The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [122]
Ford writes in his autobiography: “An educated man is not one who is trained to carry a few dates in history—he is one who can accomplish things.... A man’s real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life.... A man may be very learned and useless.... Merely gathering knowledge may be the most useless work a man can do. What can you do to help and heal the world? That is the educational test. If a man could hold up his own end, he counts for one. If he could help ten or a hundred or a thousand other men hold up their ends, he counts for more. He may be quite rusty on many things that inhabit the realm of print, but he is a learned man just the same. When a man is a master of his own sphere, whatever it may be, he has won his degree—he has entered the realm of wisdom.”12
In the early ’30s, Louis helped a young air force colonel locate a hard-to-find toy train switch for the colonel’s son’s electric train set. The men became friends, and the colonel introduced him to another friend, an air force captain called “Beedle” Smith.
At one point, Louis sent Smith some caviar as a holiday present. “Smith, who had no taste for caviar, passed it on to his nextdoor neighbor at Fort Myer, Brigadier General [Dwight] Eisenhower. Later, Ike dropped in to thank Marx.”13 The two became lifelong friends, exchanging a glowing correspondence that is housed in the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Louis was a frequent guest of Ike and Mamie at the White House throughout the ’50s, personally delivering toys for the White House Christmas tree. The president became godfather to several of Louis’s children.
One of those children, Patricia, is my mother. I met my grandfather Louis only once, when I was a baby, too young to remember. I certainly didn’t follow his path in life. I went through the highest halls of formal education and spent much of my twenties meandering and lost as a wannabe “avant-garde” literary writer, often living month to month, as I chose to spend my time writing screeds denouncing capitalist materialism, instead of working.
In his twenties, my grandfather had no higher education and lots of street smarts. In my twenties, I had lots of higher education and no street smarts; I didn’t begin thinking seriously about money and career until age thirty.
Now in my thirties, I can see that the old man also had a lot of wisdom. I am glad a bit of his spirit has rubbed off on me.
May the spirit of all the bold souls in this book inspire you.
EPILOGUE
THE EDUCATION BUBBLE IS ABOUT TO POP—
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE AFTERMATH?
In 2005, Cortney Munna graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in the nation, New York University, with a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies and religion. To pay for this education, she took out two private loans from Sallie Mae of around $20,000, a private loan from Citibank for $40,000, plus federal loans. Five years out of school, in May 2010, she owed $97,000 for her education. At that time, she was living in San Francisco, earning $22 an hour working for a photographer.
Munna’s after-tax pay as of May 2010, when I read about her story, was around $2,300 a month. Her rent in San Francisco was $750. Her student loan payments, if she was paying them, would have been around $700, which was 30 percent of her after-tax income. Not many people could sustain $700 monthly debt payments on a $2,300 income, on top of rent and living expenses, for very long. Most people facing such a wall of unsecured debt, relative to income, would probably end up declaring bankruptcy sooner or later. However, student loans are one of the only types of debt not dischargeable in bankruptcy; the only place they get discharged, if not paid down in full,