Are you, or your child, facing the daunting challenge of funding a college education without going into debt? In this episode of The Agent of Wealth Podcast, host Marc Bautis is joined by Elizabeth Rosner, also known as DrRoz, the trailblazing founder of DebtFreeDegree with DrRoz, a transformative movement aimed at enabling students to achieve their educational dreams without the debilitating weight of student loan debt. Her unique blend of knowledge, strategic insight, and a commitment to community engagement lays the foundation for a future where generational wealth is accessible to all.
This episode is packed with actionable advice that could transform your family’s approach to higher education funding!
In this episode, you will learn:
- The importance of pursuing a debt-free degree in today’s financial landscape.
- Effective strategies for managing higher education costs while maintaining overall financial wellness.
- Key approaches and timing for introducing debt management concepts to adolescents.
- How to evaluate colleges/universities with the goal of a debt-free degree, considering both cost and academic objectives.
- The importance of exploring unconventional scholarships and financial aid options, even for high-earning households.
- Real-life examples and community resources to support a debt-free educational journey.
- And more!
Resources:
DrRoz.love | DebtFreeDegree with DrRoz | DebtFreeDegree: Graduate Without Student Loans While Getting Good Grades, Having Tons of Fun, and Landing Your Dream Job! | Bautis Financial: 8 Hillside Ave, Suite LL1 Montclair, New Jersey 07042 (862) 205-5000 | Schedule an Introductory Call
Disclosure: The transcript below has been edited for clarity and content. It is not a direct transcription of the full episode, which can be listened to above.
Welcome back to The Agent of Wealth Podcast, this is your host Marc Bautis. Today, I’m joined by a special guest, Elizabeth Rosner.
Elizabeth Rosner, also known as DrRoz, is the trailblazing founder of DebtFreeDegree with DrRoz, a transformative movement aimed at enabling students to achieve their educational dreams without the debilitating weight of student loan debt. Her unique blend of knowledge, strategic insight, and a commitment to community engagement lays the foundation for a future where generational wealth is accessible to all.
DrRoz, welcome to the show.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so delighted to be here. I love your show and the fact that I’m sitting here with you is so exciting. So thank you so much, Marc.
It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to discuss today’s topic: financially planning for college. I encounter many people whose children are starting to plan for college. While there’s excitement, many are also nervous, wondering, “How are we going to pay for this?” and “What will my finances look like afterward?” Before we delve into the details, could you start by explaining what a “debt-free degree” means and why it’s becoming important in today’s educational landscape?
The Importance of a Debt-Free Degree
The concept of a “debt-free degree” emerged around 2005 when I started noticing students taking out maximum loans. At that time, loans could exceed the cost of tuition, books, fees, room, and board. Students were using this excess money for living expenses, partying, or even buying cars and other non-essentials. I kept warning them, “You’re going to have to pay this back.”
One of the most valuable things my parents did for me was to insist that we don’t go into debt for education. While there are many other reasons people incur debt, my father, a CPA, believed education shouldn’t be one of them. Today, there’s $46 billion – that’s billion with a B – available in grants and scholarships, in addition to numerous other ways to finance a debt-free degree.
This background explains why I believe a debt-free degree is important and addresses some of the struggles and stressors that current students and their families face.
Balancing Higher Education Costs With Financial Wellness: Strategies for Success
As a financial advisor, I often see people prioritizing their children’s education over their own financial well-being, thinking, “Maybe I won’t save for retirement, but I’ll start saving for education.” Conversely, I also encounter situations where parents, regardless of their financial situation, ask their children, “Where do you want to go to school?” Even when the cost is $80,000 or $100,000 a year, they’ll say, “We’ll figure it out.” However, when you examine the family finances, it often doesn’t align with these aspirations.
As you mentioned, your father set clear boundaries by stating, “We’re not going into debt for education.” I tend to see the opposite, where there are no parameters set, even though having some guidelines could be beneficial. While you can educate both parents and students on this issue, how can students develop a mindset that prioritizes avoiding debt?
