 What's happening? It's Shane here. And in today's video, we are going to tackle the topic, Does a college degree make you happy? And I got this idea from an article by CNBC Make It, where they basically talked about how college is getting more and more expensive. And many students are questioning whether it is going to be worth it for them or not. And this has gotten even worse, of course, as students have basically been forced to do their college assignments from home, doing the online learning. And so they aren't even able to have the normal college experience, or at least get that face to face classroom time with professors. And in this video, I'm going to go over all of the arguments in detail. And I'm going to tell you what I personally think when it comes to the question, does college make you happier? Now one class that will make you happier is my college 101 course, which you can find down in the description below. For a limited time, we are going to have a sale and it's probably the cheapest that it's ever going to be while you're watching it right now. And if you haven't done it already, right before we get into this, make sure to gently tap the like button, hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video. And especially if you're somebody who has gotten a college degree, tell me if you think it made you happier. Now the first thing I'm going to talk about is the perception of success, right? So you have this idea of the American dream, which a lot of people kind of go for. And, you know, especially during the last 30 to 40 years or so, college has been an integral part of people's idea of what the American dream is. You know, sometimes people like none of their family has gone to college and the first person to graduate college is a huge deal. And there is definitely some truth to this. College, in my opinion, used to be basically a golden ticket to success. Getting any college degree out there would set you up for opportunities that would basically mean that you are set for life. It's no longer like that where you can get any college degree and you're good to go. And I've talked about that extensively on my channel. Some college degrees are not worth it, in my opinion. Other college degrees are worth it as long as you are the perfect fit for it. If you do your research, you plan ahead and you know that's the right degree for you, it can be worth it. And then there's some college degrees that especially financially speaking are going to be worth it. But I do think there is something to be said for almost like the fantasy or the, you know, what you imagine in your head is going to make you happy and you pursuing that goal in some ways can bring a lot of meaning and fulfillment to your life. There's also something to be said for, you know, society says that everyone should go to college, right? And education is a good thing. And society almost equates education with college. It's almost like they're the same thing. When in reality, they are not. You can definitely get an education in many different fields without going to college. There are some careers where you absolutely have to go to college in order to do them. Examples of this would be a doctor or an engineer. But there are many careers, many pathways, many types of businesses that might not even exist yet right now. And there's just no way that college is going to be able to catch up with them fast enough. The best way to learn those types of businesses and career paths is to just try it out on your own. But there is something to be said for kind of going the direction that society is sort of pushing you. And for some people, that is going to make them happier. Now, when it comes to the data, there is a correlation between happiness and education. So for instance, according to the US General Social Surveys, 94% of people with a bachelor's degree reported being happy, whereas 89% of high school grads did. But remember, correlation isn't always causation. And you could make a strong argument here that people who are able to go to college and able to get through college tend to be happy enough to live more of a normal life, right? So an example of this would be like someone that's extremely depressed. For instance, maybe they wouldn't be able to make it through college, whereas somebody who is not extremely depressed, they're either, you know, mildly happy or just maybe mildly depressed, they likely would be able to make it through college. That's just one example. But there's many others that you could come up with, I'm sure you could just think about them. However, some other evidence shows that people who get college degrees tend to live longer for one. And on top of that, they live healthier lifestyles. So they have less health issues. And I think one of the most interesting ones is people who go to college tend to have longer and more stable relationships and marriages. But again, all three of those things could potentially be correlation and not causation. So another example of this would be people who are more likely to go to college would also be people from a higher socioeconomic background. And so therefore they're more likely to take care of their health, live longer lifespans, and have longer marriages. And that might not have anything to do with the fact that they went to college. Now, one of the obvious things that will likely make people more happy is the fact that if you go to college, you do tend to make more money than people who don't. And I've talked about this many times on my channel, but the more money you make, the happier you are up to a certain point. And that's usually somewhere between $75,000 and $90,000 a year depending on the study that you look at. And then after that point, making more money isn't necessarily going to make you any more happy. And most people think that this is just for the simple fact that when you make a certain amount of money, you're able to cover your basic life necessities, right? So if you get in a car accident, you're going to be able to pay the health bills without going deep into debt. You're also able to pay for a decent house, eat food, have a little bit of fun without worrying about breaking the bank. It also reduces stress because you're not living paycheck to paycheck