private vocational school tells us that
00:20:59he is legally forced to raise tuitions every time the government raises financial aid to
00:21:04students. The government's 90-10 rule mandates that at least 10% of a private for-profit
00:21:11college's income comes from non-federal government sources. Therefore, private for-profit colleges
00:21:18must keep raising tuitions to stay within the 90-10 rule.
00:21:22The government needs to get out of the education business completely and allow private banks
00:21:28to re-enter the market and compete against each other in order to offer loans at reasonable
00:21:34interest rates to students who will have the best ability to pay them back. The reality
00:21:39is the majority of the students who qualify for loans today from the government would
00:21:44no longer qualify, but this will force colleges to either bring down their expenses in order
00:21:49to charge affordable tuitions or close their doors for good.
00:21:57Colleges in America spent $10.7 billion on construction projects in 2009, down from an
00:22:05average $14.7 billion spent per year from 2005 to 2007, but still very excessive. Colleges
00:22:13have recklessly spent to build new libraries, gyms, sports arenas, housing units, etc. all
00:22:19for the purpose of impressing potential students and their families. None of these projects
00:22:25have added anything to the quality of college education in the U.S. Many colleges have very
00:22:31large levels of debt they undertook to build new construction. With most college endowment
00:22:36funds being crushed in recent years due to collapsing real estate and stock market prices,
00:22:42many colleges have very poor balance sheets that won't be able to withstand the slightest
00:22:47drop in enrollments.
00:22:50Jocks! Grown-up jocks! Excuse me, they're coaches now. Hey, coach. Making millions of
00:23:01dollars. For what does this have to do with education? What a waste. What a waste. Two-bit
00:23:10universities fielding baseball teams, football teams, basketball teams, for what? To entertain
00:23:18the kids? Yeah, you can do this if you're a very rich society and you have the money
00:23:24to waste, but not during a great recession, and not as the median household income of
00:23:32the country continues to decline, and not as you're sending all of these kids to get
00:23:38degrees in worthlessness, because that's what these university degrees are, a lot of them.
00:23:45It's a waste of money, it's a waste of energy, and it's an affront to anyone who really wants
00:23:52to think seriously about an education, because it has nothing to do with the NCAA.
00:24:00We are sort of seeing the perfect storm. We have seen all this construction in the past
00:24:04few years, and if you're a college president, putting your name on a building is quite nice.
00:24:09But you are not there, you probably have moved on somewhere else while your name is on the
00:24:12building, but now the operation and maintenance costs are now falling due. That was never
00:24:17part of the original bond issue, so now we have all these facilities coming online, students
00:24:23are being stressed financially, parents are being stressed financially, tuition is going
00:24:27up like crazy. Even those schools that are lucky to have endowments, typically they are
00:24:31not having the return they used to have in the old days. So there is just this tremendous
00:24:37culmination of things all coming together that is just going to stress the system completely.
00:24:41You know, we just saw that there were even riots in UCLA when they saw a 32% increase
00:24:46in tuition. Do you think they will start to see a lot more riots and students getting
00:24:51angry at these tuition prices?
00:24:54I would love to see a little more activism on the part of my students. I think they have
00:24:58been taking this now for such a long time that maybe it's just part of the scenery now
00:25:02and they're not really worried about it anymore. And I also think a person that's 20 years
00:25:06old, 22 years old, does not realize the implications of not being able to escape student loan debt.
00:25:13When I was in my high school years at that time, many people were going to college, borrowing
00:25:19the money to go all the way through medical school. And when they graduated from medical
00:25:23school or law school, they would simply just up and declare bankruptcy. But in its wisdom
00:25:28a few years ago, as you probably know, Congress changed those rules in that you can no longer
00:25:33discharge student loan debt through bankruptcy. And now even if you happen to make it to Social
00:25:38Security and you still owe them money, they're going to come after your Social Security check
00:25:43if it exists, which I don't think it will.
00:25:46With NIA projecting all U.S. interest rates to rise dramatically over the next few years
00:25:52to multi-decade highs, many colleges will likely be forced to double or triple their
00:25:59average tuition inflation rate to 10 or 15 percent just to cover rising interest payments.
