In this episode, Alex Blumberg sits down with Vox Opinion editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro to talk about his new book, "Universities: The New Normal," and why he thinks they should get a lot more money.
00:02:11.000I don't know exactly how endowment spending works or what they use it for, but these, it's kind of like they just have retained profits is essentially what it is.
00:02:21.000They just earn interest on it and spend the money on whatever, but then, you know, constantly, like to buy tickets, I have to give a certain number of dollars every year just to get the ticket application.
00:03:02.000It's like John Sassel talked about his house that was on the water being rebuilt like three or four times.
00:03:07.000Now, of course, I shouldn't have built in a storm pathway, but I'll take the money.
00:03:13.000Like, it's just why wouldn't you do it?
00:03:15.000It's the government incentivizing this that is a problem.
00:03:19.000Let me, I also want to sort of bring this back to that woman talking about being a professional whore.
00:03:26.000It's what kind of a life do you want to live?
00:03:30.000And by the way, that's not a small question because if collectively people answer in concert in a way that's unified, that's how you have a country.
00:03:40.000Because that's what we have in this country.
00:03:44.000It was, all right, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and family, family, faith, and freedom.
00:03:49.000I'm going to give you a personal solution, then a government solution here, because the last thing I'm going to be is just people who bitch.
00:03:56.000Let me ask you this, because people say, hey, what do I want to do?
00:04:02.000What kind of a life do you, what do you, let me ask you this.
00:04:04.000Do you think that anything you do professionally, any job, could be, you could be a bean counter, could be a writer, could be, do you think that any of it is going to matter to you more at the end of your life, be more fulfilling or meaningful than your family and relationships with people you love?
00:04:24.000Now, Disney and the media will tell you it's all about family and evil businessman, right?
00:04:31.000But then society tells you, hey, the path to success is exactly the path that will preclude you from finding fulfillment in your life with a family, right?
00:04:44.000No, no, the path to success, you have to go to university.
00:04:50.000You have to spend the years that you would have spent throughout all of human history finding a mate and starting a family and charting a course and making a plan.
00:04:59.000You have to forfeit all those years for glorified alcoholism and a degree that may or may not be of any use to anyone.
00:05:08.000And you think these kids, like, I didn't know this was going to happen.
00:05:10.000And I believe them when they say that, I can tell you this.
00:05:14.000Every single person in a position of authority, if they went to public school, was telling them, well, you got to go to school, go to university, go to the best university you can, unless you want to be a garbage man.
00:05:24.000By the way, small aside, I got that when I was a kid, like, unless you want to be a garbage man.
00:05:27.000And when I was growing up, and the first time I, I said, wait, garbage men make what?
00:06:11.000No, they go, best school you can possibly go to.
00:06:14.000Do you think any of them said, by the way, you got to be really mindful of those interest rates on those loans because those will kill you.
00:06:18.000It's go to school, go to school, go to school, go to school, go to university, or people won't respect you and you won't.
00:06:36.000Let me guess this person was probably of the left persuasion, probably didn't, probably thought it was one of those things for grunts, for people who have no other options.
00:06:44.000Yeah, I don't know about the left persuasion.
00:06:45.000I was too young to really notice or care.
00:06:47.000But yeah, it definitely was one of those things.
00:06:49.000It's like, yeah, people in the military, they're all just a bunch of idiots who can't make it in the real world.
00:08:38.000As a teenager, he found a way, and he eventually got caught, which is why he got his life in the straight narrow.
00:08:44.000He found a way to, every time he made a withdrawal from an ATM, basically steal, I think it was $200, like a ghost transaction that no one could trace.
00:12:16.000We're taught that you should go to university and study economics, but you haven't been taught interest rates before you go to university to study economics before.
00:13:31.000Now, as far as policy solutions, because there's a systemic problem, and I agree, here's what we do.
00:13:38.000Number one, the government stops subsidizing any and all higher education in the form of grants, scholarships that are unneeded with the endowments.
00:13:48.000And they should only even look at any type of, let's say, financial break for degrees that we actually need and are practical.
00:13:57.000Taxpayers shouldn't guarantee loans for useless degrees.
00:14:01.000There should never be a taxpayer on the hook for a gender studies degree, for a liberal arts degree, for a creative history degree.
00:14:09.000A degree in stand-up comedy, which you can get in California?
00:14:36.000That needs to give them back to the banks.
00:14:39.000Private loans so that it's treated like any other business or personal loan.
00:14:43.000All I'm advocating is that the most significant decision that is being made at this point in your life needs to be, it needs to be made with some wisdom.
