"It's free money. You don't have to pay back. Plan for a better future now. Don't be like everyone else who's complaining about paying off loans."  -   Denise Thomas

Bienvenidos al podcast Mindshift Power, un programa para adolescentes y los adultos que trabajan con ellos, donde tenemos conversaciones sinceras y sinceras. Soy su anfitriona, Fátima Bey, la transformadora de mentalidades. Y bienvenidos. En el episodio de hoy, hablaremos sobre la deuda estudiantil y cómo podemos salir de ella. En el episodio de hoy, tenemos a Denise, quien es oradora de TEDx.

She's from Florida. She is she has designed a strategy that has won her two homeschools teens 17 scholarships totaling more than a hundred $99,000 for four years of college debt free with cash left over. I think that is so awesome. Welcome, Denise. How are you today?

Hola, cariño. Me emociona mucho estar aquí para compartir esto con tu público. Me emociona tenerte aquí. Tengo muchas ganas de iniciar esta conversación porque creo firmemente en lo que haces y en cómo ayudas a la gente. Así que tienes algo que se llama "adelántate a la clase".

Tell us what that is. Get Ahead of the Class is my company, and what we do is we work with families to help them figure out ways of sending their kids to college, to higher education without sacrificing whatever investments or income the parents have and also without the teenager, the young adult, having to go into ridiculous amounts of debt for literally decades. The truth is there there's so many truths and mindset shifts that have to happen in order for this to happen. Number one, not everyone needs to go to college. I firmly believe that somewhere along the lines of three decades ago, someone said everyone must have a college degree in order to be successful in life.

Mhmm. And that is so not true. And so from that premise, I believe that that is why today, we have seventy percent of our population with a college degree. Whereas three decades ago, it was just the opposite. Only 30% had a college degree.

And trust me, everybody was doing just freaking fine. So, you know, whoever came up with this and look, I'm one of these people that says follow the money. Mhmm. I would be willing to bet that when it comes to following the money, that whoever created that study that says everyone has to have a college degree, somewhere down that trickling of following the money, there are colleges that are high priced that were involved in that study. There just had to be because it's a ridiculous premise.

Because what we have today is a bunch of college educated people that are serving coffee at Starbucks. Amen. You're so right. Completely unnecessary. % right.

Sí. Estoy de acuerdo. Así que estoy haciendo todo lo posible para compartir con la gente de Estados Unidos cómo podemos lograr un cambio. Como dije, no es necesario tener un título universitario si no es un requisito, considerando tus habilidades para la vida y lo que quieres hacer en tu carrera. Pero además, para quienes sí desean ir a la universidad, hay muchas maneras de hacerlo sin endeudarse durante décadas.

And it's not just the kids that end up in debt. The parents end up in debt. We hear, what, about every couple of years when it's a political football about student debt. Problem with that is that they talk about it, but they don't tell you that the kids, teenagers, can only get a very small amount of student loans without a cosigner. So all this oh, we have tens of thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt.

Bueno, ¿adivinen quiénes firman como aval para ese cachorro? Mamá y papá o los abuelos. ¿Y cómo afectará eso a su jubilación? Porque les aseguro que Johnny y Susie no planean apoyar a sus padres durante su jubilación porque se quedaron sin dinero. Así que es algo que realmente debemos reflexionar.

You know? We we we need the trades, and our trades are suffering right now because of this false premise that everyone needs a college degree. You are a % right, and that's something that, you know, I I run around and and do workshops and speak at high schools and work with high school students in different capacities a lot, and absolutely love it. One of the things that I I try to to speak on is what you just said. There are other there are other careers out there that actually don't require a college degree, and you make the same amount of freaking money, like mechanics.

There's different kinds of mechanics, but mechanics makes really good money. They do need to go to trade trade school. They do need extra, you know, they still need continued education, but it doesn't have to be in the form of college. Right? And certainly not the kind of money that it takes to get the college degree.

Incluso viéndolo así, la gente no suele pensar en esto. Cuando vas a una escuela de oficios, es un periodo corto. Podrían ser dos años. Pero normalmente, puedes conseguir un trabajo, empezar a ganar dinero e invertir en tu jubilación incluso a esa edad tan temprana. Pero cuando estás en la universidad, la gran mayoría no trabaja ni gana bien.

