The Charlie Kirk Show - Debates From the Archive — Charlie on Why College is a Scam

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a turning point, USA, college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a turning point, USA, high school chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

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00:01:09.000 Hi, I was hoping we could talk a little bit more about how you see college as a scam.

00:01:14.000 Okay, I think we did that, but sure.

00:01:16.000 If you want to talk about something else, we can talk about something else.

00:01:19.000 I was just curious.

00:01:20.000 Okay.

00:01:22.000 What would you like to pinpoint on that?

00:01:24.000 Yeah, well, I think a big part of your issue was that people are spending a lot of money and that you feel like they're not getting the equivalent of all the money that they go into debt or that they have to borrow to make it worth it.

00:01:36.000 Well, in that case, I really, I think education is really awesome.

00:01:40.000 I think it's really valuable.

00:01:42.000 I think education's the only way that someone like you is able to write a book is because someone taught you how to read and write.

00:01:48.000 And education on all levels is great.

00:01:50.000 So that's not my...

00:01:52.000 I don't think that's your issue with college, right?

00:01:54.000 Do you know where I went to college?

00:01:55.000 I don't think that's important right now.

00:01:57.000 Let me just...

00:01:59.000 I'm just talking to...

00:01:59.000 I didn't.

00:02:00.000 I said read and write, like, who taught you to read and write?

00:02:03.000 No, no, I agree.

00:02:04.000 I didn't say grade school is a scam.

00:02:05.000 Can we just keep going?

00:02:06.000 All right.

00:02:07.000 I said college is a scam, not grade school.

00:02:08.000 Keep going.

00:02:09.000 So we're talking about the financial part, right?

00:02:11.000 So do you think that college should be free then so that everybody can get like a free education?

00:02:16.000 No.

00:02:16.000 And by the way, what's happening in college is not an education.

00:02:19.000 Well, okay.

00:02:21.000 I'm just...

00:02:22.000 You don't think that college should be free because it's not an education?

00:02:25.000 If it was.

00:02:26.000 Wait, wait, wait.

00:02:26.000 No.

00:02:27.000 If it was an education in your eyes, would you think that should be free?

00:02:31.000 What do you mean by free?

00:02:32.000 You mean paid by somebody else?

00:02:33.000 Well, sure, our taxpayer dollars would go to school.

00:02:35.000 Okay, so yeah.

00:02:36.000 So paid by somebody else?

00:02:38.000 Sure.

00:02:39.000 No, I don't believe that your schooling should be paid by somebody else.

00:02:39.000 Sure.

00:02:43.000 I want my taxes to go to schooling for everybody.

00:02:46.000 I think education's great.

00:02:47.000 I don't want my taxes to go to fund wars.

00:02:50.000 I don't want my taxes to go to the military or the police budget, but I don't get to.

00:02:53.000 You don't want any military?

00:02:55.000 I don't think that it should go to fund the military like that.

00:02:57.000 I want my taxes.

00:02:58.000 You don't want any police force?

00:03:01.000 I want my taxes to go towards education because I think education is valuable.

00:03:06.000 Do you think that education should be so define education?

00:03:10.000 I'm curious.

00:03:11.000 Sure, it's just the.

00:03:13.000 I would probably say that education right now is the ability to go out and learn different mindsets, to be introduced to different subjects, to have the opportunities to talk about these things with a lot of different kinds of people.

00:03:25.000 I think that's the really cool part about college.

00:03:27.000 Someone like you can come here and have different opinions.

00:03:29.000 My history teacher just talked about how he's like, he does this whole like, I'm a conservative, old school conservative act.

00:03:36.000 And then one of my other teachers, she's like, I'm a bleeding hippie, you know?

00:03:40.000 There's like a lot of opportunities to just be introduced to subjects you didn't even know were a thing.

00:03:45.000 Like I didn't know that semiotics was a thing until my last philosophy class and I think that's really interesting.

00:03:51.000 So just the idea that you get to go out to this place and you get to get taught about a bunch of different ideas.

00:03:59.000 Are you against that being available for everyone?

00:04:01.000 Well, I have a completely different view of what education is.

00:04:03.000 So education in Latin means to lead forth.

00:04:06.000 Okay.

00:04:07.000 Your idea of education is the new age, which is we're going to have like a buffet line of postmodern ideas and all ideas are treated the same.

00:04:14.000 I don't believe that at all.

00:04:15.000 College means partnership in Greek.

00:04:18.000 And going back to education, you must lead forth towards something.

00:04:21.000 And I think college should lead you towards the good, the true, and the beautiful.

00:04:25.000 It should lead you towards things.

00:04:27.000 You think it should lead towards beautiful things?

00:04:30.000 Of course.

00:04:31.000 Like beautiful things?

00:04:32.000 Like you think that we should go out after college and be like, where's the prettiest thing?

00:04:36.000 If your idea of beauty is just the aesthetic, then you're not having a great college experience.

00:04:41.000 What's your idea of beauty?

00:04:42.000 My bad.

00:04:43.000 Which is perfected in being.

00:04:44.000 Okay, so you really like the Greek ideas and like the Roman ideas of like the idea of perfection and perfect harmony because that's like a very Greek and Roman way of.

00:04:53.000 Well, it's Western, which is the civilization we currently live in.

00:04:56.000 Okay, but that's from Greek and Roman ideas.

00:04:58.000 Of course, you're right.

00:04:59.000 So the good, the true, and the beautiful are the three things that every college student should grapple with.

00:05:05.000 Do you think in this current university that is what you're currently grappling with?

00:05:09.000 That the focus of your education is enriching yourself to get closer to what is good, what is true, and beautiful.

00:05:15.000 See, I don't engage with you on the ideas that good, true, and beautiful are something that can be defined and something that can be taught.