00:26:05As the word spreads about this documentary and Americans become educated to the truth,
00:26:10more and more students will wake up to the fact that college education is the largest
00:26:15scam in American history. We are about to reach a point where students say enough is
00:26:21enough and refuse to pay higher tuition prices.
00:26:29There are currently a total of 4,168 public and private two- and four-year colleges in
00:26:35the U.S. In the near future, as the U.S. dollar begins to collapse and American families are
00:26:40forced to spend more than 30 percent of their income on food, we expect to see a sharp contraction
00:26:47in the number of colleges in America. NIA conservatively believes 20 percent of American
00:26:53colleges will close by the year 2020. Of the colleges that remain open, NIA projects
00:26:59an average decline in enrollments by the end of this decade of between 15 and 30 percent.
00:27:05In fact, enrollments by American students in each college could decline by as much as
00:27:1050 percent, with Chinese students using their soon-to-be-strong yuan to become educated
00:27:16in the U.S. and price American students out of the market.
00:27:21NIA also projects for most colleges to reduce their faculty sizes by between 25 percent
00:27:27and 40 percent, which will mean larger class sizes and a further decline in the quality
00:27:32of education.
00:27:36If we were doing such a wonderful job and producing such geniuses coming out of universities,
00:27:44you'd think we'd be in the problems that we're in now.
00:27:51Do you think that we would be among the most unhealthy nation of people in developed nations?
00:28:00Do you think that we would be gobbling down junk food?
00:28:07Do you think that we would be prescription drug addicts as a society?
00:28:13Do you think that we would be in the greatest recession that's heading toward the greatest
00:28:20depression?
00:28:22Do you think we would be in Iraq and wasting trillions of dollars fighting losing wars
00:28:28in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan?
00:28:32Do you think that we would have presidents and senators and congressmen and legislators
00:28:42of such low mentality that we have now?
00:28:47Do you think that we would have the rampant greed of the white shoe boys on Wall Street
00:28:55if the universities were turning out anything of quality considering the trillions that
00:29:02are spent and the tens of millions that are educated?
00:29:11By their deeds you shall know them.
00:29:14Look what American universities have produced.
00:29:25The simple truth is any American high school student who has any savings put away that
00:29:30they are planning to spend on college would be much better off simply investing this money
00:29:34into physical silver.
00:29:36A senior in high school with $30,000 in savings who buys physical silver today will likely
00:29:41have enough money to buy the median U.S. home four years from now while all of their friends
00:29:46will be graduating college with no job or money to buy a house but will be stuck with
00:29:51hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and a worthless piece of paper called a college
00:29:56degree.
00:30:00How worthless is education?
00:30:06Let me count the ways of my worthless college degree.
00:30:10Worthless.
00:30:14That's what a college degree is worth.
00:30:20Here's my worthless law degree.
00:30:25Hopefully it's worthless.
00:30:27Here's my worthless license to practice law.
00:30:33Worthless.
00:30:37Here's my worthless computer science degree.
00:30:41Also worthless.
00:30:44That's the value of education.
00:30:54If somebody were graduating from high school today and wanted to know whether they should
00:30:58go to college, I would say they should run, not walk, away from college.
00:31:04Because the industrial age doesn't have long to go.
00:31:07There's no way that I would encourage somebody to go four years or more to undergraduate
00:31:13school, rack up a bunch of debt, and learn a bunch of nonsense that isn't going to do
00:31:17them any good when there's no fuel at the filling station, no food at the grocery store,
00:31:21and no water coming out of the municipal taps.
00:31:24Why would you go to college to go into a huge amount of debt to get nothing in return, not
00:31:32even something that might facilitate your survival, much less your ability to thrive?
00:31:37At this point, at this late era in the industrial economy, I wouldn't encourage anybody to go
00:31:43to college.
00:31:44It hasn't been a very good deal for quite a while, and it certainly is a really bad deal
00:31:51now.
00:31:54I confer upon you the degree for which you have worked so hard, with all the rights,
00:32:00privileges, and responsibilities thereto.
00:32:03Congratulations!
00:32:12As fast as college tuition costs are rising, the value of a college degree is declining
00:32:18even faster.
00:32:20The youth in America today need to be taught to think for themselves, and realize that
00:32:24there is no value to having a college degree if everyone else has one.
00:32:30I was in the student union where graduation was about to take place, and they had a series
00:32:35of plaques on the wall.
