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In a world where attention is so valuable, yet so hard to acquire, entrepreneurs and influencers are constantly looking for ways to reach more people and make more money. Social media has proven itself not only as a means of communicating with the masses, but also as a source of income for millions of entrepreneurs.
We’ve all seen certain influencers display ads on our Amazon FBA or Spotify store feeds. You may have even seen one of those dropshipping “gurus” trying to sell you a course. Each of these influencers seems to be preaching the same story. “Why go to college when I can teach you how to make millions? After all, don’t you want to earn more money and retire earlier?’ This may sound ideal and enticing, but can we take a step back to really understand how indelibly dangerous this is?
Related: Benefits of a college degree for entrepreneurs
Why this message is harmful
As mentioned, millions of users can be reached via social media. Formally, everyone from the age of 13 can use Instagram. A young, 13-year-old mind can watch all these “rich and successful” influencers preach that college degrees are worthless. Does this have any effect on young impressionable minds? We imagine it could, and actually the data tells us it does.
Below you will find links to two charts. The first has a graph showing the rise in social media usage over the past decade and comes from USA today. The second comes from the Education data initiative. What do these graphs tell us? Well, social media usage has more than tripled since 2010. There is also a positive correlation between the increase in social media usage and the decrease in college enrollment. These events are not undeniably correlated, nor have I performed any statistical analysis to determine statistical significance. By simply looking at the data and linking it to what I see on social media every day, I’ve painted a story – a dangerous one.
Social media influencers teach our youth that education is worthless. These same influencers flaunt their lavish lifestyles with multi-million dollar jewelry collections, exotic cars, and other enticing incentives to lure impressionable minds. Many of these influencers have the same goal: to make a sale. Somehow these influencers want you to pay them for something they offer. Whether that’s a course or something else simply designed to make more money and MAYBE help the person buying. Don’t get me wrong, some of these mentors have valuable lessons to offer. However, I’ve seen time and time again some of these same influencers preach that “education sucks, there’s no point getting a college degree”. This is actually so statistically inaccurate it hurts me, so let’s break this down.
Related: College or College Dropout? The dilemma of the young ukbusinessupdates.com.
The truth
This one Forbes article recently found that 84% of the world’s 400 richest individuals have at least a bachelor’s degree. In fact, 24%, nearly a fourth of the same group, have a bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale. Further, The National Study of Millionaires by Ramsey Solutions revealed that 88% of millionaires have at least a bachelor’s degree and 52% of millionaires actually have a degree from a Ph.D. or a doctoral program.
In summary, this tells us that nearly 9 out of 10 millionaires are college graduates, about 1 out of 2 millionaires have a PhD, and social media influencers claiming that your degree is worthless are factually incorrect and statistically lying to you.
Let’s even take a step back and assume that you don’t want to be a millionaire. This chart, which is taken directly from a report by the Tax Foundation and was taken from publicly available information from the Census, compares annual income groups between those who have a bachelor’s degree and those who do not. The chart simply illustrates that 78% of individuals with an annual income of $200,000 have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to only 9% of individuals who reached that income level with no formal education. Need I say more?
Related: Why The Myth Of The College Dropout Billionaire Is So Tempting
Our youth are literally lied to every day by influencers on social media. They are tricked into thinking that formal education is of no value and that it is easier to be rich without a degree. The truth is that income level is highly correlated with an individual’s level of education. Not only that, but a higher level of education is generally much more desirable. Formal education teaches us how to use our brains to innovate and solve problems. This is part of why most successful millionaires are all very well educated. I believe the value of education to some extent is not so much about what you learn as about training your mind to function at a higher level.