00:05:21.000 You're perfect evidence of why I think college is a scam.

00:05:25.000 Why do you wait, I don't.

00:05:27.000 Because of course they could be defined and they should be sought after.

00:05:30.000 Okay, so you think that something like the beautiful, the perfect, like something like goodness can be defined and quantifiable, teachable?

00:05:38.000 Oh, because you're Christian. 1.00

00:05:39.000 I forgot.

00:05:39.000 You guys think that there's like a binary teaching?

00:05:42.000 Well, no.

00:05:43.000 There's a hierarchy, not a binary.

00:05:45.000 There's an ultimate perfection.

00:05:46.000 The ultimate perfection would be that there's a creator who loves you, who made you in his image, and loved you so much to come down and take the broken flesh form, live a perfect life, die and rise from the dead, that you might live forever.

00:06:01.000 There is nothing more perfect, good, true, or beautiful than that.

00:06:06.000 Okay, so I don't really engage with religion like that, but what about just the idea that you get to go to a place, you get taught about different subjects, you get the opportunity, okay, I'm sorry, because you don't have access to all these things wherever you come from.

00:06:19.000 You get the opportunity to talk to people who know a lot about these different subjects and get to learn about that.

00:06:25.000 You don't think that that should be free or like provide?

00:06:28.000 First of all, I don't think it should be free, and I don't think that's what education should be or what it once was when it was at its best.

00:06:32.000 When do you think it was at its best?

00:06:34.000 Because we have like the Indian golden house of, oh no, I think it was called the Baghdad Golden House of Wisdom.

00:06:38.000 We have the Greek and Roman, and they had their whole thing about how you have to learn astrology at the same time as learning your education.

00:06:46.000 We have like so many different points of learning and knowledge.

00:06:49.000 I think people just love to learn.

00:06:51.000 I think learning is inherent to what we want to do with our lives.

00:06:54.000 So two thoughts.

00:06:56.000 That is the first line of Aristotle's metaphysics, which is all people seek to know that something within us wants to learn.

00:07:02.000 So to answer your question, when was education at its best?

00:07:05.000 No, that was your, you were the one who's like, education is not at their best here.

00:07:09.000 You're like, this is your new age bull.

00:07:11.000 It is.

00:07:13.000 When was it good?

00:07:14.000 I was about to say that and you interrupted me again, okay?

00:07:16.000 My bad.

00:07:17.000 I'm sorry.

00:07:17.000 So it was at its best when we had a thing called classical education here in America, specifically around the American founding.

00:07:25.000 Classical education has a prioritization on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and the core canon of Greek thinking, which is that there is an abstract, distant good, the logos, which created the world, right?

00:07:40.000 I want to try to find out more about what that is.

00:07:42.000 So you think that education should revolve around ethics then?

00:07:45.000 You think it should be?

00:07:46.000 Well, it's a big part of education, yes.

00:07:48.000 I think that creating good people should be the number one priority of education.

00:07:52.000 Do you guys think that creating good people is a priority at Cal State Fullerton?

00:07:56.000 I don't think that that is really a thing that you can achieve like with a pointed.

00:08:01.000 I don't think there's a way to really teach somebody being like being a good person is so hard and it involves so many different factors.

00:08:09.000 I could prove to you that we're getting a little bit too general with things because the Greeks and the Romans weren't really like they were they had a lot of beliefs, okay?

00:08:17.000 Plato and Aristotle were not like, let's do the most good.

00:08:21.000 They were not all in agreement about all these different things.

00:08:24.000 They had a lot of differences.

00:08:25.000 They had a teacher-student relationship.

00:08:26.000 But let me ask you a question.

00:08:28.000 Do you think people would commit more crimes or less crimes if they knew that a police officer was watching them at all times?

00:08:35.000 I don't think this is what we're talking about.

00:08:37.000 No, no, it's no, you said you cannot teach people good.

00:08:39.000 I'm asking a question.

00:08:40.000 If somebody thought that somebody was watching their actions, would they behave differently?

00:08:46.000 I think that people behave differently when people watch it.

00:08:48.000 Therefore, if society thought that there was a God that was watching all of their actions, would they behave differently?

00:08:55.000 Do you feel like you behave better when someone is watching your actions?

00:08:58.000 Absolutely.

00:08:59.000 And in fact, I...

00:09:00.000 So you feel like you can't be good without someone there to abuse.

00:09:03.000 It's not a matter of you can't be good, it's that you act better if you think that there is somebody watching and judging your actions.

00:09:09.000 I'm unfortunate for you because I want to do good because I think it's better for the people around me, not because someone's watching me.

00:09:09.000 This is the big thing.

00:09:16.000 That's like the ideas of the panopticon.

00:09:18.000 Well, hold on a second.

00:09:19.000 But if you believe that somebody is always watching your behavior, you'd be less likely to lie, less likely to steal, less likely to cheat.

00:09:26.000 And this is a good question because you're coming after this in good faith.

00:09:29.000 Do you think human beings are generally naturally good or generally not so good?

00:09:34.000 Are we flawed from our birth or are we good or are we a blank slave?

00:09:39.000 So you're bringing up these Christian ideas of good again.

00:09:41.000 I don't think we really come to the same synthesis on what a good person is.

00:09:46.000 Was Hitler good? 0.96

00:09:48.000 I feel like, again, you're not listening to me.

00:09:50.000 I feel like we don't come to the same synthesis about what it is because for me, I think that something like good is again the question of ethics.

00:09:59.000 It's not really a question of education, right?

00:10:02.000 So you have to decide what's happening.

00:10:04.000 What people decide for themselves is good is different, right?

