Built to Suck: The Inevitable Demise of College…and how to save it?

I’ve just gone through the college admissions process for the first time. Both my wife and I are immigrants and so this was the first time we had experienced this incredibly complex new world.

Turns out you need a college degree in order to be able to apply for college!

On the upside (and I always reward ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit), there is a cottage industry of executive counselors, admissions consultants and SAT/ACT tutors that are making a pretty penny on alpha-moms and dads, and their kids intent on being firstto post — or perhaps I should say boast — to Instagram, Snapchat and Facebbok with their early decision conquests.

For those outside of the United States, US colleges have what’s called Early Decision (only one college can be selected and the decision is binding), Early Action (like the name suggests and non binding) and then Regular Decision. When Early Decisions are announced, social media lights up with elated students (but really their parents) who have absolutely no regard whatsoever for all the students (and their families) who are bitterly disappointed, dejected and even depressed.

This needs to stop by the way.

There are even courses like Kaplan and Princeton that help improves scores (legally.) And then there’s the massive scandal that is busy rippling through the newswires showing…surprise, surprise…you can game the system that games the system. Think about it, how many of the 5 criteria are really game-proof? How many of the essays submitted were really done by the student themselves?

Kids get swept up in this artificial boiler cooker of pressure and expectations, going through robotic motions of perceived status. They lose sight of priorities and common sense at the expense of likes and the common app.

Even the airlines and hotels enjoy making money from on-campus visits and speaking of which, that raises a whole different anxiety, for example: will they or won’t they bias in our favor for showing up and listening to the same stale jokes in every informational session….sorry, little brothers and sisters, that was for you!

At the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold — only it’s not a pot waiting for the graduate, but rather a big IOU that has them on the back foot, drowning in debt that most students will struggle to pay back their entire lives.

According to research from the Federal Reserve, each $1,000 increase in debt causes a one- to two-percentage-point drop in the home-ownership rate of student loan borrowers during their late 20s and early 30s.

With the exception of the top students at the top universities, graduating students are going to get an entry-level job paying no where what they need, but…hard work, persistence and elbow grease will eventually see them rising up the corporate ladder.

As they become successful, they’ll hear from their alumni colleges urging them to contribute to various fundraising initiatives, scholarships and financial aid budgets to pave the way for students of and in the future.

To me, the college business model is broken. It’s full of friction. It’s full of inequality. It’s full of inefficiency. It has failed to evolve and it is not inconceivable, using the same filter that says, “the corporate empire is coming to an end,” that US colleges could go the same way.

So perhaps it’s time for them to embrace their heresy and put themselves out of business? This is a concept I have built out and expanded in my book, “Built to Suck” and it couldn’t apply more appropriately to colleges. In this case, the ultimate heresy would be to make all colleges free (before President Bernie does.)

Sound far-fetched? It isn’t and I even have a plan how to do it!

Utilizing the Survival Planning Canvas, which I created for Built to Suck and my company, the HMS Beagle, I’ve filled out the beginnings of a survival and growth plan and doing so, I came up with what I think could disrupt the entire industry and in doing so, fix part of the massive image and credibility crisis all colleges are going to have to contend with.

Turns out Bernie was right! All colleges should be free…or at a minimum, costs should be covered. The college would then take a 1% equity stake in their graduates future earnings and net worth. Of course, students could opt out and go with the status quo; in other words, paying now versus over time. Kind of like a lump sum versus annuity when winning the lottery, but in reverse.

Perhaps this would continue until the student has paid what would have been their full tuition adjusted for inflation and the like. Or perhaps it would continue in perpetuity. It could even be adjusted to provide a reduced, albeit steady yearly contribution to the colleges that would be an automatic philanthropic source of cash flow.

I’ll leave it up the actuaries to work on specifics, but for now, I think this idea is worth exploring in a truly bi-partisan fashion. I can’t see either of the dumb and dumber parties having a problem with this.

And as for the admissions scandal, that’s another canvas for another day...