Gap year on Steroids with Josh Sabo

Summary
High education is in crisis. Student debt in the USA is now past $1.6 Trillion and many students are coming out ill-equipped as well as disillusioned. Josh Sabo is trying to help students caught up in this. He is the founder of a non-profit called "The Industry". They help people sort out their careers and life, to develop a plan that sets them up for success in each area.

Where to Find Josh:

Transcription below (may contain typo's...):

[00:00:00] Josh: [00:00:00] and that's, what's so important about our line. We help young people clarify their career path. Just like you said, with those glasses, when it's clear, it's easy, maybe not easy but easier.

You, you know where you're heading. You know, you have a, the detailed plan, our students graduate with a detailed life plan. That means, what am I doing tomorrow the next day, next week, all the way to their end, a vision plan, where they have that house, they have that family, they have that job. That's perfect for them and we help them connect the dots all the way through. 

Mike: [00:00:33] Today's episode is all about college and careers. Did you know that the total us student debt is 1.6 trillion with a T trillion dollars. And that the average student holds about $30,000 of debt. Wow. Those are astronomical numbers. Maybe some of those you knew, but nonetheless [00:01:00] daunting. And so there's obviously a large crisis at hand here. And so I talked with Josh 

Who's the founder of a non-profit called the industry. And what they do is they work with, , future college students, current college students, and even graduates to sort out their life and help them plan out what the best path is for them. Sometimes that. Includes college. Sometimes it doesn't include college, but they are trying to beat this hat on to prevent students from racking up a bunch of debt, just to figure out they didn't want to do that thing. 

So let's jump into the episode with Josh. He   shares a little bit about what they are doing now, what the future of the organization is and where they are pro success, not anti college.  

welcome to another edition of the Tucson dad podcast. Today. I have the pleasure of speaking with mr. Josh SIBO, who runs the industry.

He's also a good friend of mine. He was a, I [00:02:00] lived with him when I was in college. So we go way back. So Josh, thank you so much for being on the podcast, man. 

Josh: [00:02:06] And it's good to be here. 

Mike: [00:02:08] So you are. You are disrupting the college kind of plan in a good way, in the sense like what the industry does is it helps people avoid getting into tons of debt.

And just going into colleges cause that's the default, right? Maybe I should let you pitch it. Cause I'm real excited. I love, I love what you're doing, man. 

Josh: [00:02:28] I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure if anybody can agree that a bunch of debt is a good thing, unless that debt is going to a degree, that's going to make you more money.

That'll pay it off and make you more money in the end. Uh, it was funny. I think it was Warren buffet that says I wouldn't invest in most kids' college education. So it's gotta be a real investment, but we are not against, we are pro success. We are anti failure. And with the amount of people that are graduating and not using their degree for its intended purpose, the amount of freshmen that are dropping out, I think it's at 36%.

[00:03:00] Um, there was a new study out that 60 something percent of young people are just disappointed with the jobs they have after college. They use their degree for, so the industry is a program that helps young people clarify their career path. Uh, IBM we just partnered with IBM and they said they wanted to partner with us because we have a listic view of education with the individual.

So essentially we'll look at the idea unity of the person, you know, a lot of people say, follow your passion. I say, follow your identity because passion is involved in identity. What's also involved as personality values, experiences, your whole life, all summed up in one semester with the industry. And then we take all that information and put it into three desired paths, three careers that would make sense for the individual.

So when they go to college, they are more. Confident in what they want to be doing. They'll get way better grades. They won't have as near as much anxiety or depression or fear of the future. And there's [00:04:00] just an enormous amount of, of success. So that's, that's what we do. 

Mike: [00:04:06] That's awesome. It, to me, it's almost like, sounds like a structured gap year.

You know, when people are like take a gap year and don't go to the default and rack up a bunch of debt, but the gap year is not really structured. Right. And maybe someone's like, well, I'm going to travel and you'll learn a little bit about yourself, but you're not in a structured way where you come out of that way, better off in terms of direction.

Right. 

Josh: [00:04:27] This did come from the idea of the gap here. A I consider it a gap year on steroids. One of the things that we didn't want is for students to take a full on gap here because a lot of times students lose their scholarships for college. And so we wanted to make it a three month program. So young people could take it while they're in high school or before they go to college.

Or even after college, we have an enormous amount of 22, 23 year olds going through the program who have degrees and who regret it. They have debt and they have a degree for a career that they don't necessarily want [00:05:00] anymore. So, yeah, it's, it's formulated off of the idea of the gap year. Um, but it's a, it's a gap year on steroids.

Um, we are connecting with is Ireland right now. We're going to have a location in Ireland. We're hoping to have a lot of different locations around the world. So that students can have the option to go travel during this period of time. Maybe extend their time with the industry, go through the program while they're in Ireland to go through the program while they're in New Zealand.

So in the next two years or so, we're going to have that pretty much lined up so that students can come through the program in a different country that they'd like to be in. 

Mike: [00:05:35] Yeah, that's amazing, man. And tell me a little bit about like some of the students that come in and, and some of the progress that they make after going through the industry, like they're coming in, like you said that they're, maybe they already have a degree.

Maybe they're in high school, you know? W what, what are the, like, what are the, the pains that they have when they're coming in? And then when they come out and they say, [00:06:00] wow, You know, this is, this is the progress I made. Tell me a little bit about those 

Josh: [00:06:02] stories. Confidence. Confidence is the main one. I always like to say, uh, one of my, one of my greatest gifts is to be able to encourage somebody.

And that is to give somebody courage. A lot of people know a little bit about what they'd like to do, but their fears and their limiting beliefs keep them from pursuing those things. So a lot of times we hear this, I'm just going to go college and maybe I'll figure it out there. Uh, it's the safety net.

Um, but I say confidence ...