00:14:54.000Right now, you sit in a room where you just fill it out online and go, all right, I need $80,000 for this school.
00:16:47.000I also think that the government could maybe forgive the interest, not the loans, but forgive the interest if, for example, loans have been paid back in these, there's already been some kind of a profit.
00:16:56.000Because I also believe that these kids have been thrust into, unfortunately, a system they didn't fully understand because the government wanted to, right?
00:17:03.000We all want to make that money and the universities were all too acquiescent, and so are the lobbyists.
00:17:06.000So you can maybe forgive some of the interest on the debt.
00:17:14.000What the left wants in student loan forgiveness would be one of the greatest wealth transfers in human history from taxpayers to already privileged upper middle class Americans.
00:17:26.000Over 60% of student loan debt is held by people in the top 40% of earners.
00:17:44.000So someone leaving after doing a few tours, someone working in construction, someone who's struggling starting up a business, maybe shut down during COVID, they're paying for a wealthy suburban kids useless liberal arts degree.
00:18:11.000People get so caught up, you know, oh, they had pensions.
00:18:13.000By the way, boomers have a blind spot here.
00:18:17.000It's completely achievable, by the way.
00:18:18.000Kids, younger people, you could reduce your spending.
00:18:20.000You obviously could be more responsible.
00:18:22.000On the economic side, yep, I understand that that's feasible.
00:18:25.000What is different is boomers didn't have the same competitive working environment in that if you did your time, even if you were mediocre, you were loyal to the company, you got a pension, that's just not a thing anymore.
00:18:36.000So I think if you dropped a lot of people from that generation into today's work environment, they wouldn't fare that well because it is more performance-based.
00:18:44.000In other words, they'd be like, well, wait a second, why are you letting me been here for 20 years?
00:18:56.000But the more important facet that we miss when people say, well, the dream is out of reach.
00:19:01.000You have to understand, not only do they live in a smaller house, not only do they only get maybe one week of vacation, not only did they never eat out all of that.
00:19:07.000Not only do they have to commute into the city, maybe an hour each day, which you could do.
00:19:11.000These are just financial decisions that you could make where you could sort of close that gap.
00:19:15.000But they started a family in their early 20s.
00:19:20.000They started earlier on what really mattered.
00:19:24.000So if you say what's out of reach, you know, for my grandparents, that won't come back.
00:20:03.000And the government, by the way, certainly the Democrat Party has a vested interest because they told you they want the destruction of the nuclear family.
00:20:10.000You have strong nuclear families and financial independence.
00:20:27.000You have people who are easily manipulated because you're the one in control of the purse string.
00:20:31.000So personally, do the math, figure out what kind of a lifestyle you want to live, chart a course, and do what is most effective in achieving that.
00:20:38.000And be sure that you are very mindful of the math.
00:20:41.000Make sure you teach your children as a policy.
00:20:44.000Get the government out of the student loan business and it needs to be treated like any other business or personal loan.
00:20:51.000And the answer to the greatest wealth transfer that could take place towards upper middle class Americans from working taxpayers in history, that's the proposed solution by the left, needs to be an emphatic no.
00:21:01.000Let's get back to what matters: families, faith, freedom, and being independent.
00:21:08.000Let's get back to the things that actually, you know, make life life.
00:21:13.000And that's not a master's degree and it's not a few extra bucks an hour.
00:21:16.000It's not the consumerism that comes with it either.
00:21:18.000I mean, that's that whole focusing on family for the younger generations, they are sorry, the older generations right now when they had kids younger, they were happier.
00:21:52.000Because they're looking for something to make them happy, looking for something to make them feel alive and not depressed and not nihilistic or whatever else, connected to society.
00:22:01.000And nothing can do it like faith and family.
00:22:34.000And I just, I don't know how I got here, and I'm so unhappy.
00:22:38.000You bought every single lie that was sold to you.
00:22:42.000Yes, and you're not going to see those videos of people going, I don't know what happened.
00:22:47.000I got an apprenticeship, and I make a good six-figure income as an electrician and a plumber, and I come home, and my kids are doing really well.
00:22:52.000And we homeschool them, and we've decided to tighten our belts, and we get to spend as much time together as humanly possible.
00:22:57.000And they're the love of my life, and dear God, their time is just the most precious thing on.
00:23:53.000But this guy, he's like, he's troubled because he's living with the burden of a lie that he told his friends and teammates at Trivia that he has a master's degree because they all had master's degrees.
00:24:22.000It's also going to be less relevant, by the way, to these degrees because, again, it's so competitive that employers can't make the employment anything other than performance-based.
00:24:33.000So I'm just telling you, it's like, oh, a degree from Ivy League.