So they have to put off starting their life and saving at least four to six years. Whereas the person coming out of high school going into the trades, they can be starting right off the bat, and they're already financially ahead of those who are getting the college degree. So it's not a requirement. As you said, a mechanic has the same potential income possibility as a mechanical engineer. You just have to choose what is best for you.

Cierto. Cierto. Y mucha gente se lanza a la universidad simplemente porque eso es lo que sus padres les dicen que deben hacer. Como dijiste, ya sabes, eso nos lo han inculcado y se ha convertido en parte de la cultura. Ah, sí.

You you must you must put money into the industry that we own. You know, you could say the same thing about oh, other industries like pharmaceuticals, but that's another con another conversation. But, it really to me is kind of the the the, the same thing. Now is there let me ask you this question because I know that since we're talking about trades, there are gonna be teenagers who are listening right now. They're gonna wonder this for themselves.

Is there money out there for people who are not going to college, who are going to trade school, want to become an entrepreneur, start their own business, or or going to a gap year program. Is there money out there for people like that? Yes and no. There the the money is mostly for higher education Okay. Which does include trades because that is past high school.

Mhmm. If you look if you look at the mountain of money that's available, and it is a mountain, there's 1,800,000 scholarships given away every year, totaling more than $23,000,000,000 with a b. Wow. The vast majority is for high school seniors. So if you look at it like a mountain, if you you look upside down v, it's a mountain.

The very top, the most available are for high school seniors going into college the very next year. You come down one side of the mountain, I kid you not, scholarships for college begin in kindergarten. What? Uh-huh. Yeah.

I had to pause for that because I knew that was coming. They do begin in kindergarten. There's only one or two. And as you come up that side of the mountain, there are about 20 or so available for 13. Then there's a few hundred or so available for early high school, freshman, sophomore, and junior year.

Then you get into literally millions available for seniors. And now let's come back down the other side of that mountain. The other side of that mountain are current undergraduate college students. And then a little further down, you have professional school, maybe grad school, medical school, law school. There are scholarships for that as well.

Ah, vale. Y sí, incluso en el otro extremo del espectro, hay becas para escuelas de oficios, colegios comunitarios o universidades de primer ciclo. Pero al igual que con los jóvenes, como la primaria, no hay tantas disponibles. Pero sí, definitivamente hay dinero disponible para los oficios. En cuanto a dinero disponible para otros proyectos, ya sea que quieras ser emprendedor o, como mencionaste, quizás un año sabático para decidir qué quieres hacer o ir a una misión o algo así.

That would be more getting involved in some personal ways of bringing in that money versus, an organization that has already gotten that figured out. Okay. Well, thank you for, clarifying that. Let me ask you another question. Let's say we have a a situation, and I know of someone where this is the case, for her.

Conozco a una joven que no conoce a su madre biológica y que gana muchísimo dinero. Por lo tanto, le resulta difícil conseguir financiación de otra manera, pero en realidad no está involucrada ni vive con su madre. Pero, en teoría, esto es lo que tiene, y realmente le perjudica mucho a la hora de conseguir financiación para la universidad, y por eso lo ha postergado, lo cual, como sabemos, no es buena idea en la mayoría de los casos. ¿Sería útil solicitar becas para alguien así? Por supuesto.

Sí. Y aquí está la cuestión. Hay reglas sobre qué padre o cuáles padres deben incluir sus finanzas en los formularios de ayuda financiera para la universidad. Por ejemplo, si hay un divorcio, a veces es necesario incluir la información de ambos padres.

Sometimes it's a specific parent who gives the most financial support. Some of that is gonna depend on which financial aid form we're talking about. There's actually two. Okay. The other thing to to to know as well is that for a student who is estranged from the parent, it's entirely possible to become emancipated.

Now that requires an attorney and it requires, you know, a lot of involvement. There are also check boxes if the student was homeless as of a certain point in time. Okay. So there's definitely ways of not having to put the parents' income on these financial forms. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that the federal government has seen every trick in the book.

Mhmm. They have made sure that only the most deserving families are getting federal aid or federal grants. So, basically, if if you can put food on the table, you're not gonna get a federal grant. Oh, wow. And you shouldn't because that's not the purpose.

It's not for everyone to be able to just, you know, come grab hold of some money somebody else's taxes are paying for. Yeah. It's intended for those who truly are in financial straits. However, that said, the monies available for that is not intended for you to go away to some really expensive college, private school with room and board and all that mess added. It's intended to cover your local regional university and for you to live at home while you're doing it.