00:10:08.000 So Hitler thought what he was doing was good for his people. 0.82

00:10:11.000 We do not see his actions as good because he was pretty awful to a lot of people.

00:10:16.000 But when we turn things into an ethical question, he may see it as doing good for himself and God because yes, a lot of people believe they're doing good for God, even if that thing is killing people.

00:10:28.000 Was Hitler doing something objectively wrong?

00:10:31.000 Which thing are you talking about?

00:10:32.000 You're talking about the...

00:10:33.000 The concentration camps.

00:10:35.000 I don't like the concentration camps, believe it or not.

00:10:37.000 But hold on.

00:10:38.000 You don't like.

00:10:39.000 So was that objectively bad?

00:10:41.000 Objectively bad.

00:10:42.000 I do think that hurting people is objectively bad.

00:10:44.000 Okay, so now we're believing in bad.

00:10:46.000 So then good, there's a spectrum now.

00:10:48.000 You said objectively bad.

00:10:49.000 So you now just said there's a spectrum.

00:10:50.000 It's not a matter of, well, somebody wanted to do some good for yourself.

00:10:53.000 No, no, no.

00:10:54.000 Now there's a spectrum.

00:10:55.000 Concentration camp, bad.

00:10:57.000 So then let's get away from that.

00:10:59.000 How about Mother Teresa?

00:11:00.000 Good?

00:11:02.000 Are you talking about her actions and trying to help the poor?

00:11:04.000 Hundreds of thousands of poor people that were saved in India and Calcutta thanks to her sacrificial work over 30 years.

00:11:10.000 I don't know Mother Teresa like that, but can we go back to that?

00:11:13.000 I feel like we've gotten really off track.

00:11:15.000 No, it's not actually.

00:11:16.000 Again, you're talking about the most important thing because...

00:11:19.000 Dude, you're interrupting me again.

00:11:21.000 It is kind of our table.

00:11:23.000 Oh, so you can interrupt me, but I can't interrupt you.

00:11:26.000 The fact you can't answer this question shows that college is a scam.

00:11:29.000 Because if you can't say that Mother Teresa good and his own.

00:11:32.000 Mother Teresa denied anesthetics to people who are in serious pain because she thought the suffering would bring them closer to God.

00:11:39.000 I think a lot of what she did.

00:11:41.000 I'm not going to be true.

00:11:42.000 Okay, but I'll tell you.

00:11:42.000 Oh, okay.

00:11:43.000 Whatever.

00:11:43.000 We can't just reference random things and use that.

00:11:46.000 Because right now we're talking about ideologies.

00:11:48.000 Again, I find that what I consider to be good revolves more around the fact that humans are social creatures and generally pro-social attitudes of promoting collectivism tends to be, it tends to be better for people just because that's in our evolutionary nature.

00:12:04.000 But you are a Christian, so you believe that there's a guy watching you and that's what makes you do good.

00:12:09.000 You're like, if someone's watching me, I am more likely to be nice.

00:12:13.000 But I want to be nice because I like to be able to do that.

00:12:15.000 There's other reasons to be good.

00:12:17.000 I was asking the question that, would you be more or less likely to shoplift if a police officer was next to you in a department store?

00:12:23.000 It's a very simple ethical question.

00:12:25.000 But how does that make me good or not?

00:12:26.000 That just makes me worried about consequences.

00:12:29.000 No, it makes me worried about consequences, you little faced man.

00:12:32.000 If you do not have consequences.

00:12:34.000 But consequences does not determine ethics. 0.98

00:12:37.000 The mark of an intellectual fool is throwing around pejoratives when they don't have wisdom. 0.99

00:12:41.000 Remember that. 1.00

00:12:42.000 So let's.

00:12:44.000 The question is this.

00:12:45.000 If you do not believe there's a consequence to your action, why wouldn't you do the action?

00:12:50.000 See, that's, again, the ideology of consequentialism.

00:12:54.000 I don't really subscribe to that idea.

00:12:55.000 There should be consequences.

00:12:56.000 No, but I think that consequences, your actions can exist outside of a vacuum of consequences, right?

00:13:02.000 We can't make our decisions based on whether or not we think the actions will lead to a certain outcome because those will always be random, right?

00:13:10.000 So I revolve more around we try to do things that we think will promote general pro-social attitudes.

00:13:17.000 I think that that is more likely to get us other than worrying about that.

00:13:21.000 Let me ask you a hypothetical.

00:13:23.000 This will tell me a lot.

00:13:24.000 Is pedophilia wrong?

00:13:26.000 Pedophilia I consider to be wrong because it is actively damaging someone else, right?

00:13:32.000 But what if they say they're a minor attracted person and it's pro-social to be with a young person?

00:13:37.000 Why are they?

00:13:37.000 Do you know what pro-social means?

00:13:38.000 Like, pro-social means, there's like pro-social and antisocial behaviors.

00:13:42.000 It's like a theory of social psychology.

00:13:45.000 Pro-social generally means like working together, socialization.

00:13:50.000 You know, they're socializing with an eight-year-old.

00:13:51.000 Why is that wrong?

00:13:52.000 Okay, that's not socializing, and you know it.

00:13:54.000 Antisocial behavior usually means doing things that are considered rejecting socialization, like rejecting other people, pushing things away, promoting things that other people actively end up considering less.

00:14:10.000 So then should pedophiles go to prison?

00:14:12.000 Pedophiles go to...

00:14:14.000 I do not know what's the best way to handle pedophilia because...

00:14:19.000 No, because how do we know?

00:14:22.000 I don't think that anyone should molest a child, God forbid.

00:14:25.000 I really don't.

00:14:26.000 Why shouldn't a pedophile go to prison?

00:14:29.000 What? 0.60

00:14:29.000 That's... 0.60

00:14:31.000 Again, we're getting really off topic.

