 What's happening? It's Shane here. And today, I'm going to be talking about whether or not a college degree makes people live longer lives. So this was an article that was sent to me by one of my students in the College 101 course, which you can find linked down in the description below. But basically, it was an article by CNBC Make It, which is a fantastic website. And they talked about how getting a college degree makes people live longer and apparently the gap is growing. Now, before we begin, make sure to gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, and ring the notification bell so that the YouTube algorithm will notify you whenever I post a new video. But to put things in perspective, let's look back on the life expectancy throughout history. So first of all, in Paleolithic times, which is the earliest of recorded history, if you can call that recorded history, the life expectancy was thought to be about 22 to 33 years old. So the average person would only live to 22 to 33. In the year 1900, the world average life expectancy only rose to around 31 to 32 years old. So as little as 120 years ago, the average life expectancy was about 32 years old. Now, in the modern world, the average life expectancy all throughout the world is 72 to 73 years old. So it's more than doubled over the last 100 years. So for all of human history until up to the last 100 years, the average life expectancy was basically like one generation or maybe one and a half to two generations. And now life expectancy in the United States, for instance, so a first world country, is thought to be somewhere between 78 to 80 years old, right? So this is probably due to many different factors such as modern medicine, improving diet, access to healthcare, and not having to go out and do extremely dangerous things just to stay alive. Now, according to this article, basically the life expectancy of somebody 25 and on, which is a little bit different than what I just talked about, that was the life expectancy at birth. But basically, there is a difference between people who get a college education, get a bachelor's, and those who don't, right? So for those who get a bachelor's, I'll have the graph pop up. They live to, it looks like almost 47 years after the age of 25. So about 46.7 or so, something like that. And then with those who don't get a bachelor's, no BA, they only live to about 44.5 or so, somewhere around there. So there's about a one and a half year difference between those who do get a bachelor's and those who don't. Another similar study found that there was about a three year difference in those who get a bachelor's versus those who don't get one. Now, there's a few things to talk about here. First of all, you know, you always have to address the whole idea of correlation versus causation. It could be that people who are more likely to get bachelor's degrees are people who are just a little bit more conscientious and more likely to take care of themselves. And there could be other confounding variables there, where basically, there's a correlation, but there's no actual causation. But I think there are a few variables here where to me, it is pretty convincing that it might not be correlation. First of all, people who have a college degree, of course, are going to on average make more money than those who don't. And not only do they make more money, but they're more likely to be employed. So people who graduate with a bachelor's, for instance, are much less likely to be unemployed than those who either only had a high school education or didn't even graduate from high school. And employment means that they would likely have access to medical benefits. And even if they didn't have access to medical benefits, they would still likely be making enough money to where they could cover their medical costs. So that's obviously a huge hot button issue here in the United States, the ridiculous cost of healthcare, many people decide to just not go in and get things checked out just because of the fact that it costs so much. And so therefore, you know, maybe somebody could go like 10 years with high blood pressure before they actually go in to get that blood pressure corrected, very, very common to see same thing with diabetes. So I could definitely see that having a negative effect on patients health outcomes. On top of that, people who graduate without a college degree are more likely to go into jobs and careers that are not only more tough on the body, but they can actually be more dangerous as well. Right. So I'm a pharmacist, and I've had many patients who work in the trades, for instance. And one thing that I see commonly is after a full career in the trades, they have back problems and they have leg problems. And many of them end up taking painkiller medications for those issues. And then the third factor I think is very important to consider here is people who go to college likely make less money. And people who make less money are more likely to take risks, right? So they're more likely to engage in risky behavior. Now this could range all the way from the good type of risky behavior, which is maybe like starting a business or something along those lines, to bad types of risky behavior, like, you know, selling stuff that they probably shouldn't sell because it's against the law. And then of course, risky behavior can lead to accidents, which can shorten people's lifespan. So yeah, very interesting article, a lot to think about there. A lot of it could be correlation causation. I think that some of it is causation though. But I think that instead of having everyone go through the ridiculously expensive process of college in order to get people educated so that they can live longer, I think a better alternative to that is to either reduce the cost of college or come up with alternatives to college that are just as good. So anyways, check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. that you have on the video and I will see you next time.