I’m old enough to remember when high school honors nights would highlight what percentage of students were going to college. Now, it’s taken for granted that everyone will attend college. However, as someone in a previous episode of yours pointed out, not everyone needs to go to a four-year school. I strongly support this view.
There are many factors to consider, including what I call the “human algorithm” – a term I didn’t coin, but haven’t been able to attribute to its original creator. This human algorithm reflects our current reality: everyone in our social sphere has student loan debt. It’s a topic of discussion in presidential debates, and even public school teachers, including many high school teachers, are carrying student loan debt.
Sometimes parents are still carrying student loan debt from their own degrees. If you’re in this algorithm where you believe that student loans are the only way to get a degree, and by extension, the only way to get ahead is to get a degree, you can see how this mindset leads to the conclusion: “I must take out loans.”
I want to interrupt this process. I recently published a book… It’s called DebtFreeDegree: Graduate Without Student Loans While Getting Good Grades, Having Tons of Fun, and Landing Your Dream Job! When people hear about my book, they often say, “I’m going to give this to every high school graduate I know.” Respectfully, it’s a little too late at that point. It’s like handing someone a weight loss book when they need to lose a hundred pounds in 20 days. The ideal approach would have been to prevent weight gain in the first place, making decisions much earlier.
Yes, this mindset completely flips the parent’s perspective from “Here’s an open checkbook, and we’ll figure it out” – which is exactly what colleges want you to think. Colleges want you to believe you should take out loans and figure out how to pay them off later. My system, however, starts with the end in mind, and that end isn’t college graduation. The end goal is your dream job. I don’t know any parent who says, “I want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send my child to college so they can come home, sit on my couch, and play video games.”
I think the idea that everyone needs a four-year degree is pushed from all sides. Whether it’s colleges promoting this notion or high schools wanting to boost their rankings, there’s pressure to publish statistics showing that a high percentage of students are going to prestigious colleges. You mentioned that giving a guide to someone when they graduate high school might be a little too late. So, when should families really start preparing financially for college?
My ideal approach starts in middle school. I believe that parents should, from day one, express their commitment to helping their children achieve every professional goal they have. This support should extend to education, aiming to achieve it debt-free. These conversations need to begin as early as three, four, or five years old. I knew from a young age that college was in my future and that it would require hard work. While I didn’t know all the specifics, it’s important to foster a mindset that prepares for the journey ahead, even if the details aren’t clear yet.
To support this goal, I’ve developed a curriculum for Debt-Free Degree Clubs. My first club launches in September, and my ideal focus is on middle school students. If we can collectively encourage middle school students to aspire to graduate without student loan debt, we can shift this trajectory significantly.
I am eager to engage middle school students, their families, and community members in this effort. Imagine a community where graduates start their careers free from student loan debt. They would have more opportunities for philanthropy, early home ownership, and other benefits. This initiative is both a community effort and a community benefit. Additionally, I am a certified non-violence trainer for the Martin Luther King Center, and my work is grounded in that philosophy.
Yeah, as you mentioned, fostering a community with a free mindset is crucial. However, adopting an opposite approach can sometimes be detrimental. For instance, people often accumulate debt equivalent to mortgage payments, which can delay major life decisions such as starting a family or purchasing a home. Similarly, those who want to pursue entrepreneurship may find that debt delays their plans. On the flip side, some parents are either managing their own debt or taking on debt for their children, which can postpone their retirement and add undue stress. The negative impacts of debt are significant.
Teaching Debt Management: Tailoring Financial Education for Middle and High School Students
As you suggested, it would be beneficial for children to start learning about debt management in middle school. What specific areas of a debt-free curriculum should middle school students focus on compared to high school students? How can this education transition into managing school costs to ensure they graduate with minimal or no debt?