00:24:39.000I'm telling you, outside of certain fields where you do in our STEM fields, and I understand there does need to be some formal training, it's less relevant.
00:24:46.000As information becomes more available, the degree is less relevant.
00:24:50.000As a matter of fact, I seldom find someone who's most educated on a given topic who got a degree in that field.
00:24:57.000It's usually someone who's a hobbyist, whether it's history, whether it's it could be firearms, whether it's engineering.
00:27:38.000Going back to the Constitution, and this has been an argument for a very long time.
00:27:42.000Like, how do you count people that are here that are not technically citizens?
00:27:45.000And this can be people who are here illegally or people on visas or other things.
00:27:50.000I don't think that the founders had a chip in their brain for you're going to have how many people here illegally, and that's fine with you?
00:28:51.000Why should you count those people when you're doing a census, which, by the way, determines seats, determines districts in a lot of ways, right?
00:28:56.000Determines the political sway of a state when they shouldn't legally even have the ability to vote.
00:29:26.000I don't know if we can pull that clip where Holman said the whole thing was about the census rule.
00:29:29.000That was a big thing with the illegal immigration was bring in as many as humanly possible and count them in the census so that you could basically change district and electoral maps forever.
00:29:38.000That's why sanctuary cities are putting up lights and signs that say, come here.
00:31:55.000Number one, what did Joe Biden do in addition to writing over 90 executive orders, abolishing everything we did under the Trump administration that gave us more secure border?
00:32:03.000You'll return the Trump census rule, which means millions of illegal animals are released in sanctuary cities.
00:32:59.000I mean, there are levers that he can pull.
00:33:01.000I don't know that that's the first priority because I don't necessarily know how many people are employed in these call centers.
00:33:10.000I mean, it's a lot, but compared to jobs that are being lost in the United States, I think really what they want to bring here is more so the ability for us to be independent.
00:33:29.000It should, but I would think that would be significantly further down the list.
00:33:32.000And he could do the same thing that he's done with other tariffs and incentives and sanctions.
00:33:38.000I just think that right now it's a focus on manufacturing and reducing our dependence on nations that either hate us or do business with people who hate us.
00:33:44.000By the way, it was so funny to see Modi and the Indians on X. They're like, Modi will stand strong.
00:33:50.000We will not be told that we cannot do business with Russia.
00:34:34.000And by the way, Trump also knows, like, you don't really want to fight to bring an industry back that's about to go away anyway.
00:34:39.000Like, the call center stuff is going to go away largely due to AI because most people are going to want to deal with AI better than somebody who doesn't know crap about what they're talking about.
00:34:48.000And there's going to be some need for backup on that.
00:34:50.000But you can, these AI chat, not just chat bots, but AI voice.
00:34:55.000Like, I can have a better conversation with Grok than I can with somebody in India answering my tech questions.
00:35:01.000Well, that's because you have to work on your people skills.
00:37:47.000What if they start treating some of these careers that have a path through a higher education system more like a career that has like a trade program where you have an apprenticeship?
00:39:38.000He's like a mad scientist of jiu-jitsu.
00:39:42.000He had messed up knees, so he couldn't really compete.
00:39:45.000He sat under Henzo Gracie and he coached athlete, like champion after champion after champion because he, in having some physical limitations, decided to break it down.
00:39:56.000And he was able to create a system and he just coached world-class athlete after world-class athlete because it was results-based.
00:40:18.000You see it in, obviously you would see it in homeschooling because you would just see the results on the tests when these kids end up going to college.
00:40:24.000Public school, it's the only place where it's not performance-based.
00:40:47.000I would say if there's an on-the-job training program, that's how with apprenticeship as a carpenter or an electrician works, is that the union helps you do your job, you pay your union dues, and then part of your dues go to your training.
00:40:58.000Yeah, yeah, but that's not how it works for teachers or many other unions.
00:41:03.000You pay for your own education, and then once you've paid everything and you're in debt, and now you're going to look at 30,000 turning into 100,000, now you can get the benefit of our union.
00:41:13.000Yeah, and the union, the money goes to rubber rooms where they keep shitty teachers employed who shouldn't be anywhere near a child, but they just go sit in a room all day so they can make sure that they collect their check.
00:45:44.000And then a lot of people started doing it, but it wasn't like, so we just didn't put up a number.
00:45:49.000But, you know, I'll sit down in a day with a change my mind.
00:45:51.000And sometimes you'll get, sometimes you get four, five, sometimes you get 10, you get 12.
00:45:56.000And we've pretty much uploaded all of them.