00:32:38And they listed all the students who had graduated with a 4.0 grade point average.
00:32:46And the first plaque had, you know, all the plaques were basically full of names, but
00:32:53the first plaque had the first 50 or 60 years of the university represented.
00:33:00To fill that plaque with the 20 or so names on it required 50 or 60 years of higher education.
00:33:10Of course, in the most recent five years, there were multiple plaques for every year.
00:33:16We're churning out 4.0 students at the rate of a couple hundred a year.
00:33:21That used to mean something.
00:33:23You know, if you're the only person in the first 40 years of the history of the institution
00:33:28to have a 4.0, that's meaningful.
00:33:31Not everybody's a 4.0 student.
00:33:33Our standards have fallen so profoundly that anybody with a heartbeat can get a 4.0 average.
00:33:42It's just absurd.
00:33:43The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in April of last year that as of October 2009,
00:33:4970.1% of 2009 high school graduates were enrolled in colleges or universities,
00:33:56an all-time high since they began keeping this statistic,
00:33:59and up from 68.6% of 2008 high school graduates enrolling into college.
00:34:06In other words, there's no longer anything special about a college degree in America.
00:34:10It's no longer anything special about a college degree in America
00:34:13if 70% of everybody else is also attending college to receive one.
00:34:18NIA is working hard to ensure that it will soon become common knowledge in the U.S.
00:34:23that a college degree gives you no advantage over the rest of the population.
00:34:28When Americans finally learn the truth, the college bubble in America will burst.
00:34:41College enrollment has been increasing really since the late 80s,
00:34:45but what kind of is an unknown secret is since 1992, the majority of college graduates,
00:34:5260% of them, were in positions that the BLS considered low-scale
00:34:56and typically did not require a high school education.
00:34:59For example, 20% of all the new waiter and waitressing positions created since 1992
00:35:05have been filled by college graduates.
00:35:10College Graduates
00:35:25Of the 29.9% of recent high school graduates not in college,
00:35:3070% of them were able to successfully find jobs without a college degree.
00:35:36These Americans are already building important workforce experience,
00:35:39which NIA considers to be far more valuable than any piece of paper.
00:35:44By comparison, only 42.1% of recent high school graduates in college have a job,
00:35:50and most of these are part-time jobs where the students are building very little workforce experience.
00:35:56The 57.9% of students in college without jobs,
00:36:01not only are they wasting their savings and getting deeply into debt for a worthless piece of paper,
00:36:06but they are losing out on valuable income they could have been earning during those four years.
00:36:11One of the greatest myths in America today
00:36:14that is used to scam Americans into overpaying to attend college
00:36:18is that college graduates make more money in their lives than Americans without college degrees,
00:36:23and therefore a college degree is a great investment.
00:36:26According to studies from biased organizations like the College Board,
00:36:31Americans with college degrees will earn $1 million in additional income over their lifetime
00:36:36compared to high school graduates with no college degrees.
00:36:52Most colleges and universities in America use this $1 million in additional income statistic
00:36:57to hype and sell their product.
00:36:59It has been repeated so many times that it has just about been accepted by all
00:37:03with nobody questioning its validity.
00:37:06However, for any student thinking of attending college,
00:37:09they need to consider the facts surrounding this number
00:37:12and compare it to the true cost of attending college.
00:37:16With the cost of annual college tuition now at $27,293,
00:37:21if we assume continued 5.15% college tuition inflation over the next four years,
00:37:28the average cost for a student entering college now to receive their bachelor's degree in four years
00:37:34will be $117,900.
00:37:37Therefore, even with the current college inflation crisis,
00:37:41an expenditure of $117,900 on the surface
00:37:45seems like a good investment if the return will be $1 million.
00:37:49The secret truth is most college students do not receive their degree in four years.
00:37:54The Americans who are earning $1 million more in their lifetimes
00:37:58are actually spending an average of six years in college before receiving their degrees.
00:38:03Therefore, assuming continued 5.15% college tuition inflation for years five and six,
00:38:09the total cost for the average student's degree in order to earn their $1 million in extra income
00:38:15will be $186,349.
00:38:19For those who borrow that full amount and pay it back over ten years at a 6% interest rate,
00:38:25the additional interest expense would be $61,914,
00:38:30bringing the total cost of the degree up to $248,263.
