To succeed in today's digital age, you need real, tangible skills. The skills you learn to build yourself will outperform a degree on your resume. Outdated and perishable theories taught in college are becoming of disservice in teaching real life skills that fuel our students' passions. Is the degree worth the debt? Americans would rather have an internship at Google (60%) over a degree from Harvard (40%), in a study led by QuestResearch Group in 2020. And only 13% of U.S. adults, 11% of C-level executives, and 6% of university trustees say college graduates have work-ready skills. Before you go to college -- or spend another year in that career you may not love! -- stop and read this groundbreaking guidebook. See all the book bonuses, VIP membership, and more at savethetuition.com. Skip the Degree, Save the Tuition: Your A-Z Pathway to Teach Yourself a Money-Making Online Skill Set is a powerful new skills-based guidebook created by two successful dropouts, featuring the stories of more than 40 entrepreneurs to inspire your skills-based income journey. Lead author and serial entrepreneur Julia McCoy shares a tangible, actionable pathway where you can learn exactly how to live, work, and earn from your passion without the degree. Educational disruptor Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang brings the data, studies, and parental guidance on the pitfalls of perishable theories taught in traditional education. Joining Dr. Ai and Julia in contributing to this powerful book Skip the Degree, Save the Tuition is a host of amazing entrepreneurs: Seth Godin, Neil Patel, Amanda Bond, Valerie Young, Jacob McMillen, Shay Rowbottom, Jeff Deutsch, Tom Wedding, Jeanie Sanchez, William Robins, Zee Ali, Marisa Hamamoto, Ravi Abuvala, April Hill, Jeff Hunter, Josiah Town, Lori Stead, Brittany Harris, Alexander Strate, Angela Fehr, Chris Bryant, Clay Mosley, Brennan Agranoff, Ryan Stewart, Dr. Natalia Wiechowski, Sebastian Rusk, William Hall, Jordan Paris, Gene Petrov, Benji Hyam, Kris Olivo, Ryan Robinson, Tyler Samani-Sprunk, Henneke Duistermaat, Tami McVay, Rich Carr, Justin Staples, Marcin Drozdz, Jeremy Knauff, Alexandra Marshall, and Robert Nickell. Inside Skip the Degree, Save the Tuition, Julia outlines a tangible four-step pathway that teaches you how to build YOUR OWN income-earning skill set. First, uncover your passion (what you love doing); then, map that to a real skill and build knowledge (learn, on your own); thirdly, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty (labor); and lastly, grow and charge more for your skills as you refine them (level-up). Julia has repeated these steps to build her seven-figure brands, and teach hundreds of students how to grow theirs. Co-author Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang wrote the first chapter, and brings in a powerful perspective for both parents and students. After receiving her MA from Syracuse University and then her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, she began her teaching career as an Assistant Professor. A few years into her teaching career, Dr. Ai discovered that students were becoming more disengaged and less interested in learning. This led Dr. Ai to embark on a journey to transform today's education crisis. Today, Dr. Ai is no longer teaching inside four walls, but on a much larger stage. She is the founder of Classroom Without Walls, serves as an Education consultant, and is a proud Adobe Education Leader and HubSpot Academy Instructor. Dr. Ai has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Today Show's Parenting Column, Pearson Education, and more. Don't miss this incredible book, launching in all formats on Amazon, including Audible, February 10, 2020.See all the book bonuses, VIP membership, and more at savethetuition.com.

A “bracing and well-argued” study of America’s college debt crisis—“necessary reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American higher education” (Kirkus). College is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. In Paying the Price, education scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Goldrick-Rab examines a study of 3,000 students who used the support of federal aid and Pell Grants to enroll in public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. "Honestly one of the most exciting books I've read, because [Goldrick-Rab has] solutions. It's a manual that I'd recommend to anyone out there, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student."—Trevor Noah, The Daily Show

Good-bye, Old School. Hello, Bold School! In 2005, Maya Frost and her husband sold everything and left their suburban American lifestyle behind in order to have an adventure abroad. The tricky part: they had to shepherd their four teenage daughters through high school and into college. This hilarious and conspiratorial how-to handbook describes the affordable, accessible, and stunningly advantageous options they stumbled upon that any American student can leverage to get an outrageously relevant global education. Ready to ditch the drama of the traditional hypercompetitive SAT/AP/GPA path? Meet the bold American students who are catapulting into the global economy at twenty with a red-hot college diploma, sizzling 21st-century skills, a blazing sense of direction–and no debt. You’ll discover: • the one thing preventing your student from blasting forward • why Advanced Placement isn’t so advanced • why international programs fail to provide a truly global education • the most critical time for your student to study abroad • the best exchange program in the world ($3,000 or less per year) • the strategic way to fast-forward through high school • how to maximize a family sabbatical • how to live the life of your dreams abroad–and save thousands for college Packed with myth-busting facts, laughable loopholes, insider insights, astonishing success stories, and poignant tales from the Frost daughters themselves, this inspiring romp is guaranteed to get you cheering.

