I never wanted my working class parents paying for my “hobby” so I attended under a Republican governor “free” community college then transferred to a low-cost state university sure my parents were kind enough to let me stay home and I never asked them for any college tuition or student loan bailouts fortunately my 3 college degrees did not leave me in deep debt depression yet I had a nagging belief that was not enough to stay competitive in the service economy. When I graduated from college the economy was in the final stages from an industrial oriented society to a post-industrial knowledge based economy similar to how former secretary of labor Robert Reich described in several of his books. So I returned again to college in search of that holy grail of college degrees that would catapult me into the highest echelons of American society….and it did not require being a politician. Certificates over degrees seemed to be the jackrabbit route to the elusive American style of success so in the late 1990s or 1998 to be exact at the endorsement of a teacher friend(another story) I completed all the course requirements in Financial Planning at UCLA Extension there was one issue there were no jobs at the time in Financial Planning yet the banks and financial services industry had tons of sales jobs as stockbrokers like the ones depicted in Wall Street or Boilerroom. I needed a job but deep down I could not see myself putting people into financial products they did not need just to collect commision I was encouraged to follow that path people laughed when I said I prefer “fee-only” financial planning just so happens that financial planning certificate served as my entry by coincidence in 1999 as a 1099 contractor for TransAmerica financial services now that building in downtown Los Angeles is used by USC students. All this on the eve of our country’s entry into the Iraq war then the worst financial crisis since the 1930s great depression. Since I wanted to smoothly transition out of k-12 school teaching that financial planning certificate provided a platform where I could travel the country as a financial educator training people on how to understand their investment portfolio. No one asked about my lack of the series 7 brokers license or college degrees people during that real estate boom could care less about their stock market investments. Point being what kept me contracted or cash flow positive was my certificate and my personality not having a stack of college degrees.
Listen view Dave Ramsey on how he “brainwashed” his kids and grandkids into the college crowd.
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