00:38:36Then you need to consider the matter of lost income.
00:38:40The average high school graduate who finds an entry-level job without a college degree
00:38:45earns $35,400 per year over the first six years.
00:38:50For the majority of college students who don't have jobs,
00:38:53they are losing $212,400 in income over their six years in college.
00:39:00Combining the expected cost to attend college for six years
00:39:04with potential interest expenses and lost income,
00:39:07and now we are at a total cost of $460,663,
00:39:13with a hope of earning an extra $1 million over a lifetime.
00:39:18Another important fact is all of the reports that show $1 million in extra income
00:39:23for college graduates over high school graduates
00:39:26include students who receive GEDs as being high school graduates.
00:39:30Most GED recipients weren't motivated enough to graduate high school
00:39:34and therefore shouldn't be included in these statistics as real high school graduates.
00:39:39NIA believes GED recipients are unfairly skewing down high school graduates' average incomes.
00:39:46Also, the simple truth is,
00:39:48some Americans are just more motivated than others to make money and have successful careers.
00:39:54Somebody who wants to earn a high income usually goes to college
00:39:57because they have been suckered into believing it offers them the greatest ability to do so,
00:40:02whereas most Americans who don't attend college
00:40:05don't have as strong a desire to have a successful career.
00:40:0995% of college graduates interviewed by NIA with annual incomes above $200,000
00:40:17tell us that their college degrees had absolutely nothing to do with their business success.
00:40:23In fact, of these same people surveyed,
00:40:2590% of them said that they probably would have become successful at a much earlier age
00:40:30and be making even more money today
00:40:32if they didn't waste so many years of their life attending college.
00:40:36The phony $1 million in additional income study that was conceived by the education industry
00:40:42in order to deceive Americans into overpaying to attend college
00:40:46is just one of many false, misleading studies
00:40:50that they have created in an effort to create an illusion that college is a good investment
00:40:55no matter how high tuition prices rise.
00:40:59The mainstream media has been working with the education industry
00:41:02and helping them perpetrate their schemes on the American public.
00:41:06One of these schemes was the 2008 pharmacist shortage hoax.
00:41:10Three years ago, there were 15 new pharmacist schools getting ready to open in the U.S.
00:41:15In order to create artificial demand for enrollments to all of these new schools,
00:41:20the industry decided to create an illusion that there was a huge shortage of pharmacists in the country
00:41:26that will continue for the rest of the decade with 150,000 new pharmacist jobs needed by 2020.
00:41:33One place where the U.S. economy has too many jobs and not enough applicants is in pharmacies.
00:41:39Because there's a shortage of pharmacists, many are overworked from putting in long hours.
00:41:44With pharmacies open 24 hours a day and a huge population of aging baby boomers
00:41:49consuming larger amounts of prescription drugs,
00:41:52it adds up to an industry that cannot find enough pharmacists to go around.
00:41:56From the student standpoint, and our students know that when they graduate, they have a job.
00:42:02I mean, in fact, they have a job even before they have graduated.
00:42:06It's not that they can practice as a pharmacist, but they know they have been offered already a job.
00:42:12So that's one of the positive sides.
00:42:15On the negative side is the pressure that's put on the schools
00:42:19to really come up with the number of pharmacists that are needed in the future.
00:42:23By some estimates, the U.S. would need more than 150,000 new pharmacists by 2020
00:42:29to match supply with industry demand.
00:42:32Experts say the pharmacist shortage will continue for at least a decade or more.
00:42:36In the meantime, at least 15 new pharmacy schools are expected to open their doors by 2010,
00:42:42even as existing schools expand in size.
00:42:46NIA has been hearing dozens of reports from its members with family members
00:42:51who have graduated pharmacy schools six months to a year ago
00:42:55and have sent in their resumes to hundreds of different pharmacies in the New York metropolitan area
00:43:00and have yet to even receive one job offer.
00:43:04Even experienced pharmacists are having major difficulties finding pharmacist jobs.
00:43:09The husband of one NIA member retired five years ago as a pharmacist in New Jersey,
00:43:14but has now decided to re-enter the workforce
00:43:17so that their family can accumulate enough gold and silver to survive hyperinflation.