00:14:32.000 Let's go back to the ideas of good and evil and consequentialism.

00:14:35.000 College is a scam, and you're a perfect example, like one of the best I've ever seen to show the intellectual drivel that is caught on a college campus.

00:14:44.000 Because you think that I'm not being taught about the good, the pure.

00:14:47.000 Let's go back to that, because I thought that was really interesting.

00:14:49.000 Yeah, the good, the true, the good.

00:14:50.000 We'll do a couple more minutes.

00:14:51.000 The good, the true, and the beautiful, yes.

00:14:53.000 Right, so you think that that's something that can be quantified, can be taught, and that it should be a good way.

00:14:58.000 And not only that, that it should be taught, that we should promote the ideas of good and beauty to other people.

00:15:05.000 Okay, but let's remove it from that. 0.76

00:15:07.000 What about just the idea of, because remember the ancient Greeks and Romans that you love so much, they didn't have the same ideas of God in the same way that we do, but they still...

00:15:17.000 Thank you for saying I'm correct.

00:15:18.000 That was really nice of you.

00:15:20.000 It's true, you know.

00:15:22.000 So when they wanted to learn, when they sought out learning, when they had schools of learning and all that kind of stuff, a lot of the times they didn't just teach things around ethics.

00:15:32.000 They taught other stuff.

00:15:33.000 They taught astrology.

00:15:35.000 They taught medicine.

00:15:36.000 They taught science.

00:15:36.000 They taught arts.

00:15:38.000 And people wanted to learn that.

00:15:39.000 Do you think that that ability, that experience of going into a place and saying, can you teach me more about this subject?

00:15:45.000 Can I learn?

00:15:46.000 Can I expand my worldview?

00:15:48.000 Can I get open to different beliefs?

00:15:50.000 Do you think that that should not be paid for or not be compensated?

00:15:54.000 First of all, it should definitely not be paid for.

00:15:56.000 Secondly, it depends if those disciplines are rooted in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.

00:16:02.000 So you think only if they're tied into something that falls in your ideological worldview.

00:16:08.000 Can I finish?

00:16:08.000 Okay.

00:16:09.000 If those disciplines are finished, are rooted in the good, the true, and the beautiful.

00:16:13.000 Absolutely.

00:16:16.000 This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner of YReFi.

00:16:21.000 It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.

00:16:26.000 His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come.

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00:17:24.000 Let me give you a hypothetical example.

00:17:26.000 Okay.

00:17:27.000 So if you go, I don't know if this school has one, but if they have some sort of center for like, feminist ideology or some sort of inter do they have one here then that that is not in the pursuit of what is good, true and beautiful.

00:17:39.000 That is in the pursuit of how I can complain and hate men and get a degree and be paid for that.

00:17:43.000 I'm a feminist and I don't hate men.

00:17:46.000 Wait hey, let me finish.

00:17:48.000 Then tell me what a woman is. 1.00

00:17:49.000 But i'm just saying again, we're not talking about that.

00:17:54.000 What is a woman? 1.00

00:17:55.000 Do you think that people should not have the ability to read the works of feminist writers? 0.89

00:17:59.000 You should have the ability.

00:18:00.000 Should it be elevated and taught in an interdisciplinary way and treated as if that's higher education is a different question.

00:18:07.000 When people what is a?

00:18:09.000 Really quick, just tell me.

00:18:09.000 What is a woman?

00:18:10.000 Women have written a lot throughout centuries about feminist writers. 0.85

00:18:14.000 Do you think that people should not be allowed to study all of these?

00:18:17.000 Do you think it not should?

00:18:18.000 Of course, allowed and elevated are two different things, but no one's forcing anyone here to take feminist studies. 1.00

00:18:23.000 Has anyone here been forced to take a class full of drivel?

00:18:25.000 Of course it's part of the part of the core of any school people.

00:18:29.000 That's called general education and we do that so that people get a lot of opportunities to get exposed to different mindsets.

00:18:36.000 Last question, you know I take, I take a feminist class and no one there is forcing me to believe in what they're saying, it's just letting exposing me to these writings, these ideas. 0.99

00:18:46.000 If that's what college is about exposing yourself to different ideas, we have a different.

00:18:50.000 We have clarity but not agreement.

00:18:51.000 Last question, you are a self-described feminist. 1.00

00:18:53.000 What is a woman? 1.00

00:18:56.000 Why do you want to know?

00:18:58.000 I'm infinitely curious.

00:19:00.000 What's a man?

00:19:01.000 You're looking at one.

00:19:05.000 So you would describe a man as having short hair, wearing a little popped collar.

00:19:10.000 Y chromosomes.

00:19:11.000 Okay.

00:19:12.000 And why do you think that that's important to you, what a man and a woman is?

00:19:15.000 How does that define your worldview going forward?

00:19:17.000 Do you treat men and women differently?

00:19:19.000 Of course we should treat men and women differently, of course. 1.00

00:19:21.000 In what way?

00:19:22.000 We should honor and protect women.

00:19:24.000 I want to honor and protect you, man.

00:19:27.000 Okay.

00:19:27.000 Do you not like that?

00:19:28.000 Do you not want to be honored in a woman? 0.84

00:19:29.000 Women are worthy of protection. 1.00

00:19:31.000 I think you're also worthy of protection.

00:19:33.000 Don't talk down to yourself like that.

00:19:35.000 Please.

00:19:36.000 Can you tell me what a woman is since you're a feminist? 1.00

00:19:38.000 I want you to ask yourself, why do you think that it's so important to you that we define man and woman?

00:19:43.000 Like, how does that change the way you think?

00:19:45.000 Civilization cannot answer the question of what is male and female, that civilization will cease to exist. 0.98

00:19:51.000 Is that why the Roman Empire failed?

