Danny is one of my favorite people to listen to. He models the educational practice he's advocating very well. This is such an important topic. It's utterly crazy that our children are encouraged to start their adult lives in a manner that incurs such financial burden with very little 'question' as to whether doing so actually serves them the best. Thank you, Danny! Great talk.

Thank you for being brave enough to say it and saying it so well: Self-directed learning is more valuable than prescribed, scripted, institutionalized education. I fully support the idea of questioning whether a college education is worth the massive investment of time and money, and what other options exist to "opt in to life" while opting out of the educational system. Very inspiring talk - and your research and experience runs deep!

Excellent insights; beautifully delivered! This subject has a special relevance to our family in two generations. My in-laws exemplify your point of non-college educated business successes. We have chosen to home-educate our children from birth through their early years of high school (they finished their school at the local community college with dual credits). Your points on what learning needs to be for this generation is a large motivation for many who choose to home educate, and it leads to a wide variety of successes. This ranges from those who have learned valuable trade skills, to sought-after college students, to excellent homemakers, to military successes, to entrepreneurs. In other words, your model creates an environment to pursue individual interests based on personal skills, talents, and opportunities. Though not everyone has the opportunity or calling to do this, the point of your education model is proven in the pre-college home-schooling education. Thank you for encouraging others in this truth!

Great talk! I recognized myself as one of the people who are completely underwhelmed by higher education. Most of it is just reading a bunch of books, writing a bunch of essays about them and discussing them with your fellow students. Even the more practical courses are usually just a set of assignments in which you apply what you have read from the aforementioned books. I mean, the books are already there regardless of the existence of the courses, so anyone could just read them and have the same knowledge. Many of the books even have the practical assignments in them! The role of professors and lecturers is pretty much just presenting the books' information in a summarized power point format, telling students to do the assignments in the books, setting a deadline for returning them, and grading them. It's primary education all over again, and an infinitely boring and inefficient way of trying to learn anything. The system really needs to change.

Thank you Danny, your talk was very inspiring and encouraging. I have been listening to people's arguments for continuing higher education by attending college since I graduated high school. I have never believed the hype that has been circulating around me for decades, and therefore, I have no college debt. Many people have been surprised that I know what I know, and when they asked where I went to school, they heard me answer that I have not gone to college, "I am self-educated". Sometimes people demand to know what credentials I have or where I was educated to back up how I have obtained my expertise, and I have not been motivated to offer them much of an explanation to prove myself by much more than the short, simple truth. The way you explain how the popular way of thinking about higher education that probably most of us have been programmed to believe, does not make practical sense while delivering data to back that up, is very encouraging to me and gives me a little more ammo when put in position of defending my own education to others. Not that I think I have to defend myself, but I would like others to be motivated to trust my expertise without having had a formal education.

What I got came at the very end, generated, of course, by what preceded it! And that was Danny's statement that a college degree, which when I was growing up meant that "you're better than everyone else," now means "you're no worse than everyone else." I have tried to help my children and now my grandchildren to dig into the things they are curious and excited about, whether or not they had anything to do with higher education. Now I will be encouraging them even more.

Insightful talk, as has been my experience with Danny Iny's other articles, books, talks, and other resources. Having worked in the continuing education industry for nearly 20 years, the struggle is shifting mindsets. I see too many professionals approaching their lifelong learning from a compliance standpoint rather than as Danny said "be smart about [their own] continuing education" and take full advantage of all the options out there to "connect the dots", "ask better questions", and prepare themselves for the world to come in the next few years.

One of the best talks clarifying education's incompetence or need of improvement. Awesome

Right on target! Why I ditched college in 1970 after one semester, and why we home educated our own children.

Sometimes higher education might not be the best way to get there, but you don't know any other way, and you do get there. On another note, I would love my son to watch this talk. But he's two years old right now!

Danny is awesome, been following his work for some time, lots of good stuff.

Excellent talk and an important perspective on education.

Beautifully delivered Danny! Something's a miss with the conventional style in education. So which direction is appropriate? Danny says people need to figure out on their own.

Very insightful !

excellent talk

The education system is a two edged sword. Political Socialism is one edge, the other is learning BEYOND what is taught in class. Traditionally, eager students studied on their own, after classes. Today, students listen to mostly PC leftist propaganda by teachers, pay only as much attention as needed to pass tests, and move on. With that said, when they enter into the work world, they often accept mediocre jobs that have less than ideal pay and benefits. This isn't entirely the fault of the education system, the fault is more so on today's culture. Our society has been ravaged by hate, greed, politics, and false teachings. More than ever, peer pressure controls young people, to the extent that an individual FEARS deviating from the status-quo of the main peer groups.

It's like watching a smarter version of Adam Sandler :P

Meh. The reasons higher ed doesn't do much unless you're learning vocational skills like engineering or medicine or law or systems management (favorite major at the Ivies), is because corporate America has outsourced most everything else to places where even skilled labor is readily available and cheap. To expect everyone to be a super(wo)man on the job is asking too much, imo. People are stressed enough as it is. It's time to break up the big corps, and to erect some meaningful trade barriers and pass a GND with a federal jobs guarantee. There's plenty of work to do here--just there's no private profit in it.

I don't understand nothing