00:43:22Unfortunately, he was forced to leave his family and move to a rural part of Alabama
00:43:27in order to receive a pharmacist job paying only $18 per hour.
00:43:34Law schools have also been deceiving the public with false and misleading statistics.
00:43:39During the past decade, an unprecedented number of Americans went to school to become lawyers
00:43:45because they thought if they became a lawyer, they would immediately become rich.
00:43:49Some law schools are advertising that 90% of graduates are employed within one year of graduating.
00:43:55The unfortunate reality is, law schools are deceiving their students with these statistics
00:44:01because most of their graduates who are employed within a year of graduating are not employed at law firms.
00:44:07They can be employed at Walmart or McDonald's,
00:44:10but the law schools will still consider them to be part of their 90% employed within a year.
00:44:16A lot of schools right now will tout a job placement rate after graduation
00:44:20or what percentage of their graduates are employed X amount of months after graduating their degree.
00:44:27And what you're seeing sometimes is manipulation and outright just fraud in how they calculate this.
00:44:33One major law school was recently admitted to hiring a bunch of unemployed legal graduates
00:44:40to work in their admissions group at the same time their placement rate survey was being conducted.
00:44:45So yes, were they employed at the time? Yes, but it was an illegal profession.
00:44:52Law schools are handing out 43,000 law degrees each year,
00:44:56yet 15,000 attorney and legal staff jobs have disappeared since 2008.
00:45:02Many people wonder why 60% of the U.S. Senate and 37% of the U.S. House of Representatives are lawyers.
00:45:10Well, the reason is, they go to Washington in order to pass as many new harmful and destructive laws and regulations as possible
00:45:18in order to provide enough work for all of their lawyer friends.
00:45:22So I decided to go to law school. I went to Chapman University School of Law.
00:45:32I graduated in 2005 and passed the bar in 2005, July of that year.
00:45:38And overall, I did not have a good experience in law school.
00:45:42In fact, the first week going into law school, it was not at all what I expected.
00:45:46I thought that the law was to promote freedom and liberty and justice.
00:45:50And in fact, what I realized shortly after entering law school is what the law has become
00:45:55is an excuse for bureaucrats to regulate just about every aspect of our behavior.
00:46:02All of the needless legislation that is passed each year in order to provide work for lawyers
00:46:07has the devastating unintended consequence of destroying what little is left of the free market.
00:46:14Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy,
00:46:18but it is now nearly impossible for a small businessman with limited financial resources
00:46:23to build a large, successful corporation in any sector
00:46:27because their legal costs would eat up all of their capital needed for research and development.
00:46:35Lawyers do very little to add real value to society.
00:46:39In fact, most legal and financial-related service jobs on Wall Street are made possible solely due to inflation.
00:46:46It is because of the Federal Reserve's 0% interest rates and trillions of dollars in bailouts
00:46:52that all of these jobs exist.
00:46:54But these jobs only exist because money is being stolen from middle-class goods-producing workers
00:47:00and being redistributed to non-producing workers on Wall Street.
00:47:05A lot of people that I graduated with found law to be very similar to how I found it,
00:47:09and that is it wasn't really about helping people or benefiting the community.
00:47:13It was really just a system whereby bureaucratic lawyers make money
00:47:17trying to interpret complex statutes that really serve no purpose.
00:47:22There is a law for just about everything.
00:47:24You want to marry somebody who you love? You have to get a license to do that.
00:47:27You want to develop the real property that you purchased?
00:47:29You have to go to the city and get permits and licenses to do that.
00:47:32You need permits and licenses to do just about everything that should be legal
00:47:36because you're not hurting anybody else.
00:47:38To start your own business, you need a business license.
00:47:40You need your taxpayer ID number.
00:47:42You need all kinds of things just to get up and running.
00:47:44And so all these restrictions and laws and statutes,
00:47:47a lot of them which are not even passed by Congress,
00:47:49they're simply passed by administrative bureaucracies,
00:47:52they hamper the economy, they hamper economic growth,
00:47:55and they actually act in a tyrannical sense against people starting their own businesses
00:47:59and providing for themselves.
00:48:03Seventy-five years ago, agriculture made up 28% of the U.S. GDP.
00:48:09Today, the service sector makes up 76.9% of GDP,
00:48:14and agriculture makes up only 1.2%.