I love that question! One way to approach this is by recognizing that students as young as fifth grade can start earning college scholarships, which means they have more time on their hands. While each of us, including you, Marc, has 168 hours in a week—just like middle school students—they often have more free time compared to high school students. It’s important to think about how to spend those 168 hours with this goal in mind.
Additionally, many schools are rightfully recognized as AP Schools of Excellence. We recently had AP Score Day, and there was much excitement over the scores. For those who may not know, AP stands for Advanced Placement. In AP courses, primarily offered in high school, students take an exam at the end of the course, scoring between one and five. Depending on the school’s policy and the score received, students may earn college credit. This can be a fantastic way to gain college credit, but it can also be a gamble. Some schools offer four AP classes in the fall and four in the spring, allowing students to earn up to eight classes of credit during high school. However, if a student takes an AP class in the fall and doesn’t sit for the AP exam until the spring, there can be a significant gap in time.
There are other opportunities to earn credit, such as through examinations or dual enrollment programs, which provide a more holistic picture of a student’s options. Sometimes, we get overly influenced by a single route, thinking that it’s the only path forward. If you’re attending an AP School of Excellence, that’s fantastic, but it doesn’t mean AP is the only route to college.
Conversely, I recently spoke with a dean at a university and mentioned that in 33 states, employees of the university system can receive free tuition and fees. I suggested this could be an option for her students, but she responded, “Oh, Elizabeth, no, student workers don’t work.” I clarified that I was referring to actual 40-hour-a-week employees. Again, considering we each have 168 hours in a week, working 40 hours only accounts for 24% of that time. Even if someone works full time, they still have 76% of their week to spend on classes, studying, having fun, sleeping—everything. Her immediate reaction was one of incredulity, and she said, “That would really throw off our graduation rates.” If we’re expected to meet the criteria for your graduation rate while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve it, something feels off.
Are you talking about students working full-time, or parents working full-time to get free tuition for their kids?
In that example, I was talking about students. That’s how I earned my PhD—I was employed by a university system and received tuition benefits, which applied even to other institutions unrelated to my job. With three degrees, including my PhD, I only took out a thousand dollars in loans. This thousand dollars was from my undergraduate years. At that time, we were on the quarter system, and I needed to take summer classes to avoid an overload of credits and graduate in four years. Although I qualified for a Pell Grant, it didn’t cover summer tuition, so I went to financial aid for assistance. I asked for a list of scholarships available for summer tuition.
The financial aid officer told me they had no scholarships available but offered me a loan instead. I accepted the thousand-dollar loan, despite my parents’ stance on not going into debt for education. I viewed it as a necessary short-term solution. This experience illustrated how quickly the mindset towards debt can change.
Many parents work strategically in institutions to secure debt-free or low-cost education for their children. This approach can be a better option compared to Parent PLUS loans. Working full-time not only allows parents to support their children’s education but also provides additional benefits like retirement contributions and job security, all while avoiding the long-term financial strain of loans.
Beyond FAFSA: Opportunities for High Earners
What advice do you have for people who think they earn too much money to qualify for FAFSA and thus don’t bother applying? Are there other financial aid options available for them?
It’s similar to how home values are assessed differently by tax assessors and buyers. Just because you earn a lot doesn’t mean you should skip applying for FAFSA. There are merit scholarships and unconventional ones like the Duct Tape Scholarship, where you create a prom outfit out of duct tape and win money. If a high-cost school is out of reach, consider starting at a community college to save money.
Starting early, even in middle school, can help students earn scholarships and graduate debt-free, regardless of their parents’ income. Common myths about scholarships based on race, academic performance, or income are not accurate.
Evaluating Schools With a Debt-Free Degree in Mind
When selecting a school, there are many variables to consider, such as the size of the school and its specialization in a particular field. But how should financial considerations influence this decision? How can someone determine which schools to include or exclude based on cost, and how do they identify the right target schools for their budget?