00:45:58.000I think, like I said, the exception of a couple people who were literally just there to promote a product or something where like, oh, okay.
00:46:04.000Or someone would come in like in a funny hat and be like, I'm Johnny Appleteed.
00:46:36.000I'm saying if they tried and put all their efforts into it and it somehow came out unfunny, the jokes just didn't land, we'd be like, you guys are better than this.
00:46:43.000We can make fun of ourselves better than this.
00:48:50.000But the more you can defund and disband, the better, right?
00:48:54.000That's what needs to happen right now.
00:48:55.000All the left does is destroy and deconstruct, and they don't do it where appropriate.
00:48:59.000They build up these awful, awful titans like USAID and like our intelligence communities and like the Department of Education.
00:49:07.000So we need to actually make those significantly smaller and the IRS.
00:49:12.000And I'm sure that all of them affect the other, but I don't know that there's a direct connection or that Donald Trump is directly defunding the CIA by going through USAID.
00:49:21.000I would imagine a more effective way would be to trim bloat directly at the CIA like he has done with the IRS, things like that.
00:50:05.000That's just the way I see it is if you are a charitable person and you give to people in need when they need it and you're always there to help somebody else.
00:50:13.000And a time comes where you need the help, I don't think, I think you should feel just as shameful as you would with Social Security.
00:50:27.000It is humbling, but I also think that's right.
00:50:30.000Meaning, I think the spirit is right for like Jimmy Braddock returning everything that he got at the welfare office when he won some fights.
00:50:36.000I think starting off with, okay, I don't want to take and I want to be a contributor and I want to be able to get by my own merit.
00:50:44.000I think that's the right place to, I mean, it's the right spiritual place.
00:50:52.000But also sometimes people get tough breaks.
00:50:54.000And if someone is put in your path who is, especially if they're offering, I would say this.
00:50:58.000If someone is offering you help, if someone is offering you a break at a time that you know you need it, put your ego aside, practice gratitude.
00:51:10.000And once you get through that moment, do everything you can to pay that back, to do it for someone else.
00:51:17.000And then you won't struggle with guilt.
00:51:18.000People like, you like to be charitable, I'm assuming, by your question, you like to be charitable.
00:51:27.000Well, and I think too, like, you know, I hope this isn't taken the wrong way because I'll explain it because on the surface, you can have a problem with it.
00:51:34.000But when I was going through ministry school, like I didn't have much money.
00:52:32.000Like you said, if you're in a tight spot, you do need some help and you approach it with gratitude, you do things the right way, that is a prideful potential action.
00:52:40.000And there's a line for that, obviously, because there is some kind of a pride level.
00:53:06.000Also, the real sad fact of that is someone with the mindset who obviously is like, I'm not a charity case, is usually the kind of person who you want to help and give to because you're actually sowing better seed because this is someone who wants to be a good steward.
00:53:21.000Whereas the church, unfortunately, has not really warned people of the suck you by, I guess, because I've known a couple of people where it's always a handout.
00:53:46.000There are people who go through life where they have no, if they've crossed over that, they've crossed that Rubicon and they're like, yeah, I have no problem taking.
00:54:03.000Whereas the person who is silent, who wants to get by on their own, if you're able to help them, they're usually able to make that a force multiplier because they honor it.
00:54:30.000And be very, very leery of people who constantly need help financially or time or energy because those people have used that as a strategy through life.
00:56:41.000That's what I remember as we were talking about that.
00:56:43.000So yeah, it was, yeah, I like Dean and I'm sure, I don't know how long he'll be doing it, but I'm sure it's probably a little of both.
00:56:50.000I'm sure ICE is happy to have him as a recruitment tool because they want to get that message out that they're offering signing bonuses and forgiveness of debt.
00:58:42.000Do they mean that Big Pharma hedged their bets and donated something to Donald Trump's campaign, or do they mean because of what he did early on in COVID with the COVID vaccine that everyone was demanding in Operation Warpsby?
01:01:53.000And how does that differ from what you want America to be?
01:01:57.000Because so often you get them going like, oh, you know, and debt and we want an economy that's under control and we want to be America doing really well.
01:02:25.000But even if you go back to before he was running for president, he always loved this country and has always talked about how this is the only country where he would be able to do what it is that he has done and achieve this and crater and fall and rise again.
01:02:40.000I believe he truly loves this country.
01:02:41.000And I believe that he truly does love the people of this country.
01:02:45.000People are like, oh, some billionaire.
01:02:46.000It's like, okay, but he's not your average billionaire.
01:02:49.000You're talking about a billionaire who would, like, when he had whatever it was, the volleyball team, like, he got them all McDonald's because that's what he would want.