00:48:21The only way for a country to produce real wealth is by farmers growing food,
00:48:26miners mining for gold, silver, and other precious metals,
00:48:29drillers drilling for oil, natural gas, and other commodities,
00:48:33and manufacturers manufacturing real goods that can be exported to the rest of the world.
00:48:40Goldman Sachs has never created one dime of wealth for our country,
00:48:44yet most politicians in Washington have been brainwashed into believing
00:48:48Wall Street jobs are necessary for the U.S. to have a strong, viable economy.
00:48:53Likewise, nearly all Americans who have gone to school during the past decade
00:48:58have gone to school for degrees in legal, financial, or other service sector jobs.
00:49:03Almost no Americans have gone to college to become farmers, gold miners, or oil drillers.
00:49:10How can I become a farmer?
00:49:15You can go to college and learn from somebody that doesn't have a farm,
00:49:20and they'll give you an ag business degree.
00:49:23You know, most of the people teaching college don't have a farm,
00:49:26don't know how to manage it, and don't want a farm.
00:49:30I say if you want to learn how to do something,
00:49:32try to study under the person that can do it the best that he can do.
00:49:37There are jobs everywhere. You have to create a job.
00:49:40You know, get a job, you make one.
00:49:47Americans have taken food for granted for far too long,
00:49:51because Americans have been able to buy food at artificially low prices,
00:49:55with the average American family spending only 10% of their income on food.
00:49:59However, on October 30, 2009,
00:50:03NIA published an article predicting inflation would appear next in food and agriculture.
00:50:09NIA said,
00:50:21From the time NIA wrote this article until now,
00:50:24we have experienced the largest ever short-term increase in agricultural commodity prices.
00:50:31Corn has risen by 75%.
00:50:34Wheat by 65%.
00:50:36Soybeans have risen 51%.
00:50:39Sugar, 45%.
00:50:41Orange juice has risen by 58%.
00:50:44Coffee has risen 71%.
00:50:47And cotton has risen 124%.
00:50:56Because very few Americans went to school to become a farmer,
00:50:59and everybody needs to eat,
00:51:01agricultural commodity prices will continue to skyrocket,
00:51:05and farmers are going to get wealthy in the years ahead,
00:51:08while lawyers and bankers will see a dramatic decline in their standard of living.
00:51:13The free market will adjust and see to it that lawyers, bankers,
00:51:16and other non-producing financial service workers
00:51:19see a 90% decline in their real incomes.
00:51:24Everybody can't be a college graduate.
00:51:26Somebody's got to grow food.
00:51:29Everybody can't ride the wagon.
00:51:31Somebody's got to pull it.
00:51:33Somebody's got to be taking some risks.
00:51:35Somebody's got to be thinking.
00:51:37Somebody's got to have sweat.
00:51:39Last summer, this lady I was telling you about that bought some cattle from us,
00:51:45she came here to get some cattle in August,
00:51:47and my grandson was downstairs splitting firewood,
00:51:50and we burned firewood in this building,
00:51:52because it saves us about $600 a month over burning propane.
00:51:58My grandson was cutting firewood,
00:52:00and he was swinging the axe down here and splitting logs.
00:52:03It was August, and it was about 95 degrees.
00:52:06She came in here and sat down, and she says,
00:52:10there's a kid down there cutting firewood.
00:52:12He said the sweat's dripping off of his nose.
00:52:15I said, what'd he do wrong?
00:52:18He didn't do anything wrong.
00:52:20He's got a job. He's cutting firewood.
00:52:23That's our grandson. He's 14.
00:52:25He'll cut six cords of firewood a day.
00:52:28That's what he does.
00:52:31The only thing that has been supporting the U.S. service sector economy for so long
00:52:36is the U.S. dollar's status as the world's reserve currency,
00:52:40and the world's willingness to hoard trillions of dollars in U.S. dollar reserves
00:52:45in order to trade oil and other valuable commodities.
00:52:48The U.S. dollar became the world's reserve currency because it was backed by gold,
00:52:52and the U.S. had the world's leading manufacturing base.
00:52:57Today, the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency that is backed by nothing,
00:53:02and our manufacturing base has been rapidly deteriorating,
00:53:05with most of the products the world buys now made in China and other Asian countries.