This book can save you more than $100,000. These days, most people assume you need to pay a boatload of money for a quality college education. As a result, students and their parents are willing to go into years of debt and potentially sabotage their entire financial futures just to get a fancy name on their diploma. But Zac Bissonnette is walking proof that this assumption is not only false, but dangerous-a class con game designed to rip you off and doom your student to a post-graduation life of near poverty . From his unique double perspective-he's a personal finance expert (at Daily Finance) AND a current senior at the University of Massachusetts-Zac figured out how to get an outstanding education at a public college, without bankrupting his parents or taking on massive loans. Armed with his personal knowledge, the latest data, and smart analysis, Zac takes on the sacred cows of the higher education establishment. He reveals why a lot of the conventional wisdom about choosing and financing college is not only wrong but hazardous to you and your child's financial future. You'll discover, for instance, that: * Student loans are NOT a necessary evil. Ordinary middle class families can- and must-find ways to avoid them, even without scholarships. * College "rankings" are useless-designed to sell magazines and generate hype. If you trust one of the major guides when picking a college, you face a potential financial disaster. * The elite graduate programs accept lots of people with non-elite bachelors degrees. So do America's most selective employers. The name on a diploma ultimately won't help your child have a more successful career or earn more money. Zac can prove every one of those bold assertions - and more. No matter what your current financial situation, he has a simple message for parents: "RELAX! Your kid will be able to get a champagne education on a beer budget!"

Economist Richard Vedder examines the causes of the college tuition crisis and explores ways to reverse this alarming trend.

Named one of the best books of 2021 by NPR New York Times Bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice pick “Masterly . . .represents an extraordinary achievement: It is comprehensive and detailed without being tedious, practical without being banal, impeccably well judged and unusually rigorous.”—Daniel Markovits, New York Times Book Review “Ron Lieber is a gift.”—Scott Galloway The hugely popular New York Times Your Money columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled offers a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college—a decision made even more confusing because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple—over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey. Lieber begins by explaining who pays what and why and how the financial aid system got so complicated. He also pulls the curtain back on merit aid, an entirely new form of discounting that most colleges now use to compete with peers. While price is essential, value is paramount. So what is worth paying extra for, and how do you know when it exists in abundance at any particular school? Is a small college better than a big one? Who actually does the teaching? Given that every college claims to have reinvented its career center, who should we actually believe? He asks the tough questions of college presidents and financial aid gatekeepers that parents don’t know (or are afraid) to ask and summarizes the research about what matters and what doesn’t. Finally, Lieber calmly walks families through the process of setting financial goals, explaining the system to their children and figuring out the right ways to save, borrow, and bargain for a better deal. The Price You Pay for College gives parents the clarity they need to make informed choices and helps restore the joy and wonder the college experience is supposed to represent.

Do you need college in order to be taken seriously and earn a real living? Conventional wisdom says yes. But true success relies upon self-knowledge and entrepreneurship: two qualities that you can obtain effectively and inexpensively without traditional college. Better Than College provides the step-by-step guidance and inspiration necessary to design your own higher education. This book teaches you how to find community, stay on track, and get hired or start your own venture, all without a four-year degree. Curious college students will learn to think clearly about their motivations, plan a gap year, or navigate life after school. And Better Than College will show parents how self-directed learning can lead to a lifetime of achievement-no expensive institution required.

That complements the college-application process, communicating with students about their goals, and handling logistics such as travel, health insurance, and money.

In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor’s degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they’re born. Almost everyone strives to go, but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s answer to that question is a definitive no. Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise—instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list. Academically Adrift holds sobering lessons for students, faculty, administrators, policy makers, and parents—all of whom are implicated in promoting or at least ignoring contemporary campus culture. Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa’s report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.