00:19:53.000 Because all of a sudden Aristotle is aware of it.

00:19:55.000 It's one of the reasons why this civilization is collapsing.

00:19:58.000 Because we send kids to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt that can't answer the most simple biological question.

00:20:04.000 I'll ask you one last time: what is a woman? 1.00

00:20:08.000 I know you're not asking this for actual, you're trying to get a gotcha, right?

00:20:12.000 You're trying to get like a little baity question, but I really want to know why it is so important to you to define things in certain categories.

00:20:20.000 How does that help your day-to-day life?

00:20:22.000 What other categories in the human species are there besides male and female?

00:20:26.000 Well, I just think that categorization is usually unhelpful when we're trying to improve society, right?

00:20:31.000 We want to make things better for people.

00:20:33.000 We want to improve things.

00:20:34.000 I have XY chromosomes.

00:20:36.000 Okay.

00:20:36.000 Can I give birth?

00:20:39.000 No, you can't.

00:20:40.000 Bingo.

00:20:41.000 That's why categorization matters.

00:20:44.000 Do men menstruate?

00:20:47.000 What?

00:20:48.000 Do men menstruate. 1.00

00:20:50.000 Do XY chromosomes. 0.99

00:20:51.000 Do they menstruate?

00:20:53.000 Menstruate?

00:20:53.000 Okay, because you're saying mensurate, and it's like kind of a little.

00:20:57.000 But again, you're saying these things because you're trying to get a gotcha.

00:21:00.000 And I don't want to engage with you like that.

00:21:02.000 Why is it?

00:21:02.000 No, no, no.

00:21:03.000 I'm serious.

00:21:03.000 You asked the question.

00:21:04.000 Yes, and you keep asking me another question.

00:21:06.000 There are big differences between men and women.

00:21:10.000 Here's a question, man.

00:21:11.000 Men and women are not the same. 0.99

00:21:12.000 And if you can't tell me what a woman is, and also, you're a feminist. 1.00

00:21:16.000 Shouldn't you be able to tell me what a woman is? 1.00

00:21:19.000 I'm a feminist. 1.00

00:21:19.000 Isn't that probably important to feminism? 1.00

00:21:22.000 What is the woman that you're trying to advance and protect? 0.92

00:21:26.000 Isn't that integral to the music?

00:21:29.000 So a lot of times feminism has to do with the ways that people have treated the female sex on a different way than the male sex has traditionally. 0.77

00:21:39.000 It's all about analyzing that and exposing it.

00:21:42.000 You say that men and women are different, and you think that these people disagree.

00:21:45.000 Wait, I'm just asking you.

00:21:46.000 I'm not done yet.

00:21:48.000 And you think they should be treated differently, right?

00:21:50.000 Well, it depends in what context, though.

00:21:52.000 Should they be treated differently politically?

00:21:54.000 No.

00:21:54.000 Should they be treated differently under the law?

00:21:56.000 No.

00:21:56.000 Should they be treated differently into societal customs and norms?

00:21:59.000 Yes.

00:22:00.000 Why?

00:22:00.000 We should open doors for women.

00:22:02.000 For example.

00:22:02.000 Where is it?

00:22:03.000 Okay, but where do you see the charitable tools?

00:22:05.000 We should protect women if they're under duress. 1.00

00:22:08.000 I think that we should protect everyone under duress.

00:22:11.000 We as men have a moral right to stand up for the women in our life, against predators, against rapists.

00:22:17.000 I think we have the right to stand up for everybody in our life.

00:22:20.000 Of course we do.

00:22:20.000 Why do you see yourself as a man who has to protect and take care of other people?

00:22:26.000 You are placing yourself on this higher ideological standpoint where you gain more power by having someone that you can protect.

00:22:34.000 I find that system and hierarchy of power to be just exhausting to traverse the world through, just looking at people as people to protect and people to take care of instead of us working together, right?

00:22:46.000 And trying to improve feminism. 1.00

00:22:47.000 Do you think there are any differences between a male and female?

00:22:51.000 Are we talking about just the sex right now?

00:22:53.000 Of course.

00:22:53.000 There's tons of differences just between the male and the female sex.

00:22:57.000 But what's important is how we treat people because of that.

00:23:01.000 So therefore they have different contributions to give to society.

00:23:04.000 I think that everybody has different contributions, man.

00:23:07.000 Just because I'm not popping out kids 24-7 doesn't mean I can't be helpful.

00:23:11.000 I'm not saying that that's not the case.

00:23:13.000 However, if you can't tell me again what a woman is, and you're not able to answer the question because that is the cheat code against postmodernism. 0.83

00:23:21.000 No, because I don't think you even know what postmodernism is or what you're doing.

00:23:24.000 Well, if you want to talk about Herbert Marcuse or Jacques Derrida or Michelle Foucault, one-dimensional man.

00:23:28.000 Okay, we can get into all of them.

00:23:30.000 So don't try to tell me I don't know postmodernism because I have read the Pantheon of the Garbage that you believe.

00:23:37.000 But let me complete with this.

00:23:39.000 I don't want to expose myself to different mindsets.

00:23:43.000 I actually know what the literature says and what it means and what it espouses.

00:23:47.000 Yes.

00:23:47.000 But this is why it's the great cheat code.

00:23:49.000 Because it is the war against... What a woman is. 1.00

00:23:52.000 It's the only way that you can get a gotcha over everybody else.

00:23:56.000 Great conversation.

00:23:57.000 You'll see it online next week.

00:23:58.000 I hope you enjoy.

00:23:59.000 Thank you.

00:24:03.000 Yes.

00:24:04.000 Hello.

00:24:04.000 How are you?