I love that question—it’s a great one and I’ve never been asked it before! When planning for a debt-free degree, many people simply add the goal of avoiding debt as an afterthought. Instead, your approach flips this around: you want a debt-free degree as the end goal, so how do you evaluate schools with that in mind?
For instance, in my book, I describe a student who wants to major in engineering. He compares costs between a community college, a state college, an elite private school, and an out-of-state public university. The differences in cost were striking. While the community college was the least expensive and the elite college the most, the out-of-state public university was almost as costly as the elite college.
The key is to evaluate each school based on your goal of a debt-free degree. Starting early, even in middle school, helps you plant the seeds for investigating colleges and understanding costs. For example, if you love sports, like UGA football, there are nearby colleges where you can enjoy the sports scene without attending the university itself.
It’s important to stay creative and focused on your end goal of a debt-free degree. Surrounding yourself with a supportive community, such as through Debt-Free Degree clubs, can help avoid the isolation that sometimes comes with navigating this process on your own. This communal effort ensures that everyone benefits from shared knowledge and strategies.
Regarding the club, how does it foster a sense of community? I understand there’s a book, a course, and possibly even a workshop. How do these elements fit together to build and support a community?
I’ve developed a 52-week curriculum that can be adapted to different meeting schedules. If a group meets monthly, they can choose from that month’s content. If they meet weekly, there’s information available for each session. For example, if you and I are in a club and I find a scholarship for tuba players, I’d share it with you if you’re a tuba player, even though I’m not. This way, everyone benefits from each other’s discoveries and understands what others need.
Additionally, with many colleges closing, staying informed through the community helps you avoid institutions that might be at risk. If you’re working alone, you might miss important updates.
An ideal advisory board for a debt-free club includes members from the organization, such as school groups or scout troops, as well as parents and community members. Community involvement is valuable, as it benefits everyone and encourages a supportive environment for future residents.
Transforming Challenges Into Triumphs: Henry’s Journey to a Debt-Free Degree
With the creation of the club, what has been your most rewarding experience?
To be honest, I’ve only established one club, which starts in September. Personally, my vision is to see it thrive. However, one of my favorite stories involves a student named Henry. Henry’s grandmother, a friend of mine, mentioned that Henry had given up his dream of becoming a college professor. He had quit college without even earning a bachelor’s degree. Intrigued, I learned that Henry had accumulated over 200 credit hours, changed his major five times, and spent 14 semesters in school without graduating.
Henry and his family, along with the school, had not focused on obtaining a debt-free degree. Instead, they followed his changing interests without a clear plan. When I met with Henry, we devised a strategy for him to finish his degree at his private religious school, where most of his credits wouldn’t transfer. I also helped him secure a job as a janitor at an in-state institution. Initially, Henry’s grandmother was upset, but I explained that this job offered him higher pay, better hours, health and vision insurance, vacation time, and retirement benefits. Additionally, working there provided him with free tuition for any in-state institution.
Thanks to this job, Henry completed his master’s degree debt-free and began working on his PhD. Although I’ve lost touch with him, as far as I know, he was pursuing his PhD when I last heard. This experience was incredibly rewarding, especially considering Henry had accrued over $75,000 in student loan debt before we met. While I couldn’t change his past debt, I could help him move forward, earning his degrees without incurring additional debt.
That’s wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. Alright DrRoz, that’s all of the questions I have for you today. Thank you for joining me for an episode of The Agent of Wealth Podcast and discussing the DebtFreeDegree Movement. Where should our listeners go to learn more?
Absolutely! My website is DrRoz.love.
Great, we’ll include that link, and everything else we discussed, in the resources section of the show notes. Thanks again DrRoz, and thank you to everyone who tuned into today’s episode. Don’t forget to follow The Agent of Wealth on the platform you listen from and leave us a review of the show. We are currently accepting new clients, if you’d like to schedule a 1-on-1 consultation with our advisors, please do so below.