worrying about whether you're going to pay the Brent next month or whether you're going to have enough money for food, etc. So another way you could look at it is making a certain amount of money doesn't necessarily make you happier, but it reduces your unhappiness. Now it's very clear that you will make more money if you just get a high school degree versus if you get a college degree. But what's unclear is how much money you'd make if you got a high school degree and then you went into the trades for instance, right? So if you became a plumber or maybe an HVAC mechanic, would you make more money than the average person who gets a college degree? And it gets a little murky there because you likely would make just as much if not more, especially when you consider the fact that when you get a college degree, the average person is going almost $40,000 in debt and that takes them on average about 20 years to pay it off. Whereas if you became a plumber or an electrician, you likely wouldn't have to go into debt at all and you would start making money right away. Now interestingly enough, other research on money and its correlation to happiness has found that you do increase your happiness the more money you make, but it's kind of interesting because it has to do with how fast you make that money. Now this is a lot less researched and it's something that's a lot less cited, but basically the way to explain this is let's say you're making $50,000 a year and then you get a bump up to $60,000 a year, right? So you get a raise. You are going to be very happy for a certain amount of time because of the fact that you got that raise, right? So let's say you are 10% happier than you are right now for six months because of the fact that you got that raise and then six months later you get another bump 10% as well. So again, you kind of renew that. So you're making $60,000 a year and then you start making $70,000 a year and so you're 10% happier for another six months, right? So this is just a very simple example. It probably wouldn't be exactly like that, but let's say then same exact person, they're making $50,000 a year and they win the lottery, right? So they win the lottery and all of a sudden they are ridiculously happy again, right? So they might be 50% happier, but surprisingly it would only last something like six months or so. And this is because of something known as the hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic normalization or hedonic adaptation, right? So you think that something like winning the lottery would make you happy for the rest of your life, but in reality, it's only going to make you happy for somewhere around six months. And so interestingly enough, what would actually maximize your happiness is if you got raises at a certain interval. So maybe like every six months or so, you get a five or a 10% raise. Weirdly enough, that is what would actually end up maximizing your happiness. Slow and steady growth would make people more happy over a lifetime than one giant bolus infusion of money. So yeah, the research on the correlation between money and happiness, very interesting stuff. I don't think it's complete yet. I think there's a long way to go, but it has been shown, you know, the average person who graduates with a high school degree, depending on the study you look at, they're going to make around 40 to $50,000 a year, whereas the average person who graduates with a college degree might make around 60 to 70,000. Now, another thing that the article pointed out is they think that getting a college degree is more likely to help you figure out what your purpose is in life. Now they don't cite any studies or anything like that. So I actually think that that's total BS. I don't think that getting a college degree is going to help you figure out your purpose. At least it's not going to help you any more than going out and doing a bunch of different jobs during that four year period. And in many ways, you might be able to argue that it sets you back just because of the fact that you're going to be deep in debt, at least the average person is, after they graduate with their degree. And then it's going to take you many years to pay that off. And those are years that you could have been using to, you know, find your purpose in life. Now we've been talking about what makes you happy. But I think another way to frame this question is what increases or decreases your unhappiness. And I can tell you one thing for sure that is going to increase your unhappiness or make you less happy is the stress of student loan debt. Nearly 50% of students who go to a four year school to get a bachelor's degree end up graduating around six years. And research from Student Loan Planner, which is a website that helps you pay off your student loan debt, shows that nine out of 10 students who have student loan debt end up experiencing anxiety about it. And yes, on top of anxiety, research has also shown a strong correlation between student loan debt and depression. So let me just sum up all of this right now. I think that getting a college degree overall, if you just take it as a blank slate is a good thing on average. However, there are many, many people out there that get a college degree and they're unhappy with it, right? So they experience a lot of regret. And I've talked about that in other videos I've made on the channel, there's certain degrees where a lot of people end up regretting it. And so what you can do to make sure you're getting all the benefits out of college with very little of the downside is to make sure that you really do your research, you plan ahead, and you have a really good plan going in. That is how you can get the most out of college with the least amount of time, effort and money. And this is what I've been focusing on with this channel, helping people do that. And on top of that, you know, my college one on one course has been helping tons of people make that decision for themselves because it's one of the biggest decisions of your life, you know, choosing your major is going to probably lead you down a certain path, because obviously certain majors tend to go down certain career paths. But check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell. And I will see you next time.