It's supposed to cover, you know, maybe basic tuition, maybe tuition and fees depending, but it's not going to cover all the bells and whistles. That's not its intent. It's to get the educational portion. Now you you you talked in the beginning about how you, pretty much told us, you know, what motivated you to to get this started. How long have you been at how long have you been at this?

I've been coaching parents for at least fifteen years. I really don't, you know, like, check the box and what year was it was I started. Yeah. Me either. But I do absolutely love what I do because it brings financial freedom to these families, and it is such a blessing to me to be able to do that and give that to these families.

What I find is that the the families that win are the ones that hit the ground running. We're on the same page. We have the same goal. The goal is not to attend a college that's not going to offer you money. The goal is the money.

Solo necesitamos el título, y necesitamos hacerlo con el mínimo gasto posible. Un gran porcentaje de mis familias están en esa situación en la que pueden enviar a sus hijos a la universidad sin deudas y con dinero sobrante. Es mucho más que el promedio nacional porque hay una razón para esto. Estamos de acuerdo. Entendemos lo que buscamos.

And if I'm having an initial conversation and a family wants to purchase the cracking the code to free college formula, but I feel like maybe the teenager's not on board. Maybe the teenager feels like, you know, everybody has college debt. I guess I'll have college debt too. Honey, that's not gonna work. Yes.

No. That's not gonna work. And there's too many out there thinking that way. And I I know this because I, again, I deal with teenagers all the time and and talk to them in high schools, and many of them do not realize what's actually out there available for them. And you can get oh my god.

You can get scholarships. I'll let you dive into this a little bit more. You can get scholarships for the the biggest and the dumbest things. 100%. Butterflies on Tuesday.

There's a scholarship for that. Yes. I'm exaggerating only a little bit. Only a little. Only a little.

But in every every state, there's different scholarships. I you know, that's it's not like there's the same scholarships in every state, and I think it's important that teen my teenage audience understands that too. Your your particular state is gonna have different details. And but what, what Denise does is across the nation. So she gives you the general tools, and then you could talk about the details within your state.

You know? Yeah. It's kinda like it's kinda like teaching a man to fish. You know, if you're film familiar with that biblical story, you know, do you do you do you give a man a fish? He's gonna eat for a day.

But if you teach a man a fish, he's gonna eat for his life. And that's exactly what I'm doing. I I have seen, I know, quote, other scholarship gurus out there who, for a very large number of dollars, are happy to curate 20 scholarships for the teenager. Okay. That's cool.

That's a drop in the bucket. What about next year? Yeah. What about next month? You know, especially when you talk about juniors and seniors, we're talking about literally, I kid you not, millions of scholarships available.

Y quiero hablarles a los adolescentes aquí presentes un momento. Perderán. Así es la vida. La vida no es color de rosa. Habrá momentos en que perderán.

Learn that concept now Mhmm. So that going forth in life, when obstacles come up, when there are losses, when you get dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend, when you get laid off from a job. And notice I'm saying when, not if. These things will happen in your life. Mhmm.

And the same is true with college acceptance and with scholarships. You will lose. So what I tell my families is this, as you're applying for these scholarships, you're gonna list them in a spreadsheet, you're gonna check the box and write down the date that you applied, and you hit the send button, and then you're gonna forget about it and move on to the next one. Because that's the attitude you have to take. What's next?

Move forward. Because these scholarship organizations are not going to tell you that you lost. They will only connect with the person or persons who have won that particular round. Right. Okay?

So to make this work, you have to be willing to continually be applying for more and more scholarships. And here's the thing. I've I've seen two two things occur real frequently. Number one, I've seen parents that tell their kid, don't apply to anything under $10,000. Really?

I swear to you, I have heard that. And I'm thinking, excuse me, $500 was more than you had in the bank yesterday. I don't care how many millions you have right now. It's still $500. Yep.

Alright. Second, which I'm thinking, hey. You wanna tell your kids that? That's great. That's more for my kids.

En fin. Solo lo digo. ¿Sabes? Pero, bueno, la otra cosa es esta: cada año hay más de 100.000 becas que no se otorgan.