01:02:59.000Like, I kind of like, and anyone else, I kind of like that he's the billionaire who wants his stake with ketchup.
01:03:05.000Like, it's an everyman, and I want to.
01:03:08.000Yeah, there are a lot of things because you know why?
01:03:10.000He's different from just a stockbroker.
01:03:11.000He's different from someone who's just moving numbers.
01:03:13.000He, early on, even if he got a bunch of money from his dad and he started on third base, I get that.
01:03:19.000He had to spend time with the construction workers.
01:03:22.000He had to spend time with people who are involved with the raw materials and getting the steel.
01:03:27.000So he's been around a lot of those guys.
01:03:29.000That doesn't mean that he's one of them, but you can't be successful in business if all those people you depend on routinely hate you.
01:03:43.000So I think he's great and I think he loves this country, but I don't think that he always cast the most effective vision as to what it is we're trying to conserve in this country.
01:03:55.000He talked about ways to improve it and kind of bring it back to a period of time where things would be considered improved from right now.
01:04:04.000But that's something that I think really matters.
01:04:08.000And I think, especially now, this is where Gen Z is very different from millennials when we were talking about today, is they're sitting back and re-examining.
01:04:15.000I mean, as millennials, our generation bought into the lies wholesale.
01:04:20.000And even in the feminism stuff, the dual-income household thing, the getting a college degree thing, the global warming thing, the love is love thing, the overpopulation thing.
01:04:59.000But Gen Z is actually looking at this through a really holistic approach where I've spoken with some young people and I think that the ones who are conservative, which is a majority, certainly of young men, actually have been thoughtful and pretty insightful.
01:05:16.000Where millennials who became conservatives are going like, yeah, well, I was a liberal until I paid taxes.
01:05:22.000We have a lot of Gen Z people who haven't paid taxes.
01:05:25.000And they'll say like, yeah, I just, you know, I thought about it and I go, wait, none of this is really making sense to me.
01:05:37.000Like the feminism thing, I see what's happened right now.
01:05:40.000I want things that my grandfather, I don't want what you guys have.
01:05:44.000I actually want what my grandfather had.
01:05:46.000And I don't know how to get that because it seems like we have a country that doesn't facilitate that.
01:05:53.000Like they've decided that they've skipped past a few generations and they actually want what it is that we had in this country.
01:05:59.000And I don't mean that they want to be working out there on a farm, but they're going, yeah, you know, feminism is bad and they don't feel guilty going, I would love to be able to, you know, have a woman at home and kids and be a sole provider and have a white picket fence.
01:06:13.000Whereas millennials are like, oh, I don't want to say that because whatever people want to do, every lifestyle is just as valid and just as productive to the country as the next one.
01:06:20.000Gen Z is looking at it from the perspective of, yeah, well, what are we seeking?
01:06:23.000I'm a conservative because that means conserving, and then they can actually describe it for you.
01:06:31.000So that's why when I talk about this shift, it gives me a lot of hope because I don't think that people that young are often that thoughtful.
01:06:42.000But there is a really, really stark contrast when you look at people in Gen Z, the conservatives versus liberals.
01:06:49.000And what I mean is liberals, they're taking everything by default and they bought into it, screaming about student loans.
01:06:54.000And Gen Z conservatives have deconstructed a lot of it, have determined their priorities, and they've identified the problems that are standing in the way of achieving them.
01:07:05.000And they're willing to fight and do away with it.
01:07:10.000They're willing to say, like, you know what?
01:07:31.000And so I think that Gen Z can cast their vision.
01:07:35.000A lot of them, Gen Z conservatives, and a big part of it is being forged in the fire because, my gosh, you know, they still were being raised, a lot of them in public education.
01:07:43.000They can defend their position because they've always had to.
01:07:48.000And that always strengthens an argument.
01:08:17.000People didn't think he was a conservative.
01:08:19.000We watched him become more conservative, become more right-wing when all of his friends, who he had gone to cocktail parties with, you know, people like the Clintons and people who you see in Hollywood, all these people who love Donald Trump and would talk about him whenever they could want to get in his celebrity apprentice shows, turned on him because of only a couple points of view, only a couple of perspectives, where they called him a racist or a fascist.
01:08:45.000And having to defend himself, going like, well, I'm not a racist.
01:08:49.000I'm not, you could see he was going, wait, wait, wait a second.
01:09:18.000Because I think as we go forward, and we're in a time where Europe really is no longer a thing, when you look at Canada, we need to find some common ground and agreement on that.
01:09:28.000What kind of a country do we want to live in?