<p>As we prepare to shell out 200K for a college education, I can’t help but wonder if he’s onto something:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2014/10/28/a-father-of-eight-explains-why-he-hasnt-saved-a-penny-for-his-kids-college-education/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2014/10/28/a-father-of-eight-explains-why-he-hasnt-saved-a-penny-for-his-kids-college-education/</a></p>
<p>Could you summarize the article in a sentence or two? I can’t log into WaPo without paying their subscription price. Apparently I’ve used my browsing allotment for the month.</p>
<p>Sure. Basically, he’s a self-made businessman who quit school at 17, thinks college is largely a waste of time, and hopes all of his children will become entrepreneurs. He feels that this will teach them independence and hard work. Here’s a free link: <a href=“David T. Fagan, the father of eight who refuses to save money for his children's education | Daily Mail Online”>David T. Fagan, the father of eight who refuses to save money for his children's education | Daily Mail Online. </p>
<p>He wrote a book. The point of the article is to sell the book. </p>
<p>I can’t summarize the article easily because he doesn’t seem to really have a well thought out philosophy to me. He’s sort of a homeschooler, but not really. I homeschooled my own. Some homeschoolers I knew didn’t think college was necessary, and were into entrepreneurship in a big way, but I never heard any of them say the point of college was job training. They all thought the point of college was to get an education. They just didn’t always think college was necessary to get an education.</p>
<p>He should read katwkittens post on the “What does one do with an English degree?” thread. She should write the book! : )</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can switch browsers, at some pay sites that resets your counter. 
My take from the article is that he thinks the big money is in sales anyway, so that is sort of how he is training and directing his kids. Wouldn’t work for every kid (I have one who couldn’t sell a bomb shelter if the nukes were 2 minutes away…). He seems like a pretty typical “I didn’t go, so why should they go?” parent to me… he just wrote a book to make money off it.</p>
<p>I sure would like to see where his kids are in 10 years and where mine are.</p>
<p>He sounds like a con man to me. Not an illegal con man. One of those people who makes money conning other people into paying for his advice, attending his seminars, buying his books, in hopes of getting rich quick. </p>
<p>One question I’d have for him would be what do you think justifies having 8 children? I wonder if he’s a Mormon.</p>
<p>I was going to delete the sentence about being Mormon because it is so especially offensive and against CC rules. However, there are enough comments later about it that I decided to leave it, but I am going to delete comments made much later that are taking the discussion totally off the rails.- FC</p>
<p>It seems to me he is measuring success only in terms of financial success. So his parenting goals are a lot different than mine. I agree with raising children to be self sufficient, but not with the idea they aren’t successful if they aren’t making as much money as their parents or grandparents. Is a painter or poet waiting tables and paying the rent unsuccessful? Not in my mind.</p>
<p>A young couple I know are working pretty low level jobs while purchasing farm land to grow organic vegetables and building a very simple house. They intend to quit their jobs next year and live debt free on a very limited income from the farm. What does he think about those young people? They are definitely self-sufficient. They are also college graduates with no college debt.</p>
<p>Reading this was like fingernails on a chalkboard at times. The actual words.</p>
<p>I did agree with bits of this sentiment: </p>
<p>"That is the biggest problem with our society right now. You very rarely see two or three generations of success in a row because that one person gets the success and what do they say? They say, “I never want my kid to go through what I went through.” When what they went through was exactly what made them a success.</p>
<p>“So what do they do? ‘I’m going to send you to the best school. I’m going to send you to the best college. I’m going to give you this, I’m going to give you that. I’m going to give you all the things I never had’ –without them ever having to work for it. And so by giving them things they’re kind of condemning them to a life of mediocrity.”</p>
<p>I agree in that I think sometimes some people do too much for their kids.</p>
<p>I would not pay for a book written by this guy.</p>
<p>Without a college education (and diploma) about all you can do is sales/business. Can’t be a nurse or a doctor, engineer, teacher, lawyer, psychologist, scientist, minister, or any profession that requires an advanced degree.