Unawarded meaning nobody got the prize. So why is it that nobody got the prize? Well, either no one applied for the scholarship, which does happen. Mhmm. I've actually talked with people who give scholarships who say they have to go to the high schools every year that are local and beg their kids to apply.

But a lot of people don't think they can win. They don't think they're good enough. Right. Read my lips even though you can't see me. BS.

¿De acuerdo? Cualquiera puede ganar estas becas. No hace falta ser un genio. De esos casi $200 que ganaron mis dos hijos, literalmente la mitad no se basaba en su promedio ni en sus calificaciones. ¿En serio?

Literally half. A hundred grand worth. Wow. All you have to do is answer an essay question. Now I'm not one to really promote answering the ones that are requiring you to write a dissertation of 10,000 words.

Unless you wrote that essay already for an English class, please pass that by. It is not worth it. I guarantee you it's just not worth the effort. Do not do that. But the vast majority are going to be less than a page long for your essay, and they just want your opinion on a topic.

Just be honest. And you're right. There are so many topics out there. I kid you not. One of them is a zombie apocalypse scholarship.

I'm laughing, but I know that you're not lying. When I approach this zombie apocalypse, I'm gonna wear a mask. I'm telling you. And wouldn't that be hilarious? I'm loving that.

I'm loving that. That'd be awesome. And somebody today might really laugh at that. And here's the thing. If if for the teenagers out there listening right now, there really are scholarships out there for every freaking tiny little thing.

And even if the scholarship is as little as 2 and $500, get a few of those. They add up. It does. It really, really matters. And it's something I find myself even before I met Denise, I would find myself saying this to teenagers, like, don't go don't go to school with more debt than you need to.

Hay tanta gente que piensa: "¡Dios mío! Ojalá hubiera sabido lo que Denise enseña ahora, por eso la invito. Creo firmemente en lo que hacen por las familias y, en realidad, por nuestra nación, al ayudar a la mayor cantidad de personas a salir de esa trampa que llamamos deuda universitaria y a tener una mejor experiencia de vida. Debido a esto, la deuda universitaria que se acumula después de la universidad hoy en día es tan inmensa que les genera tanto estrés que perjudica sus vidas. Y eso es lo que más me molesta.

It's the actually not the money. It's the it's the stress and the feeling of failure that many of them have afterwards because they're still spending years and years paying off the freaking debt. And if they have so if they listen to someone like you, they don't have to do that. There are ways around it. They just need to actually connect with the people who can do that, and I'm I'm hoping that enough of you listening actually either connect with Denise or start looking for some scholarships around you.

Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that I think kids need to understand too and look. It's not just you as a teenager. It's your it's your your adult mentors, whether it's a parent or a high school counselor. We all have fallen into this trap that says, I have to attend a top 20 college or a top 100 college, whatever that means.

But here's what they don't know about this. That college ranking system is not based on educational quality. It is not? It's not. That ranking system is not based on student outcomes.

En otras palabras, ¿qué pasa cinco o diez años después de obtener ese título de esa prestigiosa universidad, entre comillas, en comparación con una universidad estatal? Pero hay suficientes estudios que demuestran que, para la gran mayoría de los estudiantes que asisten a esas universidades, en comparación con una universidad estatal, el resultado es idéntico. Solo que uno de ellos tiene una deuda de $200 más que el otro. Así que piénsenlo bien, porque no es un requisito. Y si les preguntan a quienes antes llamábamos cazatalentos, que hoy son nuestros reclutadores de personal, les dirán sin rodeos: «Llevo veinte años haciendo esto».

Nobody gives a crap about what college you went to. We just know that you got the degree. That's it. Mhmm. So as far as shifting your mindset, there are several things you have to do.

You know, Believe you can win because literally anyone can win. And don't believe what everyone else is doing out there because what they're doing is keeping them in debt. You've got to change your mind. Right. And when it comes to applying for scholarships, and I know that this I know that it's an issue for a lot of teens who don't believe that they'll win, so they don't even try.

I you can a hundred percent guarantee that you will not win if you don't try. You have to you have to at least try. And as Denise said earlier, you you might you're not gonna win every single one, and that's okay. Apply for 50. If you get 20, that's really awesome.

¿Sabes? Vas a tener que solicitar empleos, es como solicitar uno. No vas a conseguir todos los trabajos a los que te postules. Vas a tener que solicitar en muchos sitios diferentes, y puede que te devuelvan tres o cuatro llamadas. Pero al final, al final, conseguirás un trabajo, solo por esas llamadas.