00:53:11The Federal Reserve just announced that it will print another $600 billion,
00:53:16which will dilute the purchasing power of the U.S. Treasuries held by our creditor nations,
00:53:21and cause them to soon abandon the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.
00:53:28The entire U.S. economy is a Ponzi scheme
00:53:31that is dependent on the rest of the world continuing to buy larger amounts of U.S. Treasuries.
00:53:37Pretty soon, not only will the world stop buying our Treasuries,
00:53:40but they will dump the Treasuries they already own.
00:53:43All of our deficit spending will have to be paid for by outright money printing.
00:53:49Although the government and media would like you to believe the U.S. economy is going through a recovery,
00:53:54the truth is, the U.S. economy is on life support.
00:54:01It is impossible to have an artificial boom created by artificially low interest rates from the Federal Reserve
00:54:08without a major depression afterwards.
00:54:10The U.S. real estate bubble was the largest artificial boom in history.
00:54:15The panic of 2008 was the free market trying to correct the imbalances with a bust.
00:54:20But the Federal Reserve prevented a necessary depression from happening
00:54:24by taking trillions of dollars of worthless assets onto its balance sheet.
00:54:29None of the imbalances have been fixed, and the real depression is still to come.
00:54:35But unlike the depression of the 1930s, which saw falling prices,
00:54:39the upcoming depression will be a hyperinflationary Great Depression,
00:54:44with prices for food, energy, and everything else Americans need to live and survive soaring through the roof.
00:54:53All young Americans today should be entering the workforce as soon as possible
00:54:58in order to generate enough income so they can accumulate physical gold and silver.
00:55:04When the U.S. dollar collapses, only those with gold and silver
00:55:08will be able to buy food and other goods needed to live and survive.
00:55:12Those with the most gold and silver will have the best chance of surviving the upcoming collapse of the U.S. dollar.
00:55:21Our country needs to wake up to the reality that the world is changing
00:55:25and Americans will need to undertake new methods of survival.
00:55:29The American mindset has become so obsessed with the belief that college is the key to success
00:55:35that by the time most people wake up to the truth, it will be too late.
00:55:39One NIA member recently took his son to the doctor,
00:55:43and the doctor asked his son if he was going to attend college.
00:55:46After his son said he doesn't know what he wants to do,
00:55:49the doctor went on for 10 minutes praising the virtues of a college education.
00:55:54Our member then explained to the doctor the realities of our new world
00:55:58and how college is a scam and no longer worth attending.
00:56:01The doctor didn't know what to say except, well, over time, college graduates make more.
00:56:07NIA believes that the future of education is over the Internet.
00:56:12Americans today can purchase just about any type of product they want over the Internet
00:56:16for substantially less than they can find it in a retail store
00:56:20because online retailers have substantially less overhead costs.
00:56:24Walmart's biggest competitive threat today is not Target,
00:56:28but is actually Amazon.com, which now has a $79 billion market cap
00:56:34and is fast catching up to Walmart's $204 billion market cap.
00:56:39The largest and most profitable college of the future will be an online college
00:56:44that attracts all of the most successful professors from around the world
00:56:48and allows them to teach an unlimited number of students over the Internet.
00:56:53Students will have the opportunity to be taught by the very best in any field of their choice
00:56:58from the comfort of their own home.
00:57:00They will receive a much higher quality education
00:57:03for only a small fraction of the cost of attending a traditional college.
00:57:08By the end of this decade, NIA expects online colleges to gain at least a 25% market share
00:57:15of the total higher education industry.
00:57:19Will you actually also teach online courses as well?
00:57:22I mean, do you think that that's the future, online learning?
00:57:25I think the future actually is online learning.
00:57:28If the grid can stay up, which I hope it does,
00:57:30I think most people have an interest in seeing that happen.
00:57:32So I think a lot of things could fall apart before the grid and the Internet does.
00:57:36So I think that's the way.
00:57:38I always ask my students, does it really make a whole lot of sense
00:57:42for all 20 of us to drive here every Tuesday and Thursday
00:57:45to get together to talk about digital media stuff
00:57:48when we really could do this with a little bit of reengineering
00:57:51and actually have, instead of all of us coming together,
00:57:54if I came to you wherever you were.
00:57:57I think that's a model of the future.