00:24:05.000 How are you doing?

00:24:05.000 Hi.

00:24:06.000 Perfect.

00:24:07.000 So what's your strongest opinion or political opinion right now?

00:24:07.000 All right.

00:24:11.000 My strongest?

00:24:12.000 Yeah, because I'm kind of here to debate you.

00:24:14.000 So I kind of want to hear what your, I want to hear what your biggest gun is.

00:24:18.000 Let's do it this way.

00:24:19.000 Why don't you tell me something and we can lots of opinions.

00:24:22.000 Awesome.

00:24:22.000 All right.

00:24:23.000 I don't think college is a scam.

00:24:25.000 And I mean, I don't know if you agree with that, but it's on all your shirts.

00:24:25.000 Okay.

00:24:28.000 So I would assume you agree with that.

00:24:29.000 Well, I did write a book.

00:24:30.000 So how about this?

00:24:32.000 What would you say is a scam?

00:24:34.000 I mean, I feel like it's kind of on you to tell me what the scam is because you're making the claim to.

00:24:37.000 Define what a scam is.

00:24:38.000 Can we agree on what a scam?

00:24:39.000 Give me a definition first, because you're the one making a claim.

00:24:41.000 How about if 40% of your customers don't get the product?

00:24:45.000 Sure.

00:24:45.000 Is that a scam?

00:24:46.000 Well, I mean, it kind of depends on what your promise was when you gave the product in the first place, right?

00:24:51.000 Okay, so how about if you go to Chili's and 40% of your customers get food poisoning?

00:24:55.000 I kind of reject your equivalency here because you're saying that there's an actual necessary like return on what you're asking for when college in and of itself doesn't necessarily say that you're going to get this.

00:25:06.000 Hold on, hold on.

00:25:08.000 There might be a cultural I'm talking about a graduation rate.

00:25:10.000 So what is the national graduation rate?

00:25:12.000 I mean, you tell me.

00:25:13.000 59%.

00:25:14.000 How many of you know someone that dropped out of college?

00:25:16.000 Everyone hand goes up.

00:25:17.000 That's me.

00:25:17.000 Yes.

00:25:18.000 41% of kids that go to college do not drop out.

00:25:21.000 What percentage of kids that graduate college get jobs that do not require a college degree 10 years after graduating?

00:25:27.000 I'm not sure.

00:25:28.000 Over half.

00:25:29.000 Okay.

00:25:30.000 So the degree is useless for overall.

00:25:32.000 Hold on, hold on.

00:25:34.000 Hold on.

00:25:34.000 So you just spoke.

00:25:35.000 So let me debate those two things.

00:25:38.000 Graduation rate and whether or not a college degree is useful in the marketplace.

00:25:42.000 Well, I mean, you're kind of saying that like because people aren't or like they're not, I guess, using their degree 10 years from like when they got it, that necessarily means that like college is useless.

00:25:50.000 But you're kind of like forgetting, like, if I do a job, right?

00:25:53.000 Like any of the people working here, right?

00:25:55.000 They work for you maybe two years, work at turning point, right?

00:25:57.000 They take skills that they learn with them to a new job.

00:26:00.000 So not necessarily that they are using everything they learned at this job and then taking it to the next one.

00:26:04.000 They could be just like doing something completely different.

00:26:06.000 So you could say that maybe their work here was useless, but you probably wouldn't think that, right?

00:26:09.000 I think it's kind of the same thing with college, except that you might not necessarily use your degree, but you're using skills that you got at college for your next job.

00:26:16.000 So it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to use it in the future.

00:26:19.000 I want to make sure you're understanding what I'm saying.

00:26:20.000 The job that they get does not require them to have a degree.

00:26:23.000 So they could have gotten that job out of high school.

00:26:25.000 Sure.

00:26:25.000 But they could have got the skills without the $100,000 in debt.

00:26:29.000 You're kind of skipping the midpoint here, right?

00:26:31.000 Because if you learn something and then don't necessarily use it at your next job, that doesn't necessarily mean what you learned before was useless.

00:26:37.000 Okay, so you're predicting this on what college something that you use in the future, right?

00:26:41.000 The vast majority of the students that enter college, what do you think they learn that is most useful in the marketplace?

00:26:47.000 Oh, that's a great question.

00:26:48.000 There's so many things that you can use.

00:26:49.000 You have interpersonal people skills.

00:26:51.000 You have the ability to speak.

00:26:52.000 You have communication classes where you learn how to make a speech, like I'm doing right now.

00:26:55.000 But you think college is necessary to learn to give a speech or in a personal...

00:27:00.000 Probably not necessary, but I don't know.

00:27:01.000 I don't really know where it's.

00:27:02.000 It's not necessary.

00:27:03.000 Hold on, because my claim was never it's necessary.

00:27:05.000 Your claim is that college is a scam, and I'm not saying it's necessary.

00:27:07.000 You're just saying it's a scam.

00:27:08.000 So you have to disprove that claim right now.

00:27:10.000 So a scam would be that if 10% or 20% of your customers do not get the value of what is being offered.

00:27:17.000 For example, if half...

00:27:18.000 Okay, define value.

00:27:20.000 The promise that is guaranteed.

00:27:22.000 What's the promise?

00:27:22.000 Tell me the problem.

00:27:23.000 The promise, you go to Cal State Fullerton's website, it says achieve greatness.

00:27:27.000 So you can't achieve.

00:27:28.000 So they're scamming people because they're not achieving greatness?

00:27:31.000 If you're going to interrupt me like every 10 seconds, there's not much of a dialogue. 0.51

00:27:34.000 So it's more like a prostitution. 0.96

00:27:36.000 I got you.

00:27:37.000 That's fine.

00:27:37.000 I'm happy to do that.

00:27:38.000 Whatever you want to do.

00:27:39.000 You're right.

00:27:40.000 You're right.

00:27:40.000 So you go to the website.

00:27:41.000 It says achieve greatness to prepare students for the 21st century and an ever-evolving job market.

00:27:46.000 According to statistics, half of graduates from this university will end up getting jobs of which they never had to go to college in the first place.

00:27:53.000 They never had to get the piece of paper.

00:27:55.000 They never had to go into debt and they never had to spend four years here.

00:27:58.000 If you went to United Airlines, if you went to a bank and 10, 20, 30% of their promises were a lot different or what they deliver were different than the promises of what they say, we would shut them down as a scam and saying they're lying to their customers.

00:28:13.000 In fact, we do this all the time.

00:28:15.000 We do this to websites that say, hey, take this pill and this supplement and you're going to be XYZ stronger.

00:28:20.000 You're going to lose all this weight.

00:28:21.000 We shut down industries all the time for misleading their customers.

00:28:25.000 So for example, my question for this, when you guys enrolled at this university, did you know that if you're studying sociology, more likely than not, you're going to end up in a job market where that piece of paper is not actually a factor in future employment?

00:28:40.000 Was that part of when you signed up here?

00:28:43.000 Did you know that?

00:28:43.000 Most people don't.

00:28:44.000 I mean, personally, I did.

00:28:45.000 Okay, well, then you're an informed one.

00:28:47.000 So I guess like what you're making this claim off of is that like college makes a promise, right?

00:28:53.000 That you are going to be able to use your certificate that you get from the school in your future job, right?

00:28:57.000 That's the claim that you're making from what I'm aware.

00:28:59.000 One of several.

00:29:00.000 I wrote a whole book about why.

00:29:01.000 Okay, but I'm just talking about what you're saying in front of you.

00:29:03.000 That's correct.

00:29:03.000 So there's a promise made to a consumer, you, a big amount of money borrowed.

00:29:07.000 Sure.

00:29:07.000 And that promise is not fulfilled far too often.

00:29:10.000 I would say 30 to 40% of the time, minimum, 50 to 60% of the time.

00:29:14.000 Okay, so what you're saying right now is, because I asked you, I said, where do they specifically say that you are guaranteed a job, right?

00:29:19.000 Because that's what you're saying.

00:29:20.000 Hold on.

00:29:21.000 It's embedded in the experience.

00:29:23.000 Is somebody here because they think their life is going to be worse because they go to college?

00:29:27.000 Definitely not.

00:29:27.000 Okay, the expectation of borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, is I'm betting on myself to enrich my future.

00:29:36.000 That's the whole idea why they're here.

00:29:38.000 Yeah.

00:29:38.000 Okay, so it's not as if you walk around, you're like, well, it's a risk.

00:29:42.000 You know, here at college, take, you know, North African lesbian poetry and spend all this time here, you know, learning why men can give birth.

00:29:49.000 No, the idea is that I'm going to suck it up and go through these classes of the four most important years of my life where I have energy and I have passion, and then I'll be able to go get a great job.

00:29:58.000 For certain degrees and majors, that's the case.

00:30:01.000 But here's the part, in economics or in markets, you need informed consent.

00:30:05.000 And far too often, students are not given informed consent for the debt burden, the time, and unfortunately, the dropout rates that are associated with college.

00:30:14.000 Not to mention the ideological drivel.

00:30:16.000 That is.

00:30:17.000 You know, honestly, like, I think you're touching on an important point, which is that there needs to be an informed consumer.

00:30:22.000 However, I think that, like, because my original question was, do you think college is a scam, right?

00:30:26.000 And you tried to give me like a metric for which it's like making it a scam.

00:30:30.000 But like, I feel like you haven't said anything about like how, like, college, like, college doesn't promise you that you're going to get a lot of money.

00:30:35.000 Okay, so that's not like anything.

00:30:37.000 So I feel like you just proselytized for like five minutes.

00:30:40.000 Come on.

00:30:41.000 Like, can I get it turned aside?

00:30:42.000 But let me ask a question.

00:30:43.000 How many of you are forced to take classes that are a waste of time that you do not want to have to take?

00:30:47.000 Every hand goes up.

00:30:48.000 So how is that not a scam?

00:30:49.000 So they're being forced to take classes they don't want to take that if they had other choices.

00:30:54.000 So here, hold on, let's ask the audience again.

00:30:56.000 Out of those classes that you didn't want to take, do you think that you learned anything useful at all?

00:31:00.000 Even one thing?

00:31:01.000 You learned nothing useful.

00:31:02.000 Hold on, hold on.

00:31:03.000 You guys learned nothing useful from even like even a class that you didn't like.

00:31:07.000 Come on.

00:31:08.000 Really?

00:31:09.000 Come on.

00:31:09.000 So, yeah, you get to be.

00:31:11.000 The crowd is against you, man.

00:31:12.000 So, I mean, I'm hearing a lot of yeses and no's.

00:31:15.000 You're trying to get there.

00:31:16.000 But hold on.

00:31:16.000 Yes.

00:31:16.000 So maybe you might have learned something to your point.

00:31:19.000 Yeah.

00:31:19.000 Could you have learned that from watching YouTube videos or reading books for not having to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt?

00:31:25.000 You definitely might have.

00:31:26.000 But listen, you're an employer, right?

00:31:27.000 If you're an employer.

00:31:28.000 You employ 400 people.

00:31:29.000 If you're an employer, right, and you're looking for an accountant, right?

00:31:31.000 You can take someone who is completely, and this is probably a pretty common talking point, but I kind of want to see what you say to it.

00:31:37.000 You can take someone who is self-taught, right?

