 Come on, Manny John! I asked on Twitter just now what people want me to chat about today on Vlogbrothers, and a bunch of people asked me questions about college, and so then I was like, hey, you got college questions? And oh my gosh, they did! Lots of them! So let's see if I have any useful wisdom to impart, despite the fact that I haven't been inside of a classroom in a decade and a half. Kate asks, how much plasma would I have to sell to pay for an engineering degree? Kate, first of all, if you're gonna get an engineering degree, you should probably be able to do this calculation yourself. Second, a lot! Like, way more than you have! You're gonna have to harvest it from other people, which I do not condone, but you're here to solve problems, girl. Do I go to a college 1,500 miles away that I love or one nearer home and help my parents with my million tiny siblings? So I hope you understand that we're all assuming you're a roach person now. But, dear roach person, it is commendable that you're so committed to your family. Oh, I will say a thing here. One of the great benefits of college, and this isn't something everybody wants and not something everybody gets, is being able to break off a little bit from the whole life that has been constructed around you, and then seeing what life is like when you build some structures for yourself to kind of see who you are when you're on your own a little bit. But also, family is important and I'm totally useless, so... Should I major in something that I'm passionate about, or something that's more financially secure? Oh, creepy girl, I tell you what. We don't know what's gonna be financially secure at all. Like, what career, what skill set is gonna be useful in the future? It's changing real fast right now. It seems to be kind of a lie that we're telling ourselves or we're letting colleges tell us that, like, this is a job training program. It's not. You are learning how to be better at stuff, and that's gonna be useful in getting work and in doing work. If you go to college, or if you just are living your life, you're gonna acquire a bunch of skills, and you're not gonna know which ones of those skills are gonna turn out to be useful. You have them precisely because you don't know which ones are gonna be the ones you need. Life is not a job training program. We are not in college. We are not on Earth to get jobs. What I hope is that we are on Earth to solve problems for ourselves and for other people. And education helps that, whatever kind of education you get. Favorite class you took. I thought about this for a long time, and I have decided to say anthropology because it was just amazing for me at that point in my life to see how many different ways there are to be people. Why is it so expensive? I made a whole video about that, actually. It's complicated. Your mom goes to college? She does not. But if she did, Thomas, I would support her. How expensive was it? My school, in 1998, the first year I went to school, tuition was $22,000 a year. I got some scholarships, and so it was about $10,000 a year for me. In today's dollars, that's around $14,000 a year. Tuition at Eckerd is now $42,000 a year, but 97% of students get financial aid. In what ways is collage different from, say, decoupage or scrapbooking? Is journalism dying? No, no, no, no, no. Suddenly journalism is having a revival. People are paying for it again. And my last question, hey, cool decorating ideas? Well, it turns out we have a back-to-school sale happening at dftba.com. Also, we've made a nerdfighter backpack for the first time ever. Like it does, derives a nerdfighter crest. It's subtle. I actually designed this in partnership with Spiral, which is a company that makes really cool backpacks. We made, I think, 500 of them, and then there are no more after that, so we'll see how that goes. Also got this new hoodie going on, which is super comfy, and it's got these things. And as for decorations, I would suggest getting a frame like this at Michael's and getting yourself a poster, dftba.com, currently on sale, because it's back to school time. How would a poster on you all totally cool? Framing it is like, what? Who is this classy dude? I hope that that was in some way maybe a little bit helpful for people. John, I'll see you on Tuesday. Hey, also, Parade Magazine made a video about me and John and our history on YouTube. You could check it out. It's funny and cute. There's a link to that down in the description as well as to these things and also to the video that I made about why college is so expensive.