00:57:59If you figure out each student probably spends two gallons of gas a day to come to class
00:58:03times 20 students times 15 weeks,
00:58:06add up how much gas that is and how much that costs.
00:58:09People wouldn't want to have that money back,
00:58:11especially over a couple of semesters,
00:58:13especially now because we have a much richer media environment
00:58:16to use for teaching and learning.
00:58:18I can now embed videos in my classes.
00:58:20I can bring in things like the National Inflation Association videos to my classes.
00:58:24I can bring dynamic, compelling things to my class
00:58:27that even in the old days, if I was really a compelling speaker, it's far better now.
00:58:31So even a mediocre professor like me can make my class rich and interesting,
00:58:35even in the online environment.
00:58:37Can you tell me the difference about sitting in an auditorium in NYU
00:58:44with a thousand other people
00:58:47or sitting in front of your screen
00:58:51and listening to a professor?
00:58:53What's the difference?
00:58:55Look what's going on in India.
00:58:58They estimate some 500,000 Indians
00:59:03have gotten university degrees in engineering
00:59:07through online, interactive view is what I called it back then.
00:59:13How many did we turn out in the USA in the same period?
00:59:18About 150,000.
00:59:21It's the future. The future is now.
00:59:23But they're holding us back on real internet learning,
00:59:27real digital online learning
00:59:30because of the people that want to control the system,
00:59:34the ones that want to have the tenure,
00:59:37the whole college industrial complex.
00:59:41That's all it is.
00:59:44It's a racket. Just like wars a racket,
00:59:47colleges have become a racket.
00:59:50While millions of Americans are at home right now wondering
00:59:53why are food and gas prices going through the roof,
00:59:56there is a small group of US citizens that are preparing right now
00:59:59for the collapse of the US dollar.
01:00:01These select few Americans will not only survive
01:00:03the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis,
01:00:05they will be positioned to prosper and become wealthy
01:00:08as the rest of America is going to go broke.
01:00:10On December 11th of 2009,
01:00:12NAA declared silver their best investment for the next decade
01:00:16at only $17.40 per ounce.
01:00:19Just recently we saw silver hit a high of nearly $50 per ounce
01:00:23for a gain of 185% for our members.
01:00:26In fact, in February of 2010,
01:00:29NAA suggested silver call options
01:00:31that ended up making a gain of over 1000% at its high.
01:00:34It amazes me how many people have been contacting us recently.
01:00:38Every week we receive countless emails
01:00:41from people that say that they've learned more about economics
01:00:44from being a member of NAA for just one month
01:00:47compared to studying economics in college for over four years.
01:00:51NAA members receive weekly articles, videos, and updates
01:00:55with priceless economic information
01:00:57that the mainstream media is afraid to talk about.
01:00:59All across America, students are being brainwashed right now
01:01:02with Keynesian economic principles
01:01:04that got us in the debt crisis that we're in today.
01:01:06We are not going to solve our economic problems
01:01:08by making the same mistakes in the future.
01:01:11After the financial crisis in 2008,
01:01:13the US should have went through a much needed recession
01:01:15where we saw the free market rebalance our economy
01:01:18from the ground floor.
01:01:19That way we would have built on a solid foundation
01:01:22so a real recovery with real economic growth in the future.
01:01:25A record 44.2 million Americans,
01:01:29or 14% of our population, are on food stamps right now
01:01:32to put food on the table.
01:01:33I mean, with the government about to go bust,
01:01:35these entitlement programs are a thing of the past.
01:01:37Two-thirds of Americans are getting ready to retire
01:01:41and actually believe that Social Security
01:01:43is going to be able to support 50% of their income.
01:01:45I mean, let's face it.
01:01:47Retirement in America is also going to be ancient history.
01:01:50Even Americans that have millions of dollars in the bank
01:01:55will soon go broke.
01:01:56The new wealthiest class of Americans
01:01:59are going to be the ones that become educated
01:02:01and start learning about the truth about our US economy.
01:02:04Start thinking for yourself.
01:02:06Sign up and become a member of NIA
01:02:09for absolutely free at inflation.us.
01:02:17Inflation.
01:02:22Inflation.
01:02:27Inflation.
01:02:32Inflation.
01:02:37Inflation.
01:02:42Inflation.