I guess if you believe that making money is the most important thing to focus on in life, being an entrepreneur
is one way to go, and may be the most lucrative in the long run, depending. Neither of mine ever saw making a lot of money as a goal in itself. They wanted to make a difference in some larger way, and they still do. I shudder to think what they would do without their college educations. Or degrees. </p>
<p>I enjoyed the article and suppose that if one has 8 children it would be challenging to pay for all of them to go to college. But with financial aid, community colleges, part-time enrollment and loans there is plenty of help.</p>
<p>But my take is that if he is saying that he won’t pay because he thinks it will allow his children to find their true paths, then it might make some sense to me. If they really want it, they will find a way - if they don’t, there is something else they are better suited for. </p>
<p>But if he won’t pay because he CAN’T pay, then I think he is encouraging a path for his children that he has already proven is not particularly financially savvy. If he is not in a position to make some contribution, no matter how small, to his children’s education then his path is not one I would recommend to anyone. </p>
<p>I agree he’s a con man. If you check out the daughter’s site it’s selling a teen success magazine. The dad should have finished high school as his grammar is terrible. He’s the most uneducated sounding motivational speaker I’ve ever come across. I have a feeling she has little to do with her own site. I just went to his site, Icon Builder Media and immediately got an IM from “Niyah” so I guess he does have his daughter working. What a snake oil salesman.</p>
<p>Too funny - I found my way to his website and he is running an academy for teen success. And the name of the academy is ICON. Looks like the good people of CC got this one right!</p>
<p>To me, he sounds ignorant about what young people need <em>today</em> to succeed. He’s basing his parenting philosophy on what worked for him in the old days, before the population increased, and before everyone was going to college. I agree his kids may turn out to be scrappy salespeople, but without a college degree they will only go so far and will not have the required credibility even in some sales environments. </p>
<p>I don’t think college is required. But I can smell a grifter when I read about one.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine throwing all children into the same lumped category. We have 8 kids and none of them have the same personality, skills, or interests. </p>
<p>
I completely disagree with that man’s parenting philosphy, but your comment is incredibly insulting. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is challenging, but challenging does not mean impossible. Our kids don’t get to attend dream schools, but attending schools outside of the top schools has not negatively impacted our children. Our oldest is a chemE. Our oldest dd is an OTA. And we have a ds currently double majoring in physics and EE on full merit (not need-based) scholarship.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He’s just flat out wrong. Never in our history has “success” been more predicated on inherited social and economic capital, and that includes college. I’m not paying for my child’s college because I want her to have something I didn’t have. I’m paying because I want her to have exactly what I had. I simply don’t agree with this punitive school of deprivation parenting as a virtue when it comes to education. It’s really short-sighted. If your kid is a good, motivated student, there is no virtue whatsoever in not helping him or her achieve educational goals to the best of your financial ability. It’s self-serving hogwash for parents to claim otherwise.</p>
<p>He also seems to have a very narrow instrumental view of the purpose of college. For many of us, the purpose of college is not to maximize earnings but to prepare oneself for a meaningful life of work and service. </p>
<p>You’re absolutely correct, NJ. The part of that I agreed with is that we do things for our kids because we can, not because they can’t. And I think sometimes that’s a disservice to them even though we don’t mean for it to be.</p>
<p>But he’s not asking anyone else to play for his kids’ educations, is he? He just doesn’t ‘believe’ in college, whatever that means. As long as he doesn’t want me to pay for his kids, I’m good with him living his choice to not save anything. Hope none of his kids want to be doctors or lawyers or accountants, or something else that requires a college degree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Without getting too political here, it kind of reminds me of that quote where Mitt Romney says something like, “start a business, borrow money from your parents if you have to,”. This quote was made fun of when he said but he does make a good point – people who grow up in households where “get money from your parents” to do anything – go to college, start a business, etc. – is even theoretically possible have a huge advantage. It’s up to them to do as Mr. Romney did and actually go out and start a successful business and career, of course; don’t think I’m trying to deny the hard work and dedication that it takes to do that stuff. </p>
<p>But the fact is that people like that aren’t starting at the same level as someone who grows up in poverty or with absent parents or as a refugee from a war zone. People who grow up with those huge disadvantages can succeed too, don’t get me wrong, but they are starting with obstacles that someone who comes from a comfortably middle class or wealthy family can’t understand.</p>
<p>Even this guy’s kids are in a different place. Sure, he’s not paying for college, but he’s probably not going to let any of his kids wind up homeless either. He’s probably supporting them through school, he probably makes sure that they get three meals a day, he can probably use his business connections to help them get a leg up on landing a job, he can use his expertise in marketing and branding to teach them how to start a business. These are advantages that he’s conferring to his kids that the vast majority of people (and people starting from poverty) won’t have. It’s misleading for him to act as if, just because some people who start out in poverty sometimes overcome that challenge, that means that poverty itself is the reason why people end up wealthy. If you look at the backgrounds of fortune 500 CEOs, you probably will find that most of them came from at least middle-income families. The ones that were homeless for most of their childhoods probably stand out – you could probably count them.</p>