Así que, al menos, tienes que intentarlo. Denise, déjame hacerte otra pregunta. ¿Qué significa para ti tener éxito después de la preparatoria? Para mí, soy de la vieja escuela. Bien.

Soy solo el comienzo. Vengo de una cultura en la que criar hijos exitosos significa que, al salir de casa, puedan valerse por sí mismos, conseguir un trabajo, alimentarse, vivir solos, tener un techo, pero también contribuir a la sociedad. Contribuyen a que las cosas sucedan y contribuyen de alguna manera con el voluntariado. Incluso si no tienen tiempo, digamos que tienen un trabajo de doce horas al día. Mi hermano... tengo un hermano que hace eso.

So if time is not something you can give to your community in volunteering, perhaps you can contribute some of your funds to your community to help along with whatever's happening in your community. So to me, being successful in life, even for someone just coming out of school, I've I've got, families whose kids just out of school, and one of the first things they did is they noticed the number of homeless people in their travels to and from work every day. And what they did was they went to the grocery store, and they picked up a small package of paper bag lunch bag lunch sacks, the small lunch sacks, and they filled it with necessity items, toothbrushes, hand soap, things like that, and maybe a few gift cards to local McDonald's or Burger King that was nearby in those areas where she saw these people. And she would mark the bags, male, female, or c for children, and she put them behind the seat of her car. So in her daily travels, she was able to hand these out to the homeless people that she ran into along her drive every single day.

That is success to me. It's thinking about your fellow man and understanding I can do something to help. What can I do? I would say that that's a part of being a productive member of society, not just paying your bills and not just making money and buying stuff, but doing for others in any form. And there are many different forms in which we can do that, but in any form.

Bueno, ha sido genial hablar contigo, y espero que podamos difundir este mensaje entre los adolescentes y que más de ellos se esfuercen por conseguir becas para evitar las deudas de las que tanto nos hablan. ¿Cómo pueden encontrarte, Denise? Puedes visitar mi sitio web, get ahead of the class.com o get a debtfreedegree.com. Cualquiera que recuerdes te llevará al mismo sitio. También tengo, si visitas ese sitio web, oportunidades para obtener ideas y recursos gratuitos, e información para entradas de blog.

There's a Facebook group, podcast. All of that is available on that same page. But I also have a book, and the book is on Amazon, and it's called how to go to college debt free. So if you look that up and just put Denise Thomas in it, you'll find it. And what this book does, the first one that's out tells you exactly how we found all those scholarships for my kids.

Hay 17 maneras de encontrar becas, y eso es lo que este libro hará por ti. Todo lo que Denisha dijo también estará en los detalles del episodio en cualquier plataforma que estés escuchando este podcast. Quiero añadir que Denise también tiene una lista de verificación en su sitio web que creo que es una herramienta excelente para que todos los estudiantes de secundaria la consulten. Incluiré un enlace en la descripción del episodio. Así que gracias, Denise, por venir, pasar tiempo con nosotros y difundir el mensaje. Espero que esto te ayude a conectar con muchas personas.

Thank you. Thank you for having me on and helping me spread the word. And now for a mind shifting moment. If you're a parent out there, please make an effort to find out what scholarships are out there for your for your kids, for your child that's going away to a trade school, to college, whatever the next venture is. Please don't take on more debt than you need to.

Ser padres ya es bastante difícil, y financieramente, también. No te endeudes más de lo necesario. Busca toda la ayuda posible. Y para los adolescentes que nos escuchan, por favor, tómate tu tiempo. Vale la pena buscar las becas disponibles.

As you heard Denise say earlier, at least 50% of the scholarships that her kids applied for did not even ask for you what your GPA is. They didn't ask about your grades. Apply. You don't know till you try. If you apply for 50 and you get 10 to 20, that's a victory.

It's free money. You don't have to pay back. Plan for a better future now. Don't be like everyone else who's complaining about paying off loans. You might make 6 figures in the next career you're going into, but you won't see those 6 figures for years because you'll be paying off loans.

Don't do that. Apply for your little scholarships today. They are for you. They are for you. Thank you for listening to mind shift power podcast.

Visita FatimaBay.com/podcast. Recuerda, cambiar tu forma de pensar tiene poder. Sintonízalo la próxima semana.