00:31:39.000 Has their own credentials, and I'm sure you would interview them, right?

00:31:41.000 You have 100 applicants, right?

00:31:43.000 You're telling me you wouldn't screen on someone who probably, I don't know, like went to Harvard for like accounting.

00:31:46.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:31:47.000 Well, if they went to Harvard, they would never work for Turning Point USA, like ever.

00:31:51.000 Says a lot about your organization, then, doesn't it?

00:31:53.000 Yeah, it does.

00:31:54.000 Yeah, we don't have any sort of way.

00:31:57.000 So let me just share your point.

00:31:58.000 So what you're saying is someone could be overqualified based on the degree that you think is worthless, right? 1.00

00:32:03.000 If you go to Harvard, I immediately think you're an intellectual idiot. 1.00

00:32:07.000 Oh, wow. 1.00

00:32:08.000 If you go to Harvard, I think you are infected with the worst possible idea.

00:32:11.000 I mean, that kind of goes against what you just said about them being overqualified to work for your organization, right?

00:32:15.000 I never said overqualified.

00:32:16.000 I said they'd be over-credentialed.

00:32:18.000 There's a big difference in qualification and credentials.

00:32:20.000 I mean, you just talked about how you can get a credential outside of school, but in this case, someone could be overcredible.

00:32:24.000 You can't get wisdom and intelligence outside of school.

00:32:26.000 Ooh, okay, that's a good one.

00:32:27.000 But you don't have to get a credential outside of school.

00:32:29.000 Wisdom and intelligence.

00:32:30.000 So there's a big difference.

00:32:31.000 Wisdom is the knowledge of things that don't change.

00:32:33.000 Intelligence is the knowledge of things that do change.

00:32:35.000 Intelligence is the processing power that allows you to find wisdom and factual knowledge.

00:32:39.000 But to your point, so if there were applicants, we don't require college degrees for our applicants at Turning Point USA.

00:32:44.000 But you say the accountant thing.

00:32:46.000 The vast majority of kids that go to college are not becoming accountants, lawyers, doctors.

00:32:50.000 Okay, hold on.

00:32:51.000 They're not.

00:32:52.000 So you're agreeing with me, right?

00:32:53.000 You think that it's important that someone has a credential to do an accounting job, right?

00:32:58.000 But that's, of course, but hold on, wait.

00:33:00.000 So that's the sliver of the reason why people go to college.

00:33:02.000 Hold on, you don't have, I'm not talking about a sliver.

00:33:04.000 You said college is a scam.

00:33:05.000 I do.

00:33:06.000 I'm holding you to that.

00:33:07.000 You said college is a scam, right?

00:33:09.000 Yes.

00:33:09.000 And your only value criteria was that people couldn't get a job out of college.

00:33:13.000 And you're literally saying that you can get a job out of college for being an accountant.

00:33:17.000 Let me make the shirt even more specific.

00:33:19.000 College in its current form that affects the majority of students at the majority of colleges, not counting the sliver cases of doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants that are able to avoid left-wing parasitic ideology is a scam.

00:33:31.000 It's like the majority of people that come up with...

00:33:33.000 That doesn't make a good t-shirt, man.

00:33:35.000 All right, fair enough.

00:33:36.000 I mean, I can do my own little like, yeah, like, you know, like conservative ideologies, like making everyone, like, go back to, like, trad, you know, like traditionalism, like seventh century, you know, like, I can do that too.

00:33:46.000 Like, but we're not actually having a discussion if you just keep throwing buzzwords in here.

00:33:49.000 So let me ask you this.

00:33:50.000 So when you say college is a scam, right?

00:33:52.000 I gave you the longer explanation.

00:33:53.000 Yeah, you gave me the longer explanation, right?

00:33:55.000 So you kind of conceded already that parts of college are not a scam, right?

00:33:58.000 Well, it depends what you get.

00:33:59.000 And then you, and the other one, but the parts that I should read in my book.

00:34:01.000 But the parts that I'm not going to read your book.

00:34:02.000 Listen.

00:34:03.000 I'm talking to you.

00:34:04.000 You're not arguing.

00:34:05.000 Come on, listen.

00:34:05.000 I'm on my, because I'm talking to you right now.

00:34:07.000 I want to know what you're saying.

00:34:08.000 I don't about your book.

00:34:09.000 I don't care about your book.

00:34:10.000 I just want to hear what you're saying to me right now.

00:34:12.000 So here, listen, hold on.

00:34:13.000 So you're getting a little upset.

00:34:15.000 This communications course you talk about in college, you probably haven't learned very much about how to publicly speak effectively.

00:34:21.000 First rule of communication.

00:34:22.000 Don't swear at the person you're talking to.

00:34:24.000 I'm sorry.

00:34:25.000 I'm not swearing at you. 0.98

00:34:26.000 So you're kind of proving the point that college is a scam, kind of by you making a fool of yourself in front of everybody. 0.96

00:34:31.000 So you should go demand your money from that communications professor.

00:34:35.000 So what I'm trying to get at right here is that you're at the people you talk to?

00:34:38.000 You said that college is a scam, right?

00:34:40.000 And we found a criteria in which college isn't a scam.

00:34:43.000 Hold on.

00:34:43.000 So again, I'm happy to direct you to my 300 piece of page piece of literature where I dive into with necessary exceptions, but even if you go to become an accountant, there's a cost to that.

00:34:55.000 There's an ideological cost, there's a time cost, there's a financial cost, and that's if you are able to avoid the inevitable indoctrination.

00:35:02.000 A lot of other people want to ask questions.

00:35:04.000 I appreciate your time.

00:35:05.000 Thank you so much.

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The Charlie Kirk Show - October 23, 2025

Debates From the Archive — Charlie on Why College is a Scam

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