Something is lost when learning becomes a transaction

Earning a degree is like earning a black belt.

It’s the starting line for deeper work and true mastery. These days, it’s treated more like a trophy—something to flash to justify your views long after its relevance fades.

Having a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do doesn’t mean squat after nearly thirty years. I don’t have a belt for my Tai Chi practice, but I’ve done it for nearly 28 years and counting. After two high school diplomas, two undergrad degrees, a minor, a certificate, a Masters, and a doctorate, I know a thing or two about earning these things:

American education is marketed as a product, not a mindset. College tuition is sky-high—up from just under $2,000 in the 1970s to just below $40,000 in 2023.

That’s per year.

I was in college from 2001 to 2010 because I refused to leave until I had milked that decade of my life for all it was worth. My dad joked that the only reason they sent me there was to study and eat so that my parents didn’t have to support me during my high consumption period (and boys DO eat a lot).

Good thing I didn’t take him too seriously. Take a look at the sticker shock experience during that period.

It nearly doubled during my time there.

My younger brother graduated in 2006 to pursue artistic ventures directly out of his undergraduate program. As I mentioned earlier, I stayed in the system for two more degrees, but I pumped every spare dollar of my stipend back into paying down my undergraduate experience.

By then, I had broken myself of my fast food addiction. So that helped a lot.

With my parents’ assistance, I managed to be debt-free by the time I became a tenure-track professor at the age of 27. It helped that I lived with two other people in a tiny apartment off-campus that was within walking distance. It also helped that I taught myself to cook and had a Costco membership.

But the price was more than financial—I had bought into the mindset as well.

Somewhere along the way, I had come to believe that I had to get my money’s worth out of the whole experience. If you treat learning like a product, you gradually lose three things: curiosity, initiative, and resilience. It becomes about the score, the optics, and the pursuit of comfort.

I didn’t find out that I was the first in a family of bankers to earn a PhD until after I survived it.

It was only then that I started reflecting on my near-decade experience. Today, I can’t remember a thing about the endless long nights and weekends studying, but I can vividly remember every moment I made another connection with someone, the crowds cheering after every performance, and all the times I achieved a new milestone in pull ups.

Academically, I only recall that my GPA was much higher in graduate school than in undergrad, that I felt amazing when people called me “doctor” for the first dozen or so times before it got weird, and the realization that I had to leave now that I had defeated the final boss known as the dissertation defense.

Every single day after leaving the college lifestyle behind reminded me of this reality:

Proof of education isn’t a product you can return for an upgrade. It’s a starter kit without a manual. What you decide to build with it is up to you. Seek out attachments, augmentations, and modifications. Otherwise, it’s just an indicator that you made it to the starting line.

Turns out mom was always right. Take ownership of your learning. It’s the one thing no one can steal.

Next time, I’ll share when the real learning begins…after the ink dries on that shiny transcript.

P. S.

Did you ever treat your education like a product? How much did it